(Photo :The McKameys)

Jesus has never written a book.  He has never travelled overseas.  He has never held an office.  He has never been awarded a baccalaureate degree.  Yet, he has inspired unschooled barbs to write about him with such waxing tenacity that after a couple of a thousand years, their works are still bestsellers.  Not only that, countless tunesmith have crafted songs about Jesus.  After two thousand years, they have still not exhausted the sounds that can come out of the eighty eight keys of the piano.  Likewise, the McKameys have been singing about Jesus since 1954.  Sixteen number 1 singles and forty nine albums later, they still are singing about the incomparable name.  This is because if you sing about Jesus you will never run out of a song.  "A Song Every Day," the McKameys' forty ninth record to be released on June 18 2013, is a Jesus besotted album where every song is about him.  Just like all their preceding albums, this is a classy and no nonsense album.  On this new release, four of McKameys' member Sheryl Farris originals are seamlessly folded with Southern Gospel favorites in an ordered origami fashion making this one of their most cohesive album centered on Jesus.   

One of the ways why "A Song for Every Day" brims with vitality is that the McKameys never strays far away from singing the pulse beat of the Gospel.  This is evidenced in the Farris' penned "A Hill Worth Dying On."  A re-telling of the significance of Christ's death in this string-laden orchestral ballad; listening to how the intensity is built to such a glorious apogee is itself a worshipful experience.  Not only is the victorious triumph of Jesus at the Cross celebrated, the McKameys go on to sing about the teachings of Christ.  "The Beatitudes Song," formerly popularized by the Steeles, is a tad out of the office where the words of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount" is set to music.  Mercy Well's "More Like Jesus, Less Like Me," on the hand, has a clappy joyous disposition that is quite infectious with a sing along chorus.

Another plus with this record is that the McKameys do not just expound Biblical truths about Jesus in their songs they also take the extra step of applying those truths to us.  Take "That's Just like My Jesus" as an example, in the first verse and chorus they narrate the Biblical story of Jesus' encounter with the leper.  But by the time the second verse starts, they have made the hermeneutically bridge to our world and asking if we have the faith to believe Jesus just like the leper. "He Can" is another excellent example of how the McKameys apply Biblical truth to our lives.  "He Can" tells the story of a despondent protagonist returning home to her aging grandma sitting on her porch.  Asking her grandma through her tear-stained eyes whether Jesus can still perform miracles, her grandma simply responds with two words "He can."  This is faith-building story-song at its best.

No album about Jesus is ever complete if it doesn't avail opportunities for us to worship. "You Have Been Good" is a sensitive prayer of worship to God that is gentle, ruminative and sweet.  "I Sing A Song" has a more traditional quartet feel that will get Southern Gospel purists elating in joyous praise.   All in all, when you have a record where Jesus Christ is at the cynosure, it's hard to fault it.  More than that, the McKameys have also taken the extra step to relate Jesus to us on a carefully woven album that really brings out the name of Jesus in his most beautiful arrays.