Joanne Brokaw: March 2009 Archives

Join me tonight as American Idol's Top 9 perform live. Rumor is that the contestants chose from a list of the top songs downloaded on iTunes. That means the music will be super current and could be all over the genre spectrum.

Join me here live tonight as Danny Gokey, Kris Allen, Scott MacIntyre, Megan Joy Corkrey (note: is she going just by Megan Joy now?), Lil Rounds, Allison Iraheta, Anoop Desai, Adam Lambert and Matt Giraud perform!

7:55 PM - I have to confess: for the past 1/2 hour I've been curled up on the floor with the new puppy and I really didn't want to get up to start typing during Idol. Usually I'm pretty excited during the final weeks of Idol, but when watching the show becomes your job it kind of takes the fun out of it. OK, it's really the new puppy. But tonight might be a good show. If in fact the songs the contestants can choose from are top downloaded songs from iTunes, we might see some interesting performances.

By the way, have you checked out the pics of the Idol Top 10 contestants as kids? They're cute. See if you can guess who's who without looking.

8:00 PM - here we go! Whoa, they did up Scott's hair tonight. Looks like it's got a lot of mousse or spray in it. That must stink to not be able to see what the stylists are doing to you. Last week they put him in those stupid flesh colored pink pants and didn't tell him until 10 minutes before he went on.

The Gospel Music Channel launched a new show this past week, "Revealed." The show features a single artist or group performing in front of a live audience in an intimate, acoustic-like setting where they perform songs from their latest albums as well as past favorites and hits, and share personal stories, inspirations, writing experiences and memories behind their music.

The show debuted with Third Day last weekend; you can catch an encore performance on Thursday April 2. Then on April 4, the show features Jars of Clay, and on May 2, Israel Houghton.

For more about "Revealed" visit the Gospel Music Channel website.

Congrats to rock band Downhere, who took home a Juno Award for Contemporary Christian/Gospel Album of the Year at the 2009 Juno Awards. The Juno Awards are the Canadian equivalent of the Grammys.

The above video is a live performance the band did in the studio of 105.3 while the band was on tour with Shawn McDonald last year.

You can learn more about Downhere on their website.

Reuters reports today that some of secular music's top acts -- among them Queen Latifah, Jon Bon Jovi, Joss Stone and 3 Doors Down -- join together on the gospel album, "Oh Happy Day: An All-Star Music Celebration." The EMI Gospel/Vector Recordings collection will be released March 31 exclusively at Wal-Mart.

For 3 Doors Down, singing about their faith isn't an issue. 3 Doors Down lead vocalist Brad Arnold tells Reuters, "It's something that we'd never really done before, and it seemed like it would be a lot of fun. It seemed like it would also be a challenge because we'd never really recorded that style of song." He adds, "We all grew up in church and we're all Christians. We were happy to do it. There was no discussion at all of whether or not we should."

The band performs the song "Presence of the Lord," backed by Soul Children of Chicago, a nondenominational community choir. According to a press release posted on several of the artists' MySpace pages, the track listing for the album includes:

1. Jonny Lang & the Fisk Jubilee Singers "I Believe"
2. 3 Doors Down & the Soul Children of Chicago "Presence of the Lord"
3. Robert Randolph & The Clark Sisters "Higher Ground"
4. Jon Bon Jovi & the Washington Youth Choir "Keep the Faith"
5. Al Green & Heather Headley "People Get Ready"
6. Mavis Staples & Patty Griffin "Waiting for My Child To Come Home"
7. Michael McDonald & the West Angeles COGIC Mass Choir "Storm Before The Calm"
8. Angelique Kidjo "Redemption Song"
9. Aaron Neville & the Mt. Zion Mass Choir "A Change is Gonna Come"
10. Queen Latifah & Jubilation "Oh Happy Day"
11. Joss Stone & Buick Audra "This Little Light Of Mine"

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The Abilene Reporter News reports that on April 5th CCM artist Ray Boltz will perform at the second annual "Palm Sunday at the Paramount," sponsored by Exodus Metropolitan Church. The concert is at 4 PM, and Boltz is inviting singers to join him on stage in the community choir.

At 10:30 that morning, Boltz will also perform a mini-concert before the screening of the Lifetime movie "Prayers For Bobby." The film tells the story of a "1970s religious suburban housewife and mother who struggles to accept her young son Bobby being gay." The film is based on a true story about a young gay man who commited suicide.