Category: Southern Gospel

How a small North Carolina church shaped Darin & Brooke Aldridge’s new album

Published on by Texas GospelLeave a comment

ANDREW TAYLOR SR.

Darin & Brooke Aldridge have spent their career singing about faith, family and home, but on their new album “Soul Condition,” out now on Billy Blue Records, they went looking for something a little more specific: the sound of where they actually come from.

The eleven-track record marks the duo’s 11th studio album and brings in some serious bluegrass and gospel firepower, with Grand Ole Opry members Sonya Isaacs and Becky Isaacs of The Isaacs joining alongside GRAMMY winner Jason Crabb. But for Darin Aldridge, the album’s emotional center didn’t come from a Nashville studio. It came from a small church in Avery County, North Carolina.

“Speaking of our heritage back in western North Carolina, we got to go up to my uncle’s church that he’s pastored at now in Linville Falls, North Carolina,” Aldridge says. He and Brooke called in family for the occasion, pulling together as many aunts, uncles and cousins as could make it on short notice. “We called a bunch of our aunts and uncles and cousins that we could get together in one afternoon,” he recalls. “And we all come to that little community church and sang several hymns that day.”

The session had the feel of a family reunion as much as a recording date. Aldridge played guitar, his cousin Tommy and his mother took turns on piano, and Brooke’s parents rounded out the room. “I played a little guitar. My cousin Tommy played piano and my mom played piano. Brooke’s mom and dad were there,” he says, before turning to his wife to confirm the memory. “Wasn’t it, Brooke?”

The goal was simple: capture one of the songs from Soul Condition sung by an actual family choir, voices that had known each other, and those hymns, for generations.

For Brooke Aldridge, the afternoon delivered more than they expected. “It turned out so very special in that little church there,” she says, “and I think it’ll give people a good taste of where we come from and how we were raised.” That, she adds, is exactly what she and Darin set out to do with the record. “That’s exactly what we were trying to capture in Soul Condition.”

HighRoad brings the American road show to a Norwegian barn, and Sarpsborg sings along

Published on by Texas GospelLeave a comment

AMY TURNER / E.J. WILSON

The gardens outside a Nordic Lutheran church built in the 1850s do not typically host a gospel group from Nashville, Tennessee on tour. But that is where HighRoad found itself this week, walking the grounds of a 19th century sanctuary before an evening that would end with a sold out crowd in a converted barn.

The band is deep into a run of Norwegian dates, and the following they have built overseas is starting to look less like a novelty and more like a genuine relationship between a North American act and an audience thousands of miles from home. Vocalist Sarah Davidson has been chronicling the trip in real time, and her updates read like postcards from a tour that has wandered well outside the usual circuit.

Davidson described a day that started with the old church gardens and turned into an impromptu border crossing. “As we walked downtown we also walked over to Sweden,” she said, describing a bridge she stopped to admire before ducking into a small Swedish cafe for coffee and crepes. It is the kind of afternoon that does not usually make it into a tour itinerary, but for a band playing towns close enough to another country to walk there, it became part of the day’s rhythm.

By evening the group had made its way to Sarpsborg, where the venue was a barn with a history of its own. Davidson called it a beautiful, historic space that locals had converted into a music venue, complete with an old pump organ tucked into the corner. The hosts fed the band American style, with hamburgers and hot dogs on the menu, a small gesture that Davidson said made the night feel like a genuine welcome rather than just another stop on the schedule.

The show itself delivered. Davidson described the crowd as sold out and packed, an audience that showed up ready for HighRoad and made no secret of it. For a Texas gospel band a continent away from home, that kind of reception speaks to how far the group’s reputation has traveled.

The night closed the way a lot of the best tour stories do, with a view nobody planned for. Davidson described the drive home under a sunset around 10 o’clock, still bright at an hour that would be full dark back in Texas, calling it a stunning end to what she summed up simply as a wonderful day.

For a band whose name has occasionally landed sideways in write ups and transcripts, from High Road to Highroad, there was nothing lost in translation on this leg of the trip. Norway heard HighRoad loud and clear.

The Kingdom Heirs remind listeners that grace never runs out

Published on by Texas GospelLeave a comment

AMY TURNER

Southern Gospel has a way of turning heartbreak into hope, and few groups do it as naturally as the Kingdom Heirs. “This song really spoke to me,” says Andy Stringfield of the quartet’s new single, “Always get the grace.” “It not only has a beautiful melody, which usually is the first thing that catches my attention, but a unique and powerful message.”

