Best of Country

My eldest sister celebrated 25 years of marriage earlier this year. The first wedding in our family - it was a real union of families, especially considering that both the families had strong music roots. Our choice of music was mainstream pop, a little rock and some pop jazz, and a lot of oldies. But now, we had a new musical influence in our family... an introduction to the world of Country Music... and the country music has gone down (in two senses) really well. Down as in to the next generation... and also down geographically to New Zealand. Apparently there is a flourishing interest in Country Music in New Zealand, and it is a proud moment for our family that my nephew Keith Pereira is making waves in the Country Music scene there by being the overall winner at the Auckland Country Music Awards.... 

Keith has recently launched his YouTube channel - The Country Coffee Club where he posts some of his excellent covers for all to hear. And one of the artists that I've heard thanks to Keith's dad has been Randy Travis - who celebrates his 58th birthday today. While Randy Travis has many #1's on the Country Music charts, this song has been his highest scoring hit on the Billboard Hot 100 - Three Wooden Crosses.

That song also hit an emotional string of my heart for many reasons actually - one of them on the spiritual note. The song also fitted well with a post I wrote on a new blog I've created to share my experience of Walking With Jesus. 

While on the spiritual level, today is also the birthday of a Grammy winning Contemporary Christian music singer-songwriter and worship leader, Chris Tomlin. Over the past three years in Mumbai, I've been fortunate to have involved in the music ministry in our local Catholic Charismatic Renewal Group... and being called on to play music at some of the retreats they've organised. Also been called upon to share the Lord's Word through teaching Catechism to children and youth in the parish. Our God is good, he is great... Here's one of the songs of praise that I've sung and played to - How Great Is Our God.

And as I wind up, I must thank all you wonderful people for your support on this blog... I just had one of my best days yesterday... with more than 350 viewing my celebration of the music by my little son Kendall in the post - He's Eight Today... This Musical Little Boy. Thank God for him.