Blog Archives
Down in Bethlehem
Today I am beginning a series of blogs about songs, more specifically songs I have written. I want to write a little about their “births,” as for me, songs are like children, or at least like the ugly ash tray I made out of clay at camp. They are mine, they mean something to me, and I still love singing them. Today, I’ll start with the first cut on my new album, “Down in Bethlehem.” I actually came up with the idea while writing a sermon, I guess it was during Advent of 2015. It’s a bit weird, really, to think of a third of humanity gathering every week to reflect on a two thousand year old set of texts, but in a time when we obsess over the latest thing, it’s a little comforting to me that we can mull over the same writing again and again, and like some prism being slowly turned in daylight, new colors of insight come.
I was struck by the commonality of the major stories about Bethlehem, that of Ruth, a Moabite widow who came as a foreigner immigrating back to her husband’s home’ David, the youngest of eight, who was selected by the prophet Samuel to replace Saul as king, and Jesus, born to a young couple shrouded in unimportance. Again and again, in the Bible, God “chooses” to work with the “Most Likely Not to Be Chosen.” First I wrote a short poem to use in the sermon, then was haunted by it until this song came.
I was thinking about U2, Springsteen, music that is simple, driving, repetitive and building over time. Brent Warren does some really fine electric guitar work on this cut. Take a listen and enjoy! BUY or listen to it here. It still is true, I believe, that hope is a powerful and inexplicable reality, one that rises up unexpectedly and in the most unpromising of moments. That is when I suspect God might be up to something. (see Ruth, 1 Samuel 16, Matthew 2 for the stories behind the song). I’ve posted the whole song on my website for a week or so. https://www.reverbnation.com/garyfurrmusic
ALABAMA FOLK SCHOOL offers Songwriting Class With Kate Campbell
Kate Campbell has created an impressive body of original work in the past eighteen years.
Folksinger and songwriter KATE CAMPBELL is coming to Alabama to lead a class on Songwriting during March (21-23) as part of a weekend school on writing. If you write lyrics, always wanted to, are a performer who tours or just somebody whose been writing songs in the basement for twenty yearsa and never had the courage to sing one in front of anyone, you might enjoy coming to the Alabama Folk School’s latest offering, “WORDS, WORDS, WORDS.” The Alabama Folk School is a lovely new place to go and learn about crafts and arts of all kinds—playing the mandolin or quilting. And now, songwriting and the written and spoken word.
OK, the Grammys are over. And I didn’t watch. I am not a sourpuss who needs to pour water on people who want to make millions of dollars dressed as French mimes from Venus. Free world, have at it. I like most music, but not all. Again, your right. But me? I like making music more than buying it. I like crafting, thinking about it, playing with friends, encouraging others. I like singing with my Dad whenever we’re together. Singing in church. Singing with our band, but I like practicing even more. I love writing songs. I love learning about it, crafting, exploring something until it is “finished” (which is the hardest part—letting baby leave home!). And the best way to grow in your craft is to be around others.
The weekend event will offer a class on writing and one on songwriting. No prior knowledge or expertise is necessary, just interest. I’m sure the place will be full of people with guitars and notebooks, jamming, telling stories and swapping ideas. Maybe you have words and want to meet people with a head full of tunes. Or vice versa.
The weekend is NOT a competition for “greatest songwriter on earth.” It is a community to encourage everyone to
deux deux idiots ou des génies?
find their voice and grow in their skill.
There will also be a sonn-to-be announced instructor for a writing class the same weekend.
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
My newest CD project is done!
I have just finished a new CD entitled, “What It Is.” I have been writing and working on these songs for about two years now, and finally got to a point where they were ready. I performed many of them in my last couple of concerts and got great audience response.
A conversation without words. That’s what it is…
I have written about 80 songs now in my lifetime. One songwriter said after you have written 100, you are ready to write really GOOD songs! 20 to go!
I am very proud of these songs. They are personal, emotionally candid, and like children to me. The musical styles are eclectic. What I am most thrilled about is the opening of my “store” online that now has all three albums on it. You do not have to mail me checks anymore and wait for me to wrap and mail a CD. You can purchase them online by credit card either as download, tradiltional CD, individual song download or even a ringtone!
I hope you’ll take a listen and would be honored if you like one to buy. It is produced, shrink wrapped and shipped directly from the factory to you on demand. Click this link to visit the store
You can also get there by going to http://www.reverbnation.com/garyfurrmusic
Last Friday night, I was in concert with Adler & Hearne at the Moonlight Music Cafe. We had a great time, as always, and my incredible bandmates from SHADES MOUNTAIN AIR joined me to back up several songs. It was a great night. This album is about love in its endless variety and mystery. It is love, known first from God, and embodied in my incredible wife, Vickie, my family, my friends and neighbors, that make life so worth living. Read the rest of this entry
Lessons from JC (Johnny Cash)
Streissguth's bio is a great read
A new friend from New York reminded me of the Cash bio I read a few years back. Like everyone, I loved “Walk the Line,” the bio-pic of the life and love of Johnny Cash and his wife June Carter Cash that came out years ago. It is not a true biography, really. Robert Streissguth’s JOHNNY CASH: THE BIOGRAPHY is where you get more than the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version.
Johnny’s story was, of course, about a many coming out of hard times, his well-known descent into drugs and alcohol that ruined his first marriage and nearly destroyed his career in mid-stream. The movie ends at the point where he turned his life around, married June, and got his act together again in the late sixties. It was not “happily ever after,” but for a movie that’s okay.
Johnny was (and still is—he stays on my IPOD) one of my musical heroes in the late sixties, along with Bob Dylan, Willie, James Taylor, Neil Young and a lot of groups you haven’t heard of.
It is also about how the love of a woman saved his life at its worst moment. He struggled with the poverty of his childhood and of early loss in his life. He carried a lot of that pain into his adult life and it nearly killed him. But he rose from the ashes of those shadows. A part of his journey was returning to the Christian faith of his childhood. Johnny Cash was earthy and blunt, but he was also unabashed about his love for Jesus Christ.
He once said this of his earlier failures:
“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space…I learn from my mistakes. It’s a very painful way to learn…You miss a lot of opportunities by making mistakes, but that’s part of it: knowing that you’re not shut out forever, and that there’s a goal you still can reach.” (Streissguth)
Listen to those last words again: knowing that you’re not shut out forever, and that there’s a goal you still can reach. Not a bad word for now or anytime. Our mistakes are not the final word as long as we’re breathing. If you’re dwelling in the past—the songs you used to write, the band you once had, or the retirement nest egg you watched dwindle away, hey, it’s time to box up and change addresses to now.
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. Today is a new day, even if you’re greeting at Walmart until a better gig comes along…
For today, here’s a link my daughter sent me from Seattle a few years back when her nephew was part of a guitar recital. Another little guy, five years old, did “Folsom Prison Blues.” Pretty awesome if you ever have five year olds still singing your songs after you’ve gone, even if they do say, “I shot a man in Wee-know”
