Bill Gaither LIVE with special guest Amy Grant on June 10, 2020

hey amy it's good to see you my friend what fun we've been really isolated here so this is like hi [Laughter] you know what i'll be honest with you there's a side of me that loves that and if you're going to be isolated i i told gloria the other day i said you know if we got to do this the old sociologists in college were right when they said marry your best friend because oh yeah because at this stage she and i are having a ball we we you know we we read books we like to watch the movies we like to talk we like to have arguments we we like to go outside together you know so if if you're going to be hunkered down you might as well be hunkered down with somebody you enjoyed being with right yep amen brother yeah vince and i have had the kind of the unexpected experience of having our youngest karina come back you know so college her freshman year college was cut short and went online and you know she was the last i just stretched out motherhood as long as i possibly could i made early morning breakfast for 32 years just because i spread my kids out and i i mean i cried so hard when she left for college and then we adjusted and i told vince well now i'm just used to her company again i'd have to cry all over again when she leaves but it's really been um you know if you're not on the the front lines of this um pandemic you know it it is the heat of battle on the front lines but those of us that are helping by sheltering at home it's a totally different experience i've never been so aware of the weather i've never been i've never anticipated the the garden ever like i have this year we have an old garden in our side yard the footings are back they were set in place in the 1920s and we've added to it over the years so i don't do a lot of like annual planting it's just all things that come up that are in the ground and i yeah i mean i think there's there have been summer springs and summers that have come and gone and i never even had the time to notice one bloom and now every day i'm like okay what's blooming now and yeah it's just really um there have been parts of this that have been so beautiful the quiet the quiet part uh uh it really has and and every now and then gloria and i uh will say let's get in the car and of course we live in a small town so our says he's i heard a phrase amy that you that you'll like i think uh somebody said uh uh we're all in the same boat and and the fr and and the person said no we're not all in the same boat we're all in the same storm yes but we are all in different boats as far as getting out of it and i know and i'm very careful because our boat here is pretty nice we bought 20 acres back when we were teaching school we have our house here and across the creek from our house is a place that used to be my father mother-in-law lived there and they passed away we kept it as a guest house and then we've got another little place called an a-frame which is on the other side of the property that we built originally for the gaither music company office and and when we outgrew that we just kept that as a as a lodging place also and right before new york got shut down our amy was in new york and uh and and and knew this was gonna happen so she came with her family and they've been over in our creek house for two months oh my gosh and their son who's uh who just got out of uh college is staying uh staying in the other place and i said when i heard that expression we're all in the same storm but we're but we're not in the same boat i agree with that our boat is a pretty nice boat because the boat has brought together once again our our little amy that we value very very much but to have her there with her two two out of her three kids has really been pretty nice yes yes that bird's been nice beautiful i know and to get to see your grandson your grandkids up close yeah the one you know i'm constantly going so what do we do from the from a distance like this and um you know i mean obviously praying for people and a lot of us have our clocks our phone timer set for the same time every day and then i'm trying to um we've all gained weight here at our house the pantry distancing has been very tough isn't that fun though i know i know but it's funny because every time i go oh my gosh i just i need to go ride my bike i need to but i try to use things as a trigger a reminder to go if you're thinking about food or worrying that you've eaten too much then get online with the food bank closest to you and so you know it's like you use one thing that feels like something that you make you roll your eyes at yourself and go well let that be a reminder to reach out and help the people that are food insecure you know like it if you're aware of it it just feels like this constant oh yeah your jeans are tight hey get online and make a donation like just be aware of how your experience is maybe the other end of the seesaw from somebody else's because we we are all connected in this absolutely and so and you know i think that's why it's like yeah um so i just try to use those you know when i'm going come on girl i just use it as a reminder um to to engage with somebody that's in a different part of the storm somebody asked me the other day because you know as a kid one of the first play toys i had was a microphone i met i i took a wood wood stick and put a little object on it it's a microphone so i've always loved the microphone i'm a ham and i love to do what i do so somebody asked that they said do you miss do you miss doing what you do and i said you know to be honest with you i don't necessarily miss the performing part because i finally grew up somewhere maybe not all the way but i grew up a little bit and but i do miss the feedback from the people who are out there is it you know it's one thing for us to get in front of microphone with a camera and do what it is not the same when you sing a line i'm trying to think of something i am loved i am loved i can risk loving you for the one who knows me best loves me most and then teach it to them and have them sing it back i miss that part because you can't do that just with a microphone and a camera here you need live bodies who breathe and that part if you want me to be honest with you i at at two or three months i'm i'm beginning to miss some