Songs Without Boundaries, Part 3 - (#425)
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."