Category Archives: Gospel music

Dr. Gary Furr and Friends with Pat Terry in Concert

Mar 2

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Next Thursday, I’ll be in concert, sharing the evening with my great songwriter friend, PAT TERRY. Joining me for my set will be DOn Wendorf on mandolin and tenor banjo, Mark Weldon on fiddle and cello, and Rachel Turner on bass and backup vocals. It will be a great evening of music–original songs in a variety of styles.  I hope you can come out if you are in Birmingham or central Alabama!

7:30 pm, Doors open at 7 

$12 per person

Moonlight on the Mountain 
585 Shades Crest Rd  Hoover,  AL  

(205) 317-4364

facebook @moonlightonthemtn

Pat is finishing a new CD and I’ve got some brand new songs to roll out.

More ABOUT PAT

More about Gary Furr & Friends

Posted in Americana, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, CONCERT, Dr. Gary Furr & Friends, Folk, folk music, Gospel music, Music, Narrative, Songwriting, Songwriting, Story

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It’s Simple: Buy Some Music, Help Mothers and Children in Alabama

Jan 20

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For every album download sold during January-March, I will give $5.00 to the Coalition toward its project of an app for mothers and children to use for help!  For every single sold, I will give .50 cents!  Enjoy some music and help out a great project! Tell a friend and help us fund a project

Buy link:  GARY FURR MUSIC

I am spearheading a new Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children. The coalition, formed in 2016, is comprised of a group of healthcare, medical, faith, academic and para-health organizations and leaders who seek to collaborate their efforts to better serve the needs of mothers and children in Alabama. The Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children offers a robust networking system for better efficiency of programs through partnerships and support as well as a powerful force for advocacy for these families.  We  seek to be a voice for those who are often disconnected from help, and build partnerships across the usual lines of specializations, religious affiliations and other ways that sometimes lead to isolation or lack of awareness.

Right now we are undertaking to create an app to be given away in our state that helps young mothers with infants and young children find the many organizations that stand ready to encourage them and give assistance to give their child the best start possible. We are raising funds for the creation of the app and for the internships to gather the information. There are two ways you can help. First, if you’d like to simply give something, you can donate through our PayPal button.  Second, for the months of January, I’m offering to give all income from my songs to the Coalition to help spark our drive. Go to my downloads here and buy a song for $.99 or a CD for $6.99-8.99 and $5 from CDs and .50 cents from songs goes straight to the cause. You can help me by asking a friend to “buy a song for kids.”   Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Alabama, Children, Family, folk music, Gary Furr music, Gospel music, Love, Ministry, Songwriting

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Come to the Virginia Mountains With Me! Sept. 28-30

Jul 24

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Vickie and I are leading a Fall Senior Adult Trip to the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia September 28-30, 2017. We will leave Birmingham on Thursday and return on Saturday eveningt.  I’ll be doing a little playing and singing of old time music and gospel songs as we travel to the beautiful setting of the birth of country music and the location of the State Theatre of Virginia to see some topnotch plays by an outstanding professional ensemble. We have traveled there before and had a great time.

Your payment includes:
• Three Plays at the Barter Theatre! “Sherlock Holmes and the
American Problem”, “Clementine” and “The Music Man”.
• Backstage tour of the Barter Theatre by Katy Brown
The Barter is the State Theater of Virginia and opened on June 10, 1933 making it the nation’s longest running professional theatre. In 1946,

Katy Brown

Barter Theatre was designated as the State Theatre of Virginia. Today, Many well-known stars of stage, screen and television have performed early in their careers at Barter, including: Gregory Peck, Ernest Borgnine, Patricia Neal, Ned Beatty, Hume Cronyn, Gary Collins, Frances Fisher, Larry Linville, and Jim Varney Katy Brown is an
Associate Artistic Director of Barter Theatre and is pleased to be in her eighteenth year at the theatre. She has directed more than 90 Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in America, Americana, Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, folk music, Gospel music, history, Hymns, Music, Narrative, Old-time music, Songwriting, Story

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COMING UP SMA on Dugger Mountain Theater

Jun 22

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Shades Mountain Air on “Dugger Mountain Music Hall,”

ALABAMA PUBLIC TELEVISION (APTV) Tuesday, June 27 at 10:30 pm

Back in May, Shades Mountain Air (myself, Nancy McLemore, Don Wendorf, Greg Womble and Melanie Rodgers) loaded up and traveled to Dugger Mountain Music Hall in Piedmont, Alabama. It sits in as unlikely a spot as the crossroads where the boys in “O Brother Where Art Thou” picked up Tommy Johnson on the way to Tishomingo. DMMH came from the vision and ministry of Bob McLeod, a talented and charismatic former professional musician and studio engineer.  Following a profound personal spiritual crisis, Bob McLeod began to seek to minister to people in trouble–in prisons, jails, streets, and those caught in addiction.

