Ford's Faith

"The name recognition, the association with Blackwood, got the record listened to," the gospel singer says. But Ford, whom Blackwood once called his favorite contemporary tenor, is well on his way to becoming a musical legend himself.

Produced on an independent label, Art Greenhaw Records, and also featuring The Jordanaires and The Light Crust Doughboys, the album won in a category that included such famous names as The Charlie Daniels Band and the Oak Ridge Boys. Although honored to be nominated, Ford, who seems genuinely modest, says he never suspected he would win. He was traveling home from a performance when he started getting calls of congratulations. Ford notes that Blackwood won nine Grammy awards when he was alive. "When I got home I told my wife Sherryl, 'He just won his 10th Grammy and shared it with us,'" Ford says.

A recording artist and minister who has performed in almost every state and more than 20 foreign countries, Ford is familiar to viewers of the popular Gaither Vocal Band Southern gospel videos. His solo recordings include his recent CD Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs and the video Home to Ireland. A Christmas album with family and friends includes his daughter, Amy Ford Cochran, and old pal Larry Gatlin. It's quite a career for someone who once gave up a career in music altogether.

When Ford isn't touring, he's likely to be recording, although he says his family (which also includes five sons and two grandchildren) is his first priority. It's quite a life for someone who once gave up a career in music altogether. A native of Lubbock, Texas, Ford released his first record when he was a teen-ager. After studying music in college, he joined the Dixie Echoes, a gospel group in Pensacola. Then he met Sherryl, a Southwest Florida native who was also a gospel performer. Usually low-key and deliberate, Ford gets animated when he's talking about the subjects that inspire him-his religion, his music, and most of all, Sherryl. After he and Sherryl began their family, the couple left the music business and Ford became and became a pastor at churches in Texas and Florida. Then he got a call from James Blackwood.

A member of Blackwood's group was ill, and the singer asked Ford if he would step in. Ford said he'd help out until they found someone else.

"One month ended up being two, and two months ended up being three and four, and then a year. Nine years later, I was still singing with them," Ford says. When Blackwood was in frail health, Ford accompanied him to the taping of one of the first Gaither videos. Producer Bill Gaither wasn't familiar with Ford's work, but plenty of the Southern gospel stars at the taping were, and they urged Gaither to invite him onstage.. That was more than a decade ago. Today his taped appearances and live concerts draw heartfelt fan mail to his office near downtown Fort Myers.

As widely known as he is, Ford is not the only famous member of his family. Brother Bruce, a seasonal Naples resident, is an opera tenor whom the BBC calls "one of the finest singers of his generation." Larry, an opera buff himself, says, "We've gone in such different directions, musically, but when I go to London, people ask me if I have a brother who sings in the opera, and when he comes to Dallas or Chicago, they ask him if he has a brother who sings gospel music."

Although he loves the traditional Southern gospel that he and his brother grew up singing, Ford enjoys working with newer and more vocally challenging material. Currently he is rerecording his latest CD in Spanish, his concerts in South and Central America having let him know there is a market for such work. His latest release, available this month, is We Are America, recorded after Ford's performance of the Star Spangled Banner at a Boston Red Sox spring training game in Fort Myers led to numerous requests for a recorded version. "It's patriotic songs with spiritual overtones and spiritual songs with patriotic overtones," he says. "We want to find a way to reach out to the crowd that might not hear us in church."