Riverside Country

Mike Purkey: Music And The Man
By: Kirk Ruchotzke

Mike Purkey has always loved Gospel music, especially Southern and Christian Country — It’s in his roots. As an Oklahoma boy growing up in a strongly Pentecostal family, church and Gospel music were everything. He would lie for hours on the floor of his home in Claremore, listening over and over again to Southern Gospel and quartet music, dreaming of the day he could begin to travel and sing the Southern Gospel circuit.

Blessed with a “gift” to sing, as a teenager he joined his parents’ group, The Journeymen Quartet, and traveled to churches and revival meetings throughout Oklahoma. He also sang in several other groups in those teen years, but his life was about take a major change. At age 18 he felt the call of God to full-time ministry and married his sweetheart, Mary (now his wife of almost 37 years). After short stints as youth pastor in Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and associate pastor in Panama City, Florida, he took to the road in full-time evangelism, singing and preaching at youth camps, churches, and revival meetings all around the country with Mary (also a gifted organist in her own right) at his side. There were a few mostly forgotten LPs and 8-Track music projects produced during this time and sold at his meetings, helping to put food on the table. In between the traveling, there were senior pastorates in Nashville, Tennessee, and Evansville, Indiana, and then more years on the road.

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Jonathan Sherrill: A Mission Takes Flight
By: Vickie Gardner 

There is a promising new artist on the Christian Country scene and the industry is taking notice.  I have been impressed with Jonathan Sherrill from the beginning so I decided to dig a little deeper to find out what this 24 year old is all about. Make no mistake, this Christian Country artist is one to watch.

Jonathan was raised in church and grew up in a small fishing village in Horseshoe Beach, Florida. Both sides of his family were musically inclined, and Jonathan’s mother always encouraged him and his sister to sing in church from a very early age. Jonathan says, “I began playing guitar and singing at age ten, but I have to admit, I was a little shy in the beginning and really didn’t want to do it.” Because of his mother’s prodding, Jonathan developed a very strong interest in music and readily admits he gives his mom a lot of credit for where he is today.

Country music caught Jonathan’s attention more than any other style, and he grew to love it! Jonathan says, “I was drawn to it. I think mostly because I didn’t have to listen to it ten times to understand what it was saying. I loved the stories behind the songs and you can’t beat a good ole steel guitar and fiddle crying out on a chorus of a sad or happy song.”

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This is our September Top20 countdown show! Click here for full chart results.

Here are your top songs in Christian Country, Country Gospel, and Positive Country music for the month of September, 2007. Tune in the last week of every month to hear our countdown show and return here to see all the final results!

(Chart compiled in part using data supplied by CMW.)