Riverside Country

Brad Cotter: Fingerprints Of Faith
By: Beth Raebeck Hall

Brad Cotter sees the hand of God in everything he does. Nominated this year for the Christian Country Music Association’s Entertainer of the Year ICM Awards, it is an honor that still amazes him. “I am humbled by this honor and honestly don’t have a clue as to why it’s happened” he said recently during an interview for Power Source Magazine. Having been told all of his life he was “blessed with talent,” it is refreshing to find this lifelong entertainer filled with wonder at his nomination.

Cotter’s single, “God’s Fingerprints,” is the first release from his Adobe Road Records CD Continuity, and was produced by veteran singer/songwriter Gary Cotton. It’s a song that personally resonates to the very foundation of Cotter’s soul, who began his musical career as a Gospel-singing prodigy at age 9. The song was “a gift” says Cotter. He had no idea he would find such a song, one that he feels was especially written for him.

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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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John Sines, Jr.: A Living Testimony
By: Vickie Gardner

John Sines Jr. is a living testimony of how God can miraculously turn lives around with blessings they never imagined possible if they will only seek Him in all that they do, have faith in the love He has for them, and seek His guidance. As humans, we often get lost or sidetracked with our busy schedules in everyday life, which equals relying on ourselves instead of Him.  Inevitably, this often becomes our downfall.  As you read John’s story, the fact that God’s grace, love, forgiveness, and mercy is available to those who truly seek Him is evident.

John had grown up in a household that believed in God but didn’t always practice Christian values. His parents played in a Country band so it was only natural that John began performing at age three. By the time he was 14, he was writing, playing guitar, and had started his own band.

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CrossCountry The Band: A New Perspective
By: Leo Johnston

per·spec·tive [per-spek-tiv] -noun  a view of things (as objects or events) as the true relationship or relative importance.

In 1992 CrossCountry ministries was born out of a desire to use the gift of music to share God’s unconditional love through His Son Jesus Christ with the world, and Christian Country music was the format God had directed us to accomplish this task. After ten years of patience and perseverance despite undesirable circumstances and opposition in many areas, much progress was made for the Kingdom. After several CD projects, making the decision to move to Nashville, giving up my job for full-time ministry, and starting an Independent music company, everything seemed to be going and growing beyond our expectations. Our perspectives of what God had called us to do had never seemed clearer. But, something was about to change in my life and nothing could have prepared me for what was to come.

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