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Gary in Concert with Janet Hall O’Neill and Pat Terry Saturday June 15, 7 pm
TICKET LINK https://www.wildroastcafe.com/product/janet-hall-gary-furr-pat-terry-saturday-june-15/233
This “songwriters in the round” style event will feature three of us. We are all singer songwriters. My own style runs from folk and Americana, country and gospel to forays into blues and a couple of swing tunes. Here is a blogpost I wrote for the last time the three of us played at the old Moonlight On the Mountain. Music starts at 7pm. Outside food and drink are allowed. We anticipate a sellout so purchase your ticket before they are gone.
Janet Hall O’Neill has been writing and singing since college days and performs widely. Her songs are funny, uplifting, well-crafted and written unabashedly from a professional woman’s point of view, living in this suburban world. She is an excellent writer and always gives me something to think about, and uplifting along the way!
Pat Terry is a long-revered songwriter by other songwriters. He has written hits for Tanya Tucker, Travis Tritt, and a host of other Nashville artists, including B. J. Thomas, the Oak Ridge Boys and many others. His best songs, though, are done by him. He has an authentic voice that sees life with honesty and truth. His songs often leave me feeling something I had never had words for previously. I never miss him when he’s in town.
COME ON OUT SATURDAY NIGHT for a great time! Limited seating, so buy tickets ahead!
Someplace Green
Looking out from my office desk, to someplace green.
My friend Pat Terry is one of my favorite singer-songwriters, ever. After a long and successful career in contemporary Christian music, he widened his vision and writing. A successful career in country music as a writer followed, with plenty of hits. He just came out with his latest CD, “How Hard It Is to Fly,” and it’s another great batch of songs. One of my newest favorites, “Clean Starched Sheets” is on this one.
Pat’s heart has always been as a storytelling songwriter. I have been in a couple of his workshops, and he is a master craftsman. I’ve performed with him a time or two here in Birmingham, and I’ve gone more than once to hear him sing. His songs are deeply human. One of my favorites and one of the first I ever heard him perform (while opening for Earl Scruggs!) was “Someplace Green.” It sends me to visions of Eden.
Back in my hometown, everything’s green,
green grass, green leaves, green peaches on the trees in spring. Read the rest of this entry
Pat Terry and the Eye of the Artist
If we learn to look at life with the eyes of the artist, we
will see an entire universe that is “a gift of mercy.”
Pat pondering how to help a workshop participants song
It’s odd that a musical preacher who writes songs, cut his teeth and got called to ministry during the Jesus Movement of the 1970s would have met Pat Terry so late in life, but that’s the way life winds sometimes. I had heard of the Pat Terry group back when he was starting out—Pat is just a bit older than me. I heard his songs, but my musical journey got put on hold for a long time as marriage and children and years in graduate education and pastoral ministry took me in different directions. I continued listening to music and playing and singing, sometimes in church and mostly by myself for my own pleasure.
Pat Terry, meanwhile, was on a journey of his own, too. After many years, first in the very spontaneous and joyful Jesus Movement musical world, and then for a while in the increasingly industry-captivated contemporary Christian musical world, he moved on. He had a good, long run as a commercial songwriter in Nashville, with a string of songs for many well-known artists like John Anderson, Travis Tritt, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, Tanya Tucker and the Oak Ridge Boys. He learned the Nashville craft and all the while continuing his own inner journey of writing from the heart.
So it was that a few years ago, Greg Womble, my friend and bandmate who plays the banjo publicly, and I, who play it out of earshot but love it, went to Atlanta to Read the rest of this entry