and i guess that's what the bible is talking about when it says forget not uh the business of assembling together forsake not assembling together because the assembly at that point i think i miss how do you feel about that it's so funny i was thinking about that that particular verse not too long ago um yeah just because gathering together and doing having shared experiences where it's whether it's singing a song sharing a meal but those gatherings that are encouraging are they're life-giving and life-sustaining and we have a we've got a backyard you know i mean vince and i've been here for 20 20 years and um the few times family has come over you know with social distancing and all that it's just been so we just feel like we look at each other like oh i just want i miss you everything feels precious and i i do love that yeah last time i saw you was at the uh at the devil awards mm-hmm that's right i saw you i i i came out there and i always wonder what in the world am i doing out there anyway so i come out and i see you and vince down there under front row and i said ah i got two friends out there that's right that's right that was great oh my goodness i thought that whole show was beautiful it was a great you know it's it's a different it's it's an ever morphing crowd an ever morphing family but it always feels like this crazy family reunion it just does you know what those uh those young kids could not be any more kind to me backstage i mean there's some young artists that that i probably should know their names and they're so kind and they come up and they say can i get my picture taken with you and after they leave somebody said do you know who that is you go the answer is always going to be no oh my gosh that reminds me vince is such a great mimic you know but he tells about um ralph stanley or no no no um who's the father of bluegrass music bill monroe bill monroe yeah bill monroe was being honored at some event either in new york or washington alongside the kennedy center along with frank sinatra and frank came up and told him said all these glowing things and then bill said uh now tell me something what do you what is it you do what do you do oh gosh i heard that i heard that sinatra was very kind and he said well well i try to sing mr monroe and uh and bill supposedly said that he's dead he can't defend himself but he supposedly said you're saying huh i bet you're good [Laughter] you know that there was a time in the hills and haulers when people lived unobserved and that you know to me that's really those i don't know where people could stew in their own juices unaffected by other people and other just unaffected by culture it probably develops some of the most unique and some of the most despicable um behavior yeah did you i'm sure you did did you watch the ken burns uh uh special on country music i did you know vince was a big part of that and so he was a wonderful player he is he is so believable on camera i mean he he and marty stewart i i i thought both were really stars as far as just being honest and telling it like like it was gloria and i watched all 16 hours really and and we were really into it for instance i don't know where i was when merle haggard was on the scene but he but i he was totally off my radar and when uh dwight joachim was quoting lyrics that he had written i was told you know how much i love songs i do yes i was totally unaware of this uh song that he'd written from a single dad's perspective we we understand songs from a single mom but i forget what her name was alice or somebody said alice alice please believe me yeah oh god yeah how does that song go holding things together holding things together you've been gone it's not an easy thing to do this job of raising children was a job something like it was a job that was made for two gloria and i were sitting there tears for each other yeah this is not fair yeah but but those guys they were so honest with with their lyrics i i've often said i think country writers peg the gospel better than a lot of christian writers do because i think i think christian writers think that they have got to get in king james verbiage and make sure that there's a scripture for ev every text but to me when i heard they baptized jesse taylor in creter cedar creek last sunday and and franklin county's got a whole lot more man i went now that is the case yeah yeah you know what i remember i remember a conversation with you one time and you talked about one of the most compelling um moments that was spiritual and i can't remember how you described it but it was a scene from all in the family with archie bunker do you remember telling this to me yeah okay i can't remember what the scene was but you were just talking about how truth comes at you from unexpected places what was what was that story what was that do you remember it archie and edith were meeting with two old married friends who had done well of course archie just had a regular blue blue collar uh job you know right and and they were meeting separately artie archie was meeting with with the husband down at the bar and they were talking about old times and and more than that they were talking about how successful he was they were getting ready to do to take a vacation to europe and they were doing a bunch of exciting things and archie was very kind i think inside he was wishing that he could lead that kind of a life and the more they got talking the guy finally said because archie's perception of their life was hey this is a great marriage they're having a lot of fun and finally the guy said uh we're splitting you know that and he said you're splitting yeah oh and more than that i think he kind of hit on the waitress and you know and and and he and this was all shocking to archie you know right so when they got back together the four of them never came up they just talked about other things and then that couple left and it was just archie and edith said boy they they've done it big time having it not knowing that edith and the wife was were were having the same discussion about their relationship and so did they say anything else no they didn't say anything and pretty soon archie put his hand over on edith's hand and looked at her and just smiled and the cameras came in close and here again gloria and i were sitting there and saying yes archie