NewSong serenading Conway

NewSong never has outgrown some special shoes it wears, especially to sing every Christmastime.

The gospel group will finish its “Beating Hearts Tour” with a free concert this weekend in Conway, before joining other artists for the “Winter Jam Tour” out west into mid-November. Then the group will headline another lineup for its “Very Merry Christmas Tour,” including three eastern Carolinas stops Dec. 3-5, benefiting Feed the Children charity.

Maybe best known for “The Christmas Shoes,” which spurred a book series and CBS movie at the start of the century, NewSong will give a free concert at 7 p.m. Sunday at Langston Baptist Church, 763 S.C. 905, Conway. Look for two former “American Idol” finalists, too: Mandisa, and Danny Gokey, from the Fox TV series’ fifth and eighth seasons, respectively.

Speaking by phone Friday from the Midwest, one of the NewSong’s co-founders from 35 years ago, Billy Goodwin called himself “the old guy with the beard.” He still marvels at how a last-minute addition to the band’s “Sheltering Tree” CD in 2000 opened new doors to grow its audience, never mind that part evolved over three years.

Goodwin said a disc jockey friend would read aloud every year on the radio a story about a girl wanting to give a special pair of slippers for her dying mother, and listeners loved this recounting. Encouraged to compose a song about this, two group members – Eddie Carswell and Leonard Ahlstrom – later followed through, and although production of “Sheltering Tree” was about done, an idea of closing the project with this “bonus” song was broached to the record company, and NewSong delivered it within the week’s deadline granted.

Goodwin also said that singing lead on that and coping with tears, the recording in the studio “took me several times to get through.”

With the yuletide period of the year approaching, release of “The Christmas Shoes” as a single moved meters way beyond radio stations with Christian formats.

“This is not something we had set out on,” Goodwin said, “for marketing this into a hit song.”

This extra, 12th track for the album spurred a series of bestselling novels by Donna VanLiere with such other titles as “The Christmas Blessing” and “The Christmas Hope,” and soon, a request from CBS resulted in a TV movie with Rob Lowe and Kimberly Williams-Paisley.

“It goes on and on,” Goodwin said, noting how NewSong started its annual Christmas tour “all because of that one little song.”

“The best thing for us,” he said, “was it opened up an entirely new audience to our music.”

With airplay of “The Christmas Shoes” on mainstream radio, Goodwin said, people would say, “Who did this song, and where can I get their music?”

Midway through the group’s fourth decade, Goodwin aligns its longevity with reaching people as connecting through ministry, which “keeps us going” and “keeps us relevant.”

Grateful for divine inspiration, Goodwin said, “He’s not slowing down” with “giving us opportunities.”

NewSong continues promoting its latest CD, “Faithful,” a live recording released this year by Infinity Music. Goodwin said the group – Georgia Music Hall of Fame inductees with members living in Atlanta and Nashville – has performed in all 50 states and more than a dozen other countries.

Long after the Soviet Union broke up, but long before Russia’s recent meddling in eastern Ukraine, NewSong brought home memories from a visit with a missionary group’s members to the national university in Kiev.

“They brought us along as a singing group,” Goodwin said, “to tickle people’s ears for music.”

On that Sunday, “we set up our sound system and just started playing music,” Goodwin said.

“People in buildings started raising their windows, wondering what was going on, and they came outside from the dorms.”

Soon a big crowd, Goodwin said, “was intently listening to the music, with no clues of what we were saying.”

With a short message from a translator in that land where Ukrainian and Russian are spoken, the attendees were asked for their impressions on NewSong’s music, and “the crowd went nuts” in praise, Goodwin said, never forgetting how music remains its own language, a tool to help people connect.

“People are the same everywhere,” Goodwin said, noting that everyone copes with problems, questions, fears, and so on, but that music and faith can assist in the process.

Hearing and reading notes from folks who explain how they’ve turned their lives around or in a new direction, say from suicidal thoughts, or rebounding from a personal tragedy, Goodwin said NewSong likes its part in staying positive with its message through melodies.

“It’s amazing that God still lets us do this,” Goodwin said. “That’s what motivates us.”

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 1:00 AM with the headline "NewSong serenading Conway."