Cherie Brennan, Singer Song-writer, Lights Up Rocky River Church
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Rocky River threw open its doors the night of Friday August 24th to Cherie Brennan, the Florida-based Christian Inspirational songwriter and singer, for a concert previewing her new CD release ‘He Loves You a Lot.’
Seated behind a Yamaha electric keyboard, in front of the church’s pipe organ, the blonde, soulful singer, with a hint of country-western twang in her voice, wove a tapestry of stories and songs together for a 90-minute show that kept her audience both delighted and enthralled.
“It took me three years to complete this CD (her second) and there were many challenges and seeming obstacles in my path, but God sustained me at every turn,”` she said. “I have been incredibly blessed. I give credit to God, who, as always, has given me the music, lyrics, and the inspiration for singing, playing, and writing.”
Beginning the night with “You Lift Me Up’, a song about waking up to clouds of gray, but being lifted up by God, Ms. Brennan’s strong emotive voice filled the nave of the high-ceilinged auditorium.
Reprising most of the songs on her just-released CD, Ms. Brennan ended the night, appropriately enough as dusk darkened the church’s wall-to-wall windows, with ‘You Be the Light’. As with all her songs, the words and music were all her own: “You be the light, be the one, God is calling on today. You be the light, be the one, God is calling out your name.”
After the concert the line between performer and audience blurred as Ms. Brennan joined most of the crowd in the Sunday school for mingling, refreshments, and autographing CD’s.
“Our church was very pleased to be able to host a concert by Cherrie Brennan, who came all the way from Jacksonville, Florida,” said Richard Warsinskey, the President of the Board of Trustees of the church. “Cherrie’s music is very uplifting and you could definitely feel this during the concert. Her music makes you feel God’s love.”
Before emerging on the Christian Inspirational scene Cherie Brennan sang with pop bands in Boston and New York, and lived and worked in Los Angeles for more than six years.
“I made a living as a singer in a number of bands, all good, never famous,” she said. “I sang back-up for several famous people, but never found fame myself. I wrote a lot of songs, some of them good, but no hits.”
“I was trying to make it as a singer and songwriter, but it just wasn’t happening.”
By the mid-1990s she was married and a new mother, and her husband, Jack, had acquired a plastics manufacturing company in Cleveland.
“When I came to live here,” she said, “I decided I wasn’t going to write or play or sing. I had a young son and I thought that was all I needed to do, take care of my little boy.”
She devoted herself wholeheartedly to being a wife and mother, establishing her new home in Cleveland, and church-related duties and activities at the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Rocky River.
But, just when she had seemingly walked away from singing and writing, a life challenge brought her back.
“I turned to God for spiritual healing,“ she said. “Sometimes I had to pray for what seemed a really long time for the healing to come. But my efforts to know God better as ever-present love were met with success, and many of the healing solutions came to me in the form of songs.”
She had never considered recording after being away from singing and playing for more than ten years, but felt compelled to start writing music again.
“The music and lyrics just poured out of me,” she said.
“The words came from God, and I just wrote them down, and from that time I have just wanted to write music all the time, just for God.”
Ms. Brennan’s first CD was ‘You Are Loved’, the rebirth of her singing and songwriting career, and was released in 2007.
“It had become increasingly important to me to share this music with others in the hope that the message of God’s great love for us would bring the same kind of healing to others as it had to me.”
The recording featured a stirring rendition of the Lord’s Prayer, with an integrated spiritual interpretation by Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science.
Her new CD showcases the veteran gospel and country band pedal steel guitarist John Le Master, and as well as the lead guitarist Daryl Phenneger, who is currently on tour with Al Green, the Godfather of Soul.
“The direction of my music has changed a little bit,” Cherie Brennan said, “from inspirational pop to more of a country feel.”
‘You Be the Light’ is being released as a single in September to more than a thousand inspirational country radio stations. It is being promoted with a full-page ad in Power Source, the influential Nashville magazine started by the founders of Christian Country music.
The following month Cherie Brennan will be appearing in Nashville at the Inspirational Country Music Awards. Past winners include Johnny Cash, Ricky Skaggs, and Carrie Underwood. She will be showcasing two songs from her new CD, as well as participating in seminars and instructional classes.
“I am kind of excited about that”, she said
“I have many influences on my music,” she added, “but even though I do, I try not to sound or write like anybody else. Up to the point of my first recording, I had only sung on other artists’ CDs. Now when I write I don’t listen to anybody’s music.”
“I am always seeking fresh inspiration for new songs from thinking about God in new and different ways, and having fun doing it. I know in my heart that all my songs come from God.”
With God as her muse, Cherie Brennan doesn’t suffer from writer’s block or a lack of inspiration, as her audience was witness to at the end of the concert Friday night, giving her show a big round of applause, her songs both poignant and intimate, going straight to the heart and soul.