A core member of Upper Room’ s worship team, Abby’ s new album, is just out. We had a nice visit with her recently as she prepares to take her songs and worship on the road.
[ Alex ] It’ s great to meet you.
[ Abbie Gamboa ] Yes.
[ WM ] Tell me, you’ re a Texan. Where’ d you grow up?
[ Abbie ] I live in Dallas now. I usually say I’ m from Waxahachie, which is a suburb just south of here.
[ WM ] I lived in Waco and Cedar Hill before I moved to Tennessee. So, I know Waxahachie.
[ Abbie ] When I’ m in Waco, sometimes I feel like I’ m not even in DFW. It’ s its own little world. But we’ re in Dallas proper now. My husband and I, we’ re maybe 10 minutes from downtown
Dallas, and this has been home for the last eight or nine years.
[ WM ] So, Texas has a huge contribution to the modern world of worship, and from all over the state, Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes, Chris Tomlin and Dave Crowder and the Shanes, Christy Nockels, Michael Bethany, the list goes on. Have you ever thought about this?
[ Abbie ] Yeah, I definitely have. Sometimes I forget how many friends in the worship space either are still living in Dallas or were originally from here. Anna Golden is a funny one. She and I have become good friends in the last couple years, and we see each other a ton outside of Dallas and we’ ll be like,“ Oh my gosh, it’ s so good to see you.” And they’ ll be like,“ Oh my gosh, we live in the same city.” Gateway Worship is another one.
[ WM ] One of the original gospel artists was a Black man. I think he was from the Teague area, His name was Washington Phillips.
[ Abbie ] Oh, yes. I know that.
[ WM ] There are some fabulous song videos recorded in the 1920s on YouTube. So, tell us about the Upper Room and your involvement there?
[ Abbie ] Yeah, it is my home church. It has been since 2013 or 2012. 2012 is when I first came. So yeah, over a decade it’ s just been home. Upper Room is a prayer room, and so we are a church, but our main function is morning, noon, and night … we have live prayer and worship. And so, I’ ve always just served in the prayer room. And around 2017, I believe, we started releasing moments, called them moments, from our church at Upper Room, and that’ s some of the YouTube stuff that people talk about and reference.
It’ s evolved over the years. The sound, the
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