JEFF TURNER

There’s a moment near the top of “He Keeps Right On Blessing Me” when Kim Shields’ piano intro gets gently shouldered aside by a brass section so unapologetically jaunty that you half expect it to tip its hat on the way in. It’s a musical entrance that announces itself without apology, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.

The track is the third single from the Rogers Family for Horizon Records, and if you’ve been paying any attention to the Southern Gospel world lately, you already know this North Carolina family has been building something quietly remarkable in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

“We are so excited for the release of ‘He Keeps Right On Blessing Me,’” the group said in a newsletter sent to Texas Gospel Canada. “When we heard it for the first time, we knew immediately that we needed to record it. It’s a toe-tapping, hand-clapping song that will get stuck in your head, in a good way! We pray that as you listen you will be reminded of the many blessings of God in your life.”

That description, “toe-tapping,” isn’t marketing copy. It’s a clinical diagnosis.

Once the brass section hands things over to Samuel Shields, his delivery of the opening verse carries the kind of soulful assurance that sounds lived-in rather than performed:

When I wake up in the morning / And I don’t know what awaits / Cause every new day seems to have a trial / There’s one thing I am sure of / With every step I take / My Jesus will be there for every mile

Producer Roger Talley’s arrangement doesn’t stay in one place for long. It moves through key changes with the ease of a family that has been singing together long enough to communicate without words, and then sisters Rebekah and Hannah Shields step forward to carry the second and third verses, their voices adding texture and personality to a song that already has plenty of both.

At the centre of it all is the Adina Bowman-penned chorus, a melody so hooky it feels like it must have existed somewhere before:

And He keeps right on blessing me / Keeps right on keeping me / Oh, the Lord has been so good to me / He protects me from the enemy / He’s providing all I need / My Jesus keeps right on blessing me

The story behind the Rogers Family is the kind that Southern Gospel was practically invented to tell. The group traces its roots to Northeast Georgia, where Ray and Helen Rogers sang in local churches alongside their daughter Kim, who played the piano from the start. Kim later met Sammy Shields at a church in North Carolina, they married in 1999, and together they put down roots in the Blue Ridge foothills and raised three children: Rebekah, Samuel, and Hannah.

When Ray Rogers passed away in 2010, the next generation stepped forward. Not as a replacement for what had been, but as a continuation of it. Helen and Kim stayed close, remained active, remained passionate, and the family kept singing. That kind of tenacity has a way of showing up in the music, a quality of honouring what came before while making something that feels entirely present tense.

Today, the six-member group, Helen, Kim, Sammy, Rebekah, Samuel, and Hannah, travels and ministers together. Kim is still at the piano, which feels entirely right. Some things shouldn’t change.

“He Keeps Right On Blessing Me” is out now.