Christian rock artist David Crowder’s last CD, A Collision, was promoted as a mixture of different styles including bluegrass. The recording did feature banjo on several tracks and one of the tracks could even be considered a bluegrass gospel standard. A Collision landed at #2 on the iTunes Music Store and #39 on the Billboard 200 only one day after its release. B Collision is an 8 track follow up featuring many of the same songs, but more acoustic in nature and with a couple of live tracks added.
I recently became aware that his newest book features a cover very similar in design to the CD artwork for B Collision and bares the title of one of the tracks, Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven, But Nobody Wants To Die
Eschatology is a theological term meaning:
concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul
Yeah, bluegrass deals with that subject a bit. A lot actually. In the description of the book offered on Amazon.com the following statement caught my eye.
Drawing from personal experience, Christian theology, the science of pain and the “high, lonesome sound” of bluegrass music, Crowder applies his often hilarious voice to an inspiring message‚Äîdeath is not the ultimate calamity … it is just the beginning.
Now bluegrass is a basis for theological discussion. We bluegrassers knew all along that this music was deep, now the rest of the world is figuring it out.
I’ve not read the book myself, David if you’re reading this feel free to send a copy along, but Kristen over at Portraits of Rambling Thought has.
They talked about how bluegrass is the music of grieving and broken people. It’s a music that understands the weight of the world – that the vessel the soul is held in is too small and the world itself is broken. Bluegrass bemoans that fact that this world is not as it should be‚Ķ it’s raw and real music and the people who play it are as well.
How true that is. Bluegrass people are some of the most real people I’ve ever met. Not much phony or fake about them. And the music is packed with raw emotion that tugs at your heart. Just listen to Monroe, Martin, Sparks, or McCoury and you’ll feel it grabbing you. I love it.
