Most of you know that my husband sang bass in gospel quartets for almost forty years. He retired from his most recent quartet group over a year ago to do some solo singing and not have to travel as much. But he didn’t lose his love for the Southern Gospel quartet music.
This week we’ve been at a gospel music convention and hearing a lot of the old favorite Southern gospel songs. Songs like “Have a Little Talk with Jesus,” “It is No Secret What God Can Do,” “I’ll Fly Away,” and so many more. I’m not as big a fan as my husband. I tend to listen more to the words than the blend of the singers or the music. But my toe taps on many of the songs. I liked hearing “It is No Secret.” I hadn’t heard that song for years and those words say a lot.
So, on my Facebook page, I asked my friends what their favorite gospel songs were. I got a great variety of answers with several people mentioning old hymns like “Amazing Grace” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” Many of them were like me and said it was impossible to narrow it down to one song. That’s sort of how it was at the gospel gathering. Each old song I heard was a new favorite. There was one that my husband used to sing in a group he was in a long time ago called “Boundless Love.” Those lyrics and music used to get audiences to their feet every time the guys sang it. I think it was a Cathedral Quartet song. But it tells about how great is the love of the Lord. Boundless. Without limits. What a great thought.
Then, a favorite song of many, and one that Darrell sang in most of the groups he was in was “The Lighthouse.” I wrote a blog post telling the amazing story of how Ronnie Hinson was gifted with the song when he was a very young man. He wrote it in seven minutes without ever having actually seen a lighthouse. You can read that story here. It’s truly an amazing song writing story. I guess as a writer I do enjoy hearing the stories behind how the songs were written even though I have no song writing abilities or have ever thought about writing songs. I like having plenty of pages to tell my stories. LOL.
I asked Darrell just now what song he heard this week was his favorite, and he couldn’t pick one. But I’ll guarantee if he had picked some favorites, they would have had good bass parts.
I think the favorite song I heard this week was “It is Well” sung a cappella by the Blackwood Brothers. Beautiful and moving. We had that song played at Mom’s funeral and it has seemed to follow me around after that. At first, hearing it brought the sadness to memory, but now it’s more an affirmation of Mom’s life.
So what is your favorite gospel song?