Eventually he established Dugger Mountain Music Hall as the public face of Our Father’s Arms, where they take in people in need of help.   He describes the place as “a Christ centered family.” It is located in the middle of open country north of Anniston, Alabama in a former Baptist church that had ceased to exist. The building was given to him for a ministry, and he brought together his love of music with the ministry.  Fast forward, now the facilities include a 30 acre farm with a home for men; a 3 acre home nearby for women, mothers and their children known as Eagles Nest; and a state-of-the-art recording studio, offices, fellowship hall and the Dugger Mountain Music Hall. In 2010, the television program was born.  On the nights of performances, they open the doors to welcome the community, enjoy supper and bands and performers, some touring through and others from nearby places in Alabama, perform. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Americana, Art, Blues, Concert, Country Music, Dugger Mountain Music Hall, folk music, Gospel music, Hope, Old-time music, Songwriting

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Benefit Concert Saturday, March 4

Feb 28

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Please join Shades Mountain Air, Drexel Rayford and Friends and Southern Harmony for a night of music in the warm, comfortable listening venue of Moonlight on the Mountain. Get a good taste of Bluegrass, Gospel, Folk, Barbershop and other musical styles in this well-known Birmingham acoustic venue.

The event is a benefit for Cognitive Dynamics, and proceeds will go to support the 501c3 foundation’s programs that improve quality of life for people with dementia and their caregivers through the arts and storytelling (for more information, please see http://www.cognitivedynamics.org/).

The cost of admission is $20, CASH ONLY. Please bring your own food and drink sma(except coffee), and arrive early to get a good seat (doors open at 7 pm)

For more information, please see Moonlight on the Mountain’s website athttp://www.moonlightonthemtn.com/index.html

Last year our band played for one of the Foundation’s programs. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Gospel music, humanity, Old-time music, Theology

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God’s Dream and Our Fear

Dec 15

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Adapted from my newsletter column to the church this week at www.vhbc.com:

As I was looking over past writings and came upon this one, from 1994. It still seems useful for now.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

The problem of life is not faith, but fear.  Fear of failure can paralyze a talented person from ever trying.  The fear of success can explain why many equally-talented people seem to sabotage themselves just on the brink of success or achievement.  Psychologists tell us that fear is the root of much procrastination in the perfectionist who can never begin the task until she is a little better prepared.

Fear can keep us silent in the face of evil when we should have spoken.  It is the fear of change that paralyzes our wills and reduces life to discontented mumbling against fate rather than risking ourselves to move forward.  The fear of death can turn us hollow and brittle, fearful of a garymisstep and terrified of suffering.  Fear grants a thousand deaths to a cowering heart.

Change, all change, brings fear with it.  Transitions surpass our past copings and leave us exposed and vulnerable.  We are once again where we find ourselves continually in life: thrown back on our wits and facing the unknown.

Every day, every week, we are facing changes as individuals, as the church, as families.  The creative possibility is that in the face of change we will choose with courageous faith to trust God’s new life through us rather than fear.

Parker Palmer says that “the core message of all the great spiritual traditions is ‘Be not afraid’…the failure is to withdraw fearfully from the place to which one is called, to squander the most precious of all our birthrights–the experience of aliveness itself.”[1]

As we look at the world around us, it is not a brilliant observation to see that we are in a time of suspicion, distrust and unkindness. The cheapness of life, the anger and fear of our culture, and the rampant selfishness of too many is easy to see. But what to do about Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Advent, Christianity, Christmas, fear, Gospel music, Hope, Hymns, Joy, Love, Politics, Prayer, Shades Mountain Air

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Death Grief and Hope: Songs for the Shadows

Oct 27

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  We must face our losses.  Courage does not spare us from them. 

Courage’s work begins at the other end of honest acknowledgement.

          Grief can encompass many parts of life, not merely death.  It is, in many ways, our most universal experience.  It can be the death of dreams, grief of a way of life that ends, the end of a relationship, leaving home, moving to another town, divorce, a broken friendship.  The question is, “What are we to do with it?”

