Carrie Underwood - *** How Great Thou Art *** - featuring Vince Gill [HQ]

Friday night was going to be just another boring night, but as I was clicking through the channels, I stopped to listen to a country music show (Girls Night Out) with Carrie Underwood singing "How Great Thou Art." As I listened, tears welled up in my eyes and starting falling down my cheeks and as the camera panned the audience, I wasn't the only one. The star studded audience was wiping tears, too.



Now I am not a huge country music fan, but I do love Carrie Underwood and as I listened to the angelic clarity of her voice, it took me back to my childhood. My dad was a singer (he sang with a group called "The Gospel Tones.") I grew up listening to the old gospel songs that were staples in church on Sunday in our little country church and have heard "How Great Thou Art" probably hundreds if not thousands of times.



There is something magical about being immersed in music from as long as I can remember. It was always there...a constant in my life. Daddy would bust out a song and say, "Come on Bondie...don't know what he did with the l ... harmonize with me as he would put his head next to mine and make me sing with him. I tried, but I just never had the gift that he had. He had a clear, beautiful, perfect pitched tenor voice. There was never a day in my life...in our modest little house that it wasn't filled with music. We didn't have much, but there was the piano, the guitars and the voices...the beautiful voices I was lucky enough to grow up with.



One very special Easter Sunday when I was really small, maybe 4, Daddy took me to the radio station with him. In the old days, singers did a lot of live work on the radio and I went to the station with my dad and he sang his heart out with his quartet broadcasting to thousands of listeners and his live audience of one, me. He always carried a pitch pipe in his pocket, and although he really didn't need it, he always blew into it, got the note and the small group of four would put their heads together to create an amazing harmony and the music would start. The station was powerful and broadcast throughout much of the Midwest and with their increasing notoriety, they started making records.



"How Great Thou Art" was one of my dads very favorite songs, and on this Easter I am dedicating this to my dad up in Heaven because I know he would listen to Carrie Underwood, his head bent down a little, listening to the pitch of every note and keeping time, tapping his foot to the beat.



My childhood was a blessing, surrounded by a family that sang as much as they talked. When we got together for any event there would be the impromptu song, the melodic sounds coming from the front porch or the kitchen. When I was about 8, I was really sick, and was awakened by three of my cousins standing at the bottom of my bed playing guitar as my dad sang to me.



Not much has changed. He left a legacy. There is a lot to be said for genetics. My son, the aspiring rock star, has his grandpa's stature, his love and gift of music (daddy died when Alex was 3). Just the other night, I had just dozed off, and my son woke me sitting at the bottom of my bed, playing a gorgeous rendition of Donna Lee...an incredible (and my favorite) jazz tune.



How blessed I am I to have been given the gift of not only a father with an amazing voice that lives on, on some old 78's, and a son that is an incredible musician trying to find his own way in a very difficult industry. And how blessed we all are for such an inspiring singer as Carrie?



And yes, I think it's fabulous.Carrie Underwood singing one of my favorite Hymns, "How Great Though Are"