The message is a simple one, though simple doesn’t mean easy. Written by Barbara Huffman and Marcia Henry, the song asks its listeners to sit with an uncomfortable truth; Prayers don’t always get answered the way you hoped. Sometimes the miracle comes exactly as planned. More often, life hands you something you didn’t ask for and can’t fully explain.

Sometimes you get the miracle Just the way you planned But often God does something different That you don’t understand But through it all He’s still loving, caring, and holding you No matter what you face Sometimes you get the miracle But you always get the grace

The Kingdom Heirs give the song room to breathe, building it into a fully orchestrated arrangement that shifts between Chris Bryant’s lead vocal and the full quartet’s blend. It’s the kind of production that lets a lyric like this land without needing much embellishment.

For Stringfield, the song’s honesty is what sets it apart. “When we’re in the midst of a storm in this life, we don’t always get the exact answer we’re looking for when we pray,” he says. “Sometimes you get the miracle, but as a child of God, no matter what you may be going through, you’ll always get his wonderful grace.”

That kind of steadiness has defined the Kingdom Heirs for decades. The group traces its roots to the mountains of East Tennessee, where Southern Gospel isn’t a genre so much as a way of life. They built a following playing churches and concert halls before landing a residency at Silver Dollar City in 1982, four years before the park rebranded as Dollywood. The Kingdom Heirs have been the park’s resident gospel act ever since, a run that now stretches past 40 years, matching Dollywood’s own milestone this year. Millions of visitors have passed through the park in that time, and for plenty of them, the Kingdom Heirs’ harmonies are as much a part of the Smoky Mountains as the scenery.

Kitchens, cathedrals, and the faith of a coal miner’s wife

Published on by Texas GospelLeave a comment

TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

Chosen Road’s Jonathan Buckner remembers where he was standing the first time he heard “Kitchens & Cathedrals.” He was in his own kitchen, phone in hand, wife nearby, when he hit play on a demo written by Lee Black and Gina Bowe. He didn’t make it past the first verse before he was crying.

“I never will forget the moment that I opened that demo up and I listened to it,” Buckner says. “I was with my wife in our kitchen and I hit play, got through the first verse and I was in tears.”

The song pulled him straight back to his grandmother’s house. She was a preacher’s wife raising ten kids largely on her own, since her husband spent long stretches on the road as a traveling evangelist. Buckner’s grandfather had started out as a coal miner before answering a call to ministry, leaving his wife to hold the household together through faith alone.

“She was an amazing woman who just loved the Lord,” Buckner says of his grandmother. “She really had to lean into her faith.”

That instinct, leaning into faith when circumstances demand it, has defined Chosen Road for more than seventeen years. Formed in the mountains of West Virginia, the band built its sound the way bluegrass has always been built: on front porches and in small country churches, with harmonies worked out standing close enough to hear one another breathe. Their catalog stretches from traditional bluegrass into country, gospel, and Americana, resisting easy genre labels in favor of something the band simply calls honest.

Albums like Appalachian hymns and the newer American morning have carried that approach to a growing national audience, landing on bluegrass and gospel radio charts along the way. “Kitchens & Cathedrals” continues that trajectory, less a departure than a return to the values the band was founded on: faith, family, and music that means something to the people singing it as much as the people hearing it.

For Buckner, the song’s power lies in the way it collapses decades in a single verse, turning a kitchen table memory into something closer to scripture. It is a small moment made large, the kind Chosen Road has spent nearly two decades trying to write.

Twin girls due September 30 for Joseph Habedank and Lindsey

Published on by Texas GospelLeave a comment

TEXAS GOSPEL VOLUNTEER

Joseph Habedank is counting down the days. He’s preparing to welcome twin daughters this fall, turning his family of two into a family of four almost overnight.

“Just wanted to give you a quick update on Lindsey and the twins,” he said in a recent interview. The news is good: “They are growing and doing really, really well,” he said, both girls are already well over three pounds, outpacing typical growth for twins. “We have a schedule for September 30th for them to arrive into this world, and we are so excited.”

But Habedank also asked fans for prayer. Lindsey has been dealing with lightheadedness, low blood pressure and anemia. “We’re very grateful that the girls are doing well,” he said, “but we want her to be healthy as well.”

It’s an update that carries both joy and worry in equal measure. “It’s such an exciting time in our lives,” Habedank said, “and I hope to see you all out on the road soon.”

It’s nice to be able to post updates like this. Texas Gospel Canada will let you know when the new arrivals make their appearance!