The message is that I was reminding myself and informing others of the fact that God has always been good to me. No matter what you're going through, God is always with us. Life is a journey.
Andrae Crouch
I love a song that will usher in the very presence of God. Then there's no Andrae; there's no fabulous band, there's no greatness of ours. I've had hundreds of concerts like that, and that's what I try to achieve.
That's all I want in life is to be remembered as a guy that really loved God.
Sometimes when God brings things into an individual's life, it makes them totally depend on Him.
Every day, we hear that somebody got saved to our music from all over the world. The music reaches people. It can encourage them. I feel like I have to do it because there's somebody out there who needs to hear the gospel.
If you can't prove it in words, it ain't gospel. Soul music is just an expression of the mind, but your spirit has to be made alive - that's the real part, the part that God speaks to.
Faith came by just believing God's word and taking Him up on His word.
When I finish a song, I thank God for bringing me through. You have to press on and know your calling. That's what I've been doing for all my life. I just went forward.
If I was sharp in every area, I might be too big-headed or something.
I started singing by default, I think. Because there was a guy in the group that thought the group wasn't going to ever be anything. And I was getting ready to record, and I'd never recorded my voice. It was always other people that I featured because I thought they did a much better job.
I think that some people still think that the formula other than gospel still is not strong enough to get that crossover appeal to people enough that they would play it all the time, or nonchurch people would accept it, but I disagree.
I'm a pastor. I say, 'Let the church say amen,' and that settles it. Everything has been said, you know; it's like we have to agree with God.
I have dyslexia, and I never did learn to read music, and I even had a problem in reading because everything was turned upside down, so I just had to draw from the lyrics and the voice that I would hear in my mind.
I've always wanted something that the message is meaningful to me. I think about all these diversified personalities, people, and countries that I play. I'm simple, and I want to be able to sing my songs to anybody.
The Winans have been some of my favorite people, and Marvin certainly has a real anointing when he preaches and sings; he's a great interpreter of my music.
Just the way my voice sounds now, it's always had this little hoarse thing to it. And I'd have to do vocal exercises to make my voice clear.
There have been times when we've been playing, and people who were sick were totally healed.
I write just knowing that I enjoy writing. But if I have to write, it seems like nothing comes. But when I go there for my own pleasure, the Lord might just give me loads of stuff all at once.
God can take anything we have, as long as we give Him the glory for it. He can develop it and make it acceptable in music for the people.
I think that if something's really good, and it touches that part of their heart that has been untouched, or maybe it has been touched but they never wanted to admit it, I think that when they get back to that, I think that we are still in a place that people enjoy it the way it's supposed to be enjoyed.
I was at a picnic, and there were a lot of songwriters. I remember praying, 'God I wish you would give me a song.' About five minutes later, my ears popped, and I saw everybody in slow motion. Nobody knew what I was experiencing.
I would imagine that most of my writing is done spontaneously. I had no intention of writing, and then I'll just walk through the house, and I'll hear this melody, and I'll turn on the tape players and go back to it later on. Some days I'll get 3-5 songs a day.
I'd never written a song before 'The Blood'; I didn't know it was going to be a song.
I love doing music, and I plan to do it until I die or as long as I can walk to the piano.
As long as God gives me the strength to still minister and create, I'll do it.
I do go back and listen to my songs. I'm biting my fingernails the whole way through, but I do listen. I have a lot of songs I've wanted to re-record just because of how advanced technology is and the different instrument sounds that I'm more experienced with.
I look at all my projects as a stair step to the next. My goal is to always get better and better.
My mother's father was Jewish, so she was very conservative. She liked little, pretty music-orchestral-type things.
Every single morning, I have a person sitting right there next to me in prayer with a tape recorder - and a song comes up every day.
People think that because people do religious stuff, that's all we're supposed to do. But with God's help, everything that He wants me to accomplish, I'm going to do it. It's all about pacing.
Some things that I write, you'll see a page with cartoon pictures or a drawing of a car - like a Ford - or a flag. I still do it on an occasion when a word is strange to me.
I was not influenced by any artists.
