Bill Gaither Interviews David Phelps | They discussed the great concerts and songs - 2012

you know if you live long enough you finally start figuring out what is important and what are the things i should spend my time doing especially after you have kids sooner or later life will get your attention as to say why am i spending so much time doing this or doing that and you finally figure out little things mean a lot right they do perspective yeah perspective that's one of your big words isn't it it really is i heard someone say the other day about perspective how at first they things seemed really important and then later on you know that down the road they kind of lose their importance it's kind of like uh the other day i was getting ice out of the the refrigerator door and some fell on the floor and um i kicked it under the fridge you know [Music] lori got onto my back she just she was just getting onto me i said like we're gonna move the refrigerator in a couple of months and clean under then you're gonna say where'd all this ice come it just loses from it loses its importance after a little while and you just gotta have a perspective about how did she take that i i said it from underneath the bed i don't know i couldn't see your face but you know what i i really do think it takes the time for couples to figure out what is important in life i mean i mean what should we spend our time you know doing and uh pay attention to yeah it really is true you know i look at my kids we just try to spend as much time with them as possible and in the middle of doing all that we do in and out you know how can anything be more important than that and i have to give you good good grades for that because whether you know it or not there are people who ask me how is david rea i mean what's he really like i said you know what you need to come to his farm out there somewhere around in columbia he has chickens they you know they i mean they they gather eggs you know they they have animals people think that tenors you know sleep till noon and someone brings them breakfast in bed and uh they have everything on and that's on a silver platter and that's just not how it goes you know i just think you got to stop and smell the roses and realize what's important and spend time with your loved ones and the other day i called you and you said well i'm headed out to go to eat lunch with my sister and and i thought well you know with everything you have going on you make time for that and that's that's really great this song probably says it as well as any song that i've ever heard and you know it's interesting to say is this a secular song is this a sacred song to me this is a very sacred song i am it is your kids are good [Applause] i am very proud of my kids that's something that we you and i have in common is that we just love harmony of course my family grew up singing so i've tried to pass that on to my kids i actually sat down at the piano when my oldest was four when cali was four and thought what if i can i teach her harmony yeah and in two short little sessions as far as her attention span would go she had it yeah i thought wow that's amazing and then i ran out of time with the other ones and she taught the other ones but but i love to teach them songs like the holy holy holy that's just schubert wrote that that's a pretty good praise and worship absolutely absolutely it is and which one of them sings with you on this uh uh on this song maggie beth sings with me on this song and i have to tell you you know i worked on this song for about a year and a half uh writing it and when i started it i didn't have maggie beth in mind for this duet she kept telling us she wanted to be a vet and then all of a sudden one day we noticed that she would go up to her room and turn on you know she loves singing broadway and some classical things and she would start singing and we were like wow she's really getting into this and a month three months six months later we're like she is doing this every single day how old is she she's 14. she was 13 at the time when she started doing that and i remember one day i was walking through the house and i stopped by the i stopped at the bottom of the stairs and was listening to her and my jaw just dropped i couldn't believe the notes and the fullness in her voice and uh her choir director started he called me one time and said did you know maggie beth hit a high d today she's just amazing it's just has come out of out of nowhere for us and when you sent that to me uh i said who is that singer i know we were just shocked i uh i didn't i didn't want to get her hopes up and so i asked my wife lori i said how do i do this and get her in there to see if she can do it and she so she kind of helped me through that and i got into the studio and after two hours we had recorded the take for the record i was absolutely just blown away and it's truly a god-given gift i love it i love it it is so good to sit out there and watch you sweat [Laughter] yeah i will is this what you now you is this what you do when you're not with us carry all these people every week we your bus must be a double wide well we have a bus and a trailer oh you lay right in the trailer but well i've enjoyed i've enjoyed it have you oh yeah and and the songs are fantastic i understood half of them i hope the others were about jesus [Laughter] well you know you know what uh mark and i've been down there sitting saying it's a caviar tonight yeah yeah oh yeah so now it's time for some cornbread cornbread we thought we you might just need a little old uh vocal band razzle castle here old old golden gate classic i say let's bring it on i didn't bring it invite you out here for your good looks [Laughter] you had mentioned the civil war earlier and there's a cemetery here uh that's right you can't you can't go sightseeing around this area without without realizing that civil war was a big part of the history the references to the civil war and the songs that that came out of this this is a mountain song that uh that many gospel group has sung many country artists have sung this song it's been around a long time i i have learned so much from working with you and this is one of those songs that um you know growing up we listen to all different kinds of music and and we listened to some southern gospel music but it was some of the the bigger songs that kind of had come out of that genre that i really knew and this was one of those because for some reason some songs just they can't be bound by one uh particular style of course this this is one angel band that that has been recorded by bluegrass artists and the first time i heard it was vestal goodman singing oh come angel band and then of course country artists have recorded it and well for the folks who have thought they have heard this song your arrangement part of your brain is really interesting quite interesting is it a compliment or i don't know kidney stones are interesting too but i uh for people who think that they have heard angel band before they have never really heard it until they hear disagreements oh well thank you i looked at the lyrics and it just kind of hit me that this is really a like a movie score you know that uh that very appropriately is kind of like ushering the soul into heaven from this world to the next and your son grant helps you on this one he does and it's great to hear his voice on that and so pure and so we got him to be here tonight too good i will never forget the night in huntsville alabama when you had come back with the group and you and we said we need to just do a solo what we'd like to do and because you had done in the beginning that you had written he said you know what i sing a classical song it's in a foreign language and i said i know because our folks are just regular folks you know and they're and they're basically gospel folks i could see that why did i start this conversation and look on your face so the next night i said well why because you had said that that you that you had done those in your concert they'd done the song in your concert people loved it that's right i said tonight tomorrow night we're in dothan why not let's try it so in dothan alabama i said if it works there it will work anywhere they were on their feet at the end of that song and we went what in the world's happening i think the next night we were in south carolina somewhere he said let's try it again and so for every night for the last three years just about you have been singing this song yeah and it's amazing i really do feel like a vessel when i'm singing this because it's a great piece of art and it's my job to present it and kind of stay out of the way yeah the stuff that you are singing on this project are the melodies that live that everybody knows everybody loves this is definitely one of those and this is one of those prayer is very uniting whether it's in church or whether it's in a broadway musical we can all come together for uh important things in our lives that can only be answered by prayer and this one is one of the best i think well i think so too of course i heard this for the first time when i was in college and i sang it then and boy it means a whole lot more to me now then it was more about the music and now just the idea of you know i think it's a common thing to for all of us when a loved one is away or you can't be with that one person that you care about so much and um their safety's out of your hands and a grandson in my case you know i can remember to bring him home bring him forward i have a 17 year old daughter and every time she drives away in that car i think bring her home you know i want her to be safe and um so it doesn't have to be someone uh away in in a war or um something very dramatic it can be something just every day you know we oftentimes our loved ones safety is out of our hands and we have to depend on the almighty god beautiful piece of music and a wonderful prayer i can remember the first time i heard this music it was either play that president roosevelt fdr's funeral or when they were bringing a movie they had seen when they were bringing his body back from georgia to uh dc it was such a moving piece of music dvorak dvorak i believe the history was dvorak came over here and um was writing and conducting and teaching and while he was over here he was inspired by the spirituals in america and and indian spiritual songs as well and so he included a lot of those themes and the new world symphony is what it's come to be called and it's just it's absolutely gorgeous breathtaking and you know what it is when you hear it you know it's one of the again one of those melodies that is just we kind of all know a little bit somehow and then um a few years later one of his students actually uh wrote lyrics william arms fisher i believe is his name he wrote lyrics to um that one movement of the symphony it's a great piece of americana music that is quite a statement of faith absolutely it's about it's about going home about this place is temporary and one day i'll close we'll close our eyes and open them in our heavenly home i love it and i love the way you sing it david thank you

Channel: Gospel Tuber

Views: 34,955

Rating: 4.9089317 out of 5

Keywords: Bill Gaither, David Phelps, Gaither Homecoming friends, Google, Christian Artists

Id: hxZ8vgNlbOQ

Length: 12min 17sec (737 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 27 2021