Gospel Music Association

So I learned both the good and bad of the music industry.

I was eventually invited to be on the Gospel Music Association board, which that's the association that does the Devil Words.

So I did that in two terms,

and it just really validated to me that Christian music and we call worship music a bit different here.

Now, here's a piece of music trivia.

One Day at a Time was originally recorded by a gal by the name of Marilyn Sellers in 1974, and before it became a hit record for Christy Lane, the song won the 1975 Gospel Music Association Dove Award for the best song.

Sweet country music.

I

Okay.

He said, "It's anybody and anybody you wanna be in front of in the Gospel Music Association."

Yeah.

But again, it's 14 people.

It's around a table.

The s- uh, president of the Gospel Music Association introduces me.

"Here's a Christian who's actually funny."

Oh.

Yeah.

I guess it's not really a tangent, but circling back, I don't envy the position of, of the Gospel Music Association in 2026 on how to get all of that into something that is a relevant biblical celebration of Christian art.

Because 20 years ago, you could pretty much, and we've had this conversation, we've done music leagues, you could pretty much work out what is Christian music, who's on a Christian label, you know, who's being promoted, blah, blah, blah, blah.

In this day and age, what is a Christian artist? Who is a Christian artist? Is an artist who used to release music to Christian radio who no longer, who is still a Christian but makes music for a mainstream audience, are they then eligible for doves? Are they not eligible for doves? What constitutes celebrating Christian art? Is it the fact that you're just a Christian? Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

This was the, uh, Gospel Music Association's Dove Awards last week, you and, uh, you and Natalie Grant there.

Yeah.

I also heard recently, uh, Amy, that the, the song that a lot of folks came to, to know you by was v- this Baby, Baby, Baby.

it's kind of cool.

Remember the Gospel Music Association used to have these regional – conferences you know yeah and then they would have the songwriting contest and the spotlight contest and then the winners of that would come to nashville at gma we can compete and uh and it was john mays and reed arvin i remember and a few other like industry professionals would would come to orlando for example and spend a weekend teaching people about songwriting or performance or I don't know, helping them get their heads around the Christian music industry if you wanted to be an artist.

And it was a huge resource for a college kid like me who had no idea what to do, you know? And I remember coming to Nashville and...

We didn't have any money, but Jamie, my wife, let me spend the money to register for the gospel music conference, whatever.

So it's a joyous music.

I remember one time I worked pretty closely with the Gospel Music Association on some things, and they had a Songwriters Showcase during Gospel Music Week every year.

It would be from all genres.

So all genres would be, I'm always a Southern Gospel guy, so that's why I was on the committee.

It was just straight-up, big-time music.

Up-tempo Southern Gospel Quartet.

They had to sing an encore twice because that CCM artist at the Gospel Music Association, audience, I'm sorry, not artist, audience, probably five or six hundred people there.

Went crazy over it.