Category Archives: Gospel music

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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Mapping the Bluegrass Genome

Apr 9

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“The genetic code of bluegrass and old time music is more sophisticated than that.  It carries stories of birth, life and death in the old days.  It tells of children dying young, tragic love, shame, murder, alcoholism and faith.  To learn the code, no stereotype will do.  You have to descend into the music and listen.”

 

In 2005 I took a three month sabbatical to study, pray, and feed the senses.  I went to art museums, read books, went to Nashville to learn about the music industry and played at open mic at the Bluebird Café, reaching one

Shuffler and Boosinger

Shuffler and Boosinger

of my bucket list items (the ultimate would be a gig on the “Prairie Home Companion Show” while Garrison Keillor is still on earth!).  But a lot of that time was “exploring my roots,” musical, theological and spiritual—which led to a week at Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Kamp.

I’d been to the Kamp before, in Maryville, Tennessee.  Unless you are a devotee of the guitar and acoustic cousins like the mandolin, the “fiddle” (violin played a certain way), bass, banjo or dobro, you don’t realize that hundreds of camps happen every year across the world where musicians gather and play and learn the heritage of “roots” music—folk, jazz, country, celtic, and so on. In these places, campers rub shoulders with the legends of bluegrass, swing, fingerpicking and new acoustic music.  I met legends like Bill Keith, Clarence White, Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Banjo, Country Music, Culture, fiddle tunes, Folk, Gospel music

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Thou Shalt Love Thy Bandmates

Dec 5

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Anyway, riding in a van for a week turned us from “Friends

and Brothers” to angry inmates who couldn’t wait to bust out.

Fifteen Years.  That’s how long Shades Mountain Air has been together, at least the core of Greg and Nancy Womble, Gary Furr, and Don Wendorf.  We have spent a couple hours a week most of that fifteen years weekly at Greg and Nancy’s house, practicing, horsing around, composing, arranging, learning and growing from one another.  We’ve only had one personnel change in all that time–Don’s son, Paul, our outstanding fiddle player, left us to move on with wife, kids, career, to Texas, and so, we were four again for a while, then found Melanie Rodgers.  Mel has added dynamic new joy to our sound, and is now a part of our 15th Anniversary Live Album that is now available.     (Go to the website store for our new CD click here!)

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Shades Mountain Air at Moonlight, 2013

The album sounds great!  We hired Fred Miller of Knodding Off Music to record and engineer our live concert.  Fred did a fantastic job and we are so happy with the result.  He captured our live sound and energy.  It sounds like us!  There is NOTHING like live music, and though it’s fun to be in a studio and monkey around with something until you get it “perfect”, there is a corresponding loss of that spark that performers-audience and a venue provide.  We did it at our favorite gig–Moonlight On the Mountain in Bluff Park in Hoover, Alabama, with Keith Harrelson, as always, handling lights and sound.

I say all this because Shades Mountain Air is more than a band.  We have become family together.  We love playing together, singing, creating, whether anyone is listening or not.  Greg and Nancy’s kids grew up having to hear us every week in their house. We have been through life crises, griefs, and changes Read the rest of this entry →

Posted in Art, Banjo, Bluegrass, Blues, Concert, Conflict, Country Music, Folk, Gospel music, humanity, Music, Old-time music, Perfectionism, Shades Mountain Air, Songwriting, Thankfulness

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Gary and SHADES MOUNTAIN AIR live at Wald Park tonight

Jul 12

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Nancy

N:ancy Womble will be OUT IN THE YARD at Wald Park! 7-8 tonight

I don’t go anywhere Jesus wouldn’t go,” and if I read the gospels right, that doesn’t exclude much at all. 

Well, speaking of music, last week Nancy and I sang at the funeral I conducted for a dear, dear friend and fellow church member, Mr. Hack Sain.  Hack loved our music and encouraged me in it.  He got us front row seats at the Grand Ole Opry while we were in Nashville leading a prayer retreat for the church years ago.  nThe retreat finished, people had free time, and a bunch of us went to the Opry, thanks to Hack’s good friend Joe Thrasher.  Well, Joe got us front row seats, and there I was, staring up at Lorrie Morgan, who was hosting.  She is a beautiful woman, and a great singer.  It was a fine time.  Of course, I forgot we were on TV, and after I drove home, preached, and was standing out in the foyer, members came up and said, “Hey Preacher, we thought you were leading a prayer retreat, but I cut on the Grand Ole Opry last night, and there was Lorrie Morgan in a miniskirt and there you were on the front row.”  Blush.  Hack loved it.

My rule about playing music is I don’t perform where the venue isn’t about the music.  My rule is, “I don’t go anywhere Jesus wouldn’t go,” and if I read the gospels right, that doesn’t exclude much at all.  Might keep me out of a few religious gatherings, but if sinners are there, I have the green light from the Boss…

HEY, all of our bama and Birmingham friends, we will be at WALD PARK tonight for the resxcheduled I LOVE AMERICA series for Vestavia Hills.  Kids activities, free swimming and a family movie, along with our concert at 7-8 pm.  Hope you can come out!!!!!

CLICK THIS LINK FOR MORE INFO

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Posted in Art, Bluegrass, Concert, Gospel music, Music, Old-time music, Shades Mountain Air

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