For those unfamiliar with Jonny Lang, he is a phenomenal young blues guiatarist and vocalist. We went to see him this past week, and surprisingly, he sang some very Christian songs. First, he sang Stevie Wonder’s "Have a Talk With God." Someone from the crowd yelled afterwards "I just talked with God, and He says your number one!" Jonny laughed and replied "He doesn’t have any favorites."
Then, he sang a beautiful song I’ve never heard, something about "I can’t wait for our wedding day." It sounded like a groom longing for a bride, but the lyrics were "I can’t wait to see behind the veil, to see your face, to see your glory…" I looked at my wife, whose similar look asked "Did he just say that?"
Later, he sang what sounded like an old spiritual, which ended each verse in "I believe just what He said." The last verse he sang with much passion (like he does all of his music), singing, "Halelujah, halelujah, halelujah, I believe just what he said." It was really awesome. On the way out, I said to the person in front of me, "he sure sang a lot of spiritual songs," to which the person, probably a Christian, said "I liked it. Maybe he’s coming out of the closet."
Obviously, I wasn’t the only one surprised. Interestingly, those songs got the most applause from the crowd (besides his classics like Lie to Me). I know that blues has its roots in gospel, and so a lot of musicians play those songs with sentimentality and not true faith, but it was fun to hear such a great musician sing those songs.