yes that's beautiful i can remember you uh back in the 80s for for about five or six seven years we had an annual retreat up in lake berkeley and uh and you were one of the major artists who every every year made that a priority we all prioritize yeah that was beautiful i loved those gatherings and uh the coming together of folks like that doing the same kind of thing i can remember one night we were out under a pavilion and when we started and we ate everything and we when we started it was still light and as the night went on uh the s and the sun went down it kept getting darker and there were no lights out there and we were singing under that pavilion and even with young kids sooner or later you go back to great old hemps people say why do you say go to him you don't sing them because they're old you sing them because they survived and they still speak and i can remember singing my sin o the bliss of this glorious thought my sin not in part but the whole is nailed to the cross and i bear it no more praise the lord praise the lord o my soul i remember milo fever was there with some of his young kids who had just found christ off the streets still had still had some street language you know but he was saying where did that song come from and at that time we also met another dear friend that i've stayed in close uh stayed in close touch with i know you have to dudley hall every time i think every time i think of lake barkley i think of dudley and such a wise man i know he's a beautiful soul he told me that you called him on a saturday morning um while he was having coffee and you said i am just imagining that with the passing of your dear wife betsy probably coffee on saturday morning is a tough thing to get through he told me that you had done called him and said that and i was your good friend bill i think you i think you were right too friendships are important i i and i may maybe as except when i was young friendships were and my friends were all over the place my friends were young when i was young but also i can remember some of my best friends were old for were old friends too i hate segregation of age from an age perspective in church i think we all we i think we all all be together young and old black and white tall tall and short i uh and especially when we worship i think i mean and uh in his yeah yeah history speaking of losses you were aware that we lost gary mcspadden in the last a couple months yes uh gary was a dear friend so i'm i i'm losing a little just too many friends during that now during this jonathan pierce thing with us and he passed away so really yeah i didn't i didn't know about jonathan and uh vince his best friend from childhood they they're friends since summer after sixth grade and then once vince was could tour actually with a a road crew his friend benny came alongside him and was the guitar tech and vince said i've never been handed a guitar on stage in the last 30 years that wasn't tuned up by my oldest friend and he passed away two weeks ago you know what i saw events gloria and i went down to see him at indianapolis a year ago at admiral a bad winter storm the thing was jammed out uh and and that must been that kid was handling was handing him guitars in like two feet two feet shorter than fence yeah they in fact he would say we were friends from the time that benny was taller than i said you know what was amazing uh uh we went out in the lobby before and after and these were the people in the lobby were the same people who came many of them were same people who came to our concerts you know and it was like one big old family and this was great i know uh he was a it was a good night it was uh it was a good night uh i had several speaking of friends and young friends and old friends uh you were good friends with minnie pearl right well i think she probably had a wide circle of friends but i did i met her when i was in the eighth grade yeah and and she knew my dad um and and anyway yeah and so i did consider her a friend and um there are people that knew her much better than i did uh chas corzine i mean i think they had lunch together every other week are you serious but oh he's he's got all the stories yeah um but she would drop me a note in the mail just i don't know once every few months i wish i'd saved them uh but it would just be i saw you on such and such you know just always one or two or three lines but just good job um keep smiling always love them you know always love your audience they'll love you back i mean it was just you know yeah and that peach-colored stationery i was like okay here's another note from minnie yeah she was a big part in the ken burns uh special on country music they uh they had a lot of clips from her of course they didn't have any current uh you know speaking parts but they kept referring to uh to her and her she was proud of who she was and and she was country before country was cool and so gloria and i found a whole lot of fun in watching that i've said i'm sitting at a studio that i first uh i heard a tune before i talk about that tune i can remember john thompson coming to me it was raining in nashville and i was in and i was in a a a little practice room somewhere and he came in he was drenching with rain and said i am working on a tune see see if you're interested in this and doing some something with it everybody thinks people like us know a big song a good song and that we are we are we are the ultimate source for stuff like that i can't tell you how many good ones that i didn't see coming along but he said i'm working on this tune i go there and when that when he did that to me [Music] it i i said yeah yeah it kind of sounds nice i you know i don't know where i don't know where it's going it was just a brief little thing but there was no there was no interest okay about two or three months later he got together evidently michael michael card which was a god thing because michael's theological background and his knowledge of the language and everything it was the right place to go and every after that every time john would see me and say bill you would listen to a new song i did that's great okay so i got a text so i recorded that song el shaddai in the fall of 1981 yeah so it came out it was almost 40 years ago yeah it's crazy that's amazing um yep and so i get um a text from my