Last weekend was the Strawberry Music Festival, which my friend Jill and her family have attended for years. Camping, music, community - she comes home and raves every year and I think, "yeah, we should go someday," and we never quite do.
This year her raving had to do mostly with Mike Farris, a gospel musician whose debut album, Salvation in Lights, dropped in 2007, won the Americana Music Award in 2008 for "New/Emerging Artist of the Year." Just after you hit play on the video below of him singing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," do what Jill recommended to me: "Close your eyes. You will hear a large African American woman singing her heart out." And that's exactly right.
By the way Farris' story is evidently one of redemption, in which gospel music is responsible for him cleaning up his drugging and drinking ways. After his performance Jill, who since college has starts to slur "I LOVE YOU GUYS" after half a beer and then goes home to sleep it off, met Farris and told him that even though she hadn't been drinking that night, she felt drunk from the power of his music. He high-fived my little teetotaler friend and said "I'm clean and sober too, way to go!"
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