Gospel music phenomenon Bill Gaither has penned some of the genre's most popular songs, "He Touched Me," and "Because He Lives" with his wife Gloria. Gaither said that the widespread appeal of a song rests on the lyric.

"You can't hear a group, pop or gospel, that doesn't do 'I'll Fly Away' or 'Amazing Grace,' he says. "It has to be the lyric. How many times have you been in a hospital talking to a secular person that has nothing to do with church who is in a very dire situation? If you ask him,'How is it? What's happening?' and he says, 'I don't know. I'm just taking it - one day at a time.' That is all any of us can do.

"Of all the songs Kris Kristofferson wrote I suppose 'Why Me Lord' is one of the most popular," he continues. "Marijohn Wilkins' great song 'One Day at a Time' is always up there at the top. People know it and sing it and people make sense from it."

Gaither adds that one of today's songs with crossover appeal is Vince Gill's "Go Rest High on that Mountain."

"Who hasn't a love one and at that end, what a beautiful way to send a loved one away," Gaither says.

Another Brumley song crossed over to become one of the most popular of the Bluegrass genre - "Rank Strangers."

"I think it's the same kind of thing as 'I'll Fly Away,'" says Bob Brumley. "It is a great thought. The words that he is saying there - he doesn't know anybody - it's one of those things where the tune and the words match. It's got the kind of melody that bluegrass can really get into."

And it was the Stanley Brothers - Carter and Ralph - that popularized the song originally making it one of the most performed standards of the genre. Grand Ole Opry star Ralph Stanley, whose star shot into the stratosphere after his participation in the film "O' Brother Where Art Thou" by singing "Oh, Death," still performs "Rank Strangers."

He says he is not sure why the song has such a wide spread appeal. "That is a good song," he says. "It's got a good melody and good words. I had so many people ask me what a rank stranger was."

Stanley says he and his late brother originally heard the song performed by a quartet from Tennessee and adapted it to their style that continues to be copied. "It's been one of our most popular gospel songs," he says. "We get requests for that everywhere we go. It's just a good song with a good meaning."

The late Dottie Rambo once said some songs are simply rooted in the regions where they connect with the listener. "Songs like 'Rank Strangers' and 'On the Wings of a Dove' have that deep southern mountain sound," she said. "Almost a haunting feel, and one that can be passed from one generation in time to another. These songs are what I call vanilla songs and that is a compliment because it leaves spaces for the instruments to chime in and a singer can still create within the song and it is permissible.

"When I write a song I like to try to remember who my audience is," she said. "Too many times a writer will try to write for their peers and I have been guilty of that myself. A really great writer knows that in order to stand the test of time their writings have to be able to understood and not over the common person's head and those songs usually will be the ones that will break over the barriers and genres."

It was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band in 1972 that pushed a country gospel song. "Will the Circle Be Unbroken." to the forefront of mainstream culture with the release of the first of three albums. Combining the talents of legendary country performers such as Roy Acuff, bluegrass stalwart Jimmy Martin, Mother Maybelle Carter, Earl Scruggs and many other luminaries, the group set a new standard in combining the new and the old and making it mainstream.

Grammy winning banjo stylist John McEuen is a member of that group and was part of that first recording.

"That song ("Will the Circle Be Unbroken") has always been a non-specific hoping-for-a-better-day kind of song," he says when asked what set that song apart from any other that could have been chosen. "A song about departure, a song about somebody just going away and there is a better place hopefully for them. It's been kind of universal way in that way. You can't say its offensive to any particular religion."

He says one of the main reasons the group chose the song was they wanted to record some original Carter Family songs with Mother Maybelle Carter. She, along with A.P. and Sara, were part of those original Bristol, Tenn.-recording sessions for the Victor Company in 1927.

"We definitely wanted to do 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken.' It is just one of the mainstays," he says. "We are proud of the fact that that song was inducted in the Library of Congress as one of the most important songs ever recorded about two years ago."