attempted “ Christmas Shoes ”. You pegged it . It ’ s like “ Christmas Shoes ” has got that story that ’ s happening and then the twist at the end . That song was probably the first one out of the gate when I had ideas about the album . It was probably “ Elf Song ” and “ I ’ ve Heard About You ”. Those first two I started talking about and thinking about . And those are very different ideas that I just wanted to start by letting people feel what the holiday season is all about … and then bring it to the manger .
[ WM ] Well , I hope your record label has some success in getting that onto mainstream country because it ’ s definitely worthy of it . The quality , the tone , the vibe , and the love . Just like I said , the outreach of evangelism of it . It ’ s a deserving tune I pray it goes big for you in lots of places .
[ Crowder ] That means a lot to me coming from you . And man , Jerry McPherson on the guitars on this record …
[ WM ] There you go . The guitar playing is just stellar here . I was going to ask you who it was .
[ Crowder ] Jerry McPherson is a beast . He ’ s been a part of a number of things I ’ ve done . The fun part for me was the musicality of it . For Christmas music , you can use broader strokes and get to go to more playful things . Things I love that maybe don ’ t fit the contemporary liturgical music scene as readily . And so , man , that the musicality of this album was just ... it was like every song we ’ d get to , my mind would be like , “ Oh , this is my favorite ”. I said that probably eight times throughout this album because we ’ d get something back from Jerry and I ’ m just like , “ Gosh , that tone is insane ”.
[ WM ] Well , a lot of people don ’ t know it , but Jerry McPherson has been a Christian session guy in Nashville for years and years . And he played on a lot of Christian albums when they had no budget for Christian albums . He toured with Amy Grant for years and he ’ s half-crazy and the other half-nuts . Super fun . I don ’ t know if you noticed that about him as well . But he ’ s a wonderful guy and his sense of tone is spot on just all throughout this record . It ’ s amazing .
[ Crowder ] I love him !
[ WM ] Right on . So I want to jump to the next thing here . Your narrated interludes range from wacky to worshipful , and the music bit under it , as we talked about , is terrific .
Photo courtesy of the Dove Awards
Then you segue into ‘ elf awareness ’, which is one of the funniest play-on-words I ’ ve heard in a while . You and I both like wordplay . So tell us about the “ Elf Song ”? If you don ’ t get invited to sing this song at the Grand Ole Opry , I ’ m going to go protest outside for you . Because this is your ticket to Opryland .
[ Crowder ] That ’ s hysterical . I ’ ll take that , man . We ’ re actually playing there on December