I can’t speak for people who have no faith in God, but I will admit that having faith in God doesn’t dispose of grief. It is just the same, just as overwhelming, the same disbelief followed by disintegration and despair and a long struggle to put life together again.

One verse of scripture I have found meaningful is  this one:

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.   1 Thess. 4:13

 I take great comfort that it does not say, “Don’t grieve, you’re a Christian,” but I have heard many a well-meaning minister stand up and talk about death like it was a flu shot. Death is real, it is irreversible, it is disheartening. I don’t think dismissing reality is a good idea. It has a way of showing up again with reinforcements.

The denial of death is, as Ernest Becker said, the most pervasive of human failings, and the most futile. The Apostle Paul said, very intentionally, that we should not “grieve as those who have no hope.” Instead, I would assume, we should grieve as people who DO have hope. Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Blues, Creativity, Death, Faith, Folk, Gospel music, Grief, humanity, Hymns, Music, Uncategorized

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All Americana Night with Gary Furr and Keith Elder

Jun 27

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All Americana Night  Come on, join in.

Wednesday evening, June 29, 6-7 pm

Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama 35216

Wednesday evening at 6 pm, at Vestavia Hills Baptist Church, we will have “All Americana Night.” My friend, Keith Elder, and bandmate Don Wendorf, will join me to lead us in singing distinctively American songs from all kinds of “roots” traditions.

Keith            Wikipedia defines “Americana” as “contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots-rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues.” We want to have fun, sing some songs from the traditions themselves, as well as some originals. Songs for kids to join along, a few hymns and patriotic songs, a little of everything for those who come.  Hope you’ll come out.

Keith was at our congregation on a Wednesday night recentlyhere a few weeks back and did a great job on a Wednesday night. Keith has spoken and performed for over thirty years in a wide variety of church, conference, and community settings. After serving local churches in North Alabama as a youth director then as a pastor, he spent a number of years as a songwriter in Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Americana, Americana, Art, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, Country Music, fiddle tunes, Folk, Gospel music, Hymns, Keith Elder, Music, Songwriting, Uncategorized

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Concert Thursday at Moonlight On the Mountain!

Gary Furr and Friends Moonlight

 

Hope those of you in the Birmingham Area can come out Thursday night to one of the finest music listening venues anywhere!  As Shades Mountain Air takes a little break, I have a great new band together to help me present a concert that is, with only a few covers, almost all original songs, and many of them in concert for the first time.  Brent Warren will be on guitars, vocals and mandolin.  Brent is a multitalented musician well known to the Alabama bluegrass community, but his musical chops venture into rock, folk, and about anything that interests him.  Mark Weldon has filled in occasionally with Shades Mountain Air.  Mark is a phenomenal musician, former member of Three On a String and many other bands, including After Class.  His work on the violin brings great musical chops to my songs. Don Wendorf is my longtime musical brother from SMA and plays a little of everything –harmonica, mandola, mandolin, drums, old time banjo, and vocals. Last, but not least, Rachel Turner, a fine bass player and singer with the Flying Jenny Old TIme String Band, joins us to expand her horizons.  I am so grateful for this wonderful set of friends who are helping me out, and we have worked up some exciting new arrangements and songs.  I’m excited!  Hope you can be with us.  I’ll have CDs, my new book, POEMS, PRAYERS AND UNFINISHED PROMISES and all CDs and books will be on sale!  Don’t want to haul them home.  I promise–a fun night and a few surprises!

 

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Exploring the Discography of Life

Jun 9

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“…there is a playful randomness about what we find and read.  Or rather, what finds us”

When I first rekindled my interest in songwriting and music again, sixteen or seventeen years ago, I began hanging out in music stores, playing the guitar again and digging out songs from my memory and on faded notebook paper from years ago.  One day, a worker in the store I frequent most, Fretted Instruments of Birminghm, said, “Are you just starting to explore the discography?”  I had just said that “I was getting into bluegrass music” and that was his reply.

I began to delve into just that—listening, going to shows, scooting to Nashville now and then.  I bought a collection of Bill Monroe’s music.  Over the coming years, I heard a lot of music live—Bruce Hornsby, Ricky Skaggs, Nickel Creek, J. D. Crowe, Earl Scruggs, Vince Gill, as well as a lot of lesser-known but excellent players and singers coming through the Station Inn in Nashville or here in Birmingham, Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Blues, Country Music, Creativity, Dillard and Clark, Earl Scruggs, Folk, Gospel music, Hymns, Jazz, Music, Songwriting, The Dillards, The Dillards

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