Search - Various Artists :: Common Ground: Country Songs of Faith

No matter if one is a true believer or an disbeliever, the pleasure of listening to religious music is hearing someone proclaim his or her faith with genuine passion. Whether it's Ralph Stanley singing high and lonesome about his Christianity or Mahalia Jackson wailing low and powerful about hers, whether it's Bob Marley crying in a Jamaican patois about Haile Selassie or Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan singing in Urdu about Allah, the best religious music shares the contagious, thrilling conviction that the singer's god is the most important thing in his or her life. And that passion is too often missing from "Common Ground: Country Songs of Faith, Love & Inspiration," the new anthology of gospel songs by country stars on the Sony labels. --Geoffrey Himes