Let's try believing again

My dad loved country music -- Roy Acuff, Ernest Tubb and the like -- as well as Barbershop Quartets. But if there was any music that was the soundtrack throughout our house (other than the exotic sounds emanating from my brother's hi-fi and the Top 40 of WARM), it was this:

As white-bread as they come, this was my dad's go-to tune. I heard him sing it in church numerous times and with his gospel quartet, and he often spoke fondly of singer George Beverly Shea, who died yesterday at 104.

To me, Shea was the one with the girl's middle name who sang gospel music that had nothing in common with my ideas of the greats -- the Blind Boys and Soul Stirrers. Now they were gospel.

It took a while, but I finally came to realize that Shea was my dad's biggest inspiration.

And I guess that really counts for something.