Thursday, February 02, 2012

Happy Birthday, George!

There's a delightful tribute to and interview with the singer George Beverley Shea on a website called Charisma News. I only discovered this because someone mentioned in a tweet that George was turning 103 on Wednesday (US time).

The piece doesn't give a great deal of information about George, but it does focus on his Christian upbringing, the way in which he wrote I'd rather have Jesus when he was only 23, and his time with Billy Graham.   What's delightful about the interview is George's sense of grace and his humility.   And his joy in life.

I used to hear his recordings when I was a child, on the request session on 4ZB, on a Sunday.  He would have been one of the most popular singers on the session, on which the same pieces often got played week after week.   The Robin's Return, and Remembrance, both played by Gil Dech, (who lived in my home town for a while) used to be immensely popular too, along with songs sung by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.

George had a long association with Billy Graham; the two names were almost inseparable at one time, and apparently they live in the same street in Montreat, North Carolina.

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