nephew who is in his 40s now and they were driving in a tiny town carthage tennessee and i guess came across a radio station that played christian music and he has a daughter named elle who's in grade school and this and el shaddai came across this recording and i was 21 when i recorded that i'm 59 now anyway and her brow just gets more and more furrowed and finally she said why is aunt amy saying l should die her name is l i know oh yeah it's amazing everybody thinks there's some kind of magic formula i look at most of my life and all the good things that happen i just have to say it was a god thing and i'm grateful for it i don't know why it happened you know i must have been listening on that day but what started it was i'm in this studio when i think of this there was a producer who had written a little song called you're just a fat fat fat little baby and and i listened to it and gary mcspadden i had a little publishing company in nashville and i called gary and they said gary i think i just heard a pretty good good good little song do you want to you want to hear it i said he said yes so so i i forget how i sent it to him today on mp3 it but i got i got it too and two days later he said you know brown bannister is looking for a lighter kind of a tune for a project for for your uh for your album el shaddai one yeah so so i wasn't listening to god on the day that john thompson came over but but with the fat fat fat little baby i guess i was listening on that day right i guess so yeah so my uh my first mother-in-law um eustis mary chapman had this prayer that she prayed every day and she taught it to me when i in the craziest time of my life you know i had young children work was bustling and i think i'm we met at the coffee pot one day and i was like i said i don't i don't think i have prayed a succinct prayer i'm doing overseas interviews in the middle of the night i like i can't i can't function and uh and she grew up in a different era you know the depression era so simple um in a tiny town in texas had nothing and um and she said oh amy it just takes one good prayer a day and of course my church of christ background i was like oh no that's not nearly enough working for god and i and she said um i said the one one prayer like you pray one prayer a day and she said well just the main prayer and i said well what is it and she said just pray lord lead me today to those that need me to those i need and those that need me and let something i do have eternal significance and she said that's that'll take you a long way and i just so when you talk about that like every i've been praying that prayer 30 years now and it's so funny because i'll be pumping gas at the gas just at the tank you know and somebody will be pumping gas on the other tank yeah and no kidding that goes through my head and i'll think do i need them do they need me but yeah i've actually yeah it's just like having your antenna up that everything is a possibility you know so that you that's you were living all that right there with with those songs you know i think one of the most important itches that we all have as human beings is do i matter like you know i don't think everybody would say it like this but i think there are days in everybody's life that they might say you know if i were to die tomorrow wouldn't make any difference i did a uh uh i i did a best of bev shea uh on his 99th birthday and what a delight i said yes bev you're 99 he said yes and if you turn it upside down i'm 66 you know but but but he and i love to get together and exchange lyrics of great hymns i would do like uh my sin or the bliss you know or or the things of earth will dim and lose their value if we'll recall they're just borrowed for a while and the things of earth that cause this heart to tremble remembered there will only bring a smile but until then my heart will go on singing until then with joy and and so then he'd quote back uh one one from his wesleyan background but one that we brought up that i have not heard many contemporary writers address this subject and it's what i call the subject of mattering do i matter and it is an old song written and he knew the writer in fact he said of course he did yeah he said bill did you ever meet the guy who wrote the over i could cross i said no i didn't is that crazy but but but there is an important song on mattering that goes does the place does a place you're called to labor seems so small and little known it is great if god is in it it will not forsake his own little is much when god is in it labor not for wealth or fame back to your mother-in-law's prayer that day labor not for wealth or fame there's a crown and you can win it if you go in jesus name i love that song and the vocal band wes sings that little west go little is much when god is that's great so i couldn't help but thinking of that on your mother-in-law's prayer lord today let something happen that i can make a difference in somebody else's life and that's an important one yeah it is yeah we're all connected gloria said they're only two prayers help me jesus and thank you jesus when i talk to karina just about the faith journey i say two rules one prayer and i got that from a friend of mine that had a wild life and then had a you know a life-changing experience i mean he won't even tell me all the stories from his young life but he was like i should have been dead many times but he said love god love others and really the crux of the lord's prayers forgive it doesn't get any better than making music loving god loving each other making music with my friends loving god loving each other the story never ends i love your song breath of heaven uh thank you do you still sing that i do i sing it a little bit lower than i used to but gravity yeah nothing like gravitation i know i know vocally and everywhere else [Laughter] oh yeah i love that song um you know the music was written by chris eaton dear friend and we've written a lot together and um and he let me rewrite the lyric it was actually a completed song and i don't even remember the original lyric but i just i just said please please let me rewrite this as a story song and so and he said yes and so um but i love that chorus it's just it's a prayer that applies to everything yeah and not just it was on a christmas album wasn't it yeah yes but but there