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Growing up the son of a preacher, John Rich was taught the lessons of hard work and never giving up, how his father had to work multiple jobs to care for his family:
“My dad was doing everything, he was a night watchman at Amarillo National Bank, he was slopping hogs for the neighbor’s hog farm next door, giving guitar lessons, selling used cars, mowing people’s grass, detailing people’s cars, literally anything he could think of to make sure we didn’t go without, and we didn’t go without.”
Music was introduced into Rich’s life at an early age, and to no surprise it was by his preaching father. His dad would often preach at prisons, and if the prisoners weren’t in the mood to hear a message he would break out the guitar and sing for them:
“My dad started preaching when he was about 19 years old, and he never preached in the big churches, so there was never any salary really attached to anything he was doing. My dad’s more of a prison preacher. I never remember my dad without a guitar hanging around his neck. So, he preached in little churches or he’d preach in prisons or he would preach in the streets, wherever he was at, and one of his big assets was he could pull a guitar out and start singing because they might not want to hear him preach, but they wouldn’t mind listening to him sing for a minute…”
It was from watching his father that Rich developed his dedication to songwriting, a generational blessing that would eventually reach millions. These foundational principles of hard work, dedication and learning from failure have carried on through his life. The faith and values instilled in Rich, along with lessons learned during down years, have prepared him to deal with the virus of ‘wokeness’ infecting Nashville today:
“The wave of ‘wokeism’ that’s hit this country and especially the entertainment business, that made its way to Nashville. So, these artists are sitting there and they’re being told by their publicists, their managers, the heads of their record labels, ‘Hey, we know that you think these things about America that you’re against kind of all this woke stuff that we do,’ they don’t call themselves woke of course … ‘don’t even think about putting out a post that pushes against that, don’t you say xyz on your microphone on your stage, no you cannot record that song because it says this…'”
This restriction of freedom is what led Rich to release a song without a record label, publisher or marketing group. This individual effort saw him release his single ‘Progress’ on Truth Social and Rumble, and it rocketed to #1 on Apple iTunes’ world song chart.
The same censorship that is occurring in country music, once a bastion of conservatism, has made its way to the church as well. Pastors are being censored across all media platforms, as the biblical message that doesn’t conform to woke requirements is under attack.
Christians can learn a valuable lesson from John Rich, that when you stand up for the moral good and biblical principles, God honors that. God is bigger than all the ‘woke’ anti-biblical forces in the world today, and He will reign victorious when all is said and done. {eoa}
James Lasher is a Copy Editor for Charisma Media.
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