are some songs like that that need to be sung uh the entire uh year around yeah yeah yeah years ago i think it was like 2006 i had done a collection of essays that was published together as a book um and anyway i was there was a bookstore maybe a borders books in manhattan and i was doing a kind of a q a it wasn't musical but it was just in kind of a side room in the borders bookstore and i was asking answering questions telling additional stories and there were three girls there and they asked if i would sing that song and i said well i'm i have no accompaniment and they said well we'll we'll help and i said okay and why this song it was you know it wasn't near christmas time and anyway but they had been four sisters and one had recently passed so i was like okay i said yeah we can sing this and you know you don't even know who is in attendance at something like that it's not big you know it was maybe 80 people and and on the other side of the glass doors you know it's just it's obviously like a conference room it's no no fee to get in there but just you know part of the borders book experience anyway um but i started singing and i mean there must have been some important singers in really good choirs who were also there that knew that song and the bass was filled in and they started oh they started oh my god i've never heard anything like that it was so it was just like i get choked up even thinking about it but it was it meant so much to those sisters and we just sang the chorus over and over again acapella yes and it was so rich and deep and then the the manager of the borders bookstore was like what the he said i've never had anything like this happen and that's where i love any any kind of like um any experience that without going we're about to have a moment that feels completely surrounded by the presence of god you don't even have to say that but it's just it's it's the way that that faith and creativity create an environment and when it happens that can be a rare experience for for somebody that doesn't frequent those kind of experiences and i mean i've had i've had concert promoters be out at the sound board going what's happening here i i've never felt anything like this or somebody from a bookstore and it's it's just to me i just i have so much confidence in that kind of gathering affecting somebody's life like making that somebody can experience going there is so much more to daily life than then we're led to believe you know it's like well if you can be if you can have this eyeliner or this organized closet or this you know we're just bombarded with sales all the time but somebody gets a taste of living water love the presence of god whether it's in a song or at a bookstore or just any show of compassion and kindness and i think people just go i want that what is that you know carmen had a song one time called i want some of that i want some of that that is christians i wish for all of us i am with you so much on that gloria and i have spent our lives and we've been criticized for it uh because we we haven't walked in the same and and i've been criticized a lot for the humorous stuff you know but it's it is what i have but there is no compliment that that that will get my motor running that an old truck driver coming up to me and not even look and doesn't hardly make eye contact but he said you bill gaither and and i say yes i am uh i i watch you and i watch you on saturday night and i'd say well thank you appreciate it he said now don't get me wrong i love this you know what's coming don't you i do yeah don't get me wrong i'm not religious or anything to which i say neither am i and neither it was the person it's the person that we sing about in fact the religious people of the time killed him yeah because he wasn't quote unquote really i love that compliment probably not as well as any cop because for that guy he doesn't want to see it all he doesn't want to see you perfect he doesn't want to see it all dressed up he doesn't he doesn't want to see all he just he just wants to know do you love me yeah am i welcomed at the table yeah yeah am i welcome am i welcome at the table we wrote a song one time it said there's always a place at the table and i had a friend who said is there a place for a doubter at the table i said sure thomas come right on in there's a place for everybody and i've and i've loved what you stood for for so long for that reason when i was a kid our sunday school class was downstairs in a basement a little sup pump in the side and there was a picture of jesus with his arms like this yeah that's a good image it is it's open you know and i believe that so much yeah me too me too and when and and when he says whosoever will i mean anybody to that old truck driver hey yeah yeah come on at me the water's fine come on in but i love your description because i've been there so many times when the guys say hey what happened yeah that's good we've been blessed have we to be able to do what we love to do for this long yep and and there's been a long-term uh friendship hey hey hey can i give you a joke for uh for you to tell events because every time we're together i i give him anything new that i think i would give you a joke from him but most of his are not repeatable okay okay the guys in walmart with this cart full of kleenex toilet paper cleaning supplies and everything and this woman sees it and she's out she's is outraged she comes up to him shaking her finger i can't believe you are hoarding during a time like this and yells and calling him names for about three or four minutes or so and when and she kind of wound down after all that and the little guy looked at her and said are you finished and she said yes i am he said would you mind moving over a little i got to stock this shelf that's great fighting the hand that feeds you [Laughter] amy you are a delight and uh it's just it's always a joy to spend some time with you and you've been very kind to give me to give me this time i know you got other things to do today so go and be blessed thank you so much it's great to see your face bill i have known you and loved you a long time and your family

Channel: Gaither Music TV

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Id: 24PzfDlJODU

Length: 44min 36sec (2676 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 10 2020