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xv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv I must begin by thanking my musical family and all the musicians I’ve played with over the years in many different bands and musical ensembles. Your passion for music has been a constant source of inspiration and delight. I have been surrounded by song-makers my entire life, so it is only natural that I finally came around to writing something that pays homage to your guiding light(s). I also want to thank Doug Knight and Volney Gay, codirectors of the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture at Vanderbilt University, for providing the generous three-year grant that made the Music, Religion, and the South project possible. In an age in which most significant grant funding is provided for the sciences, it was refreshing to be involved in a university center with a vision for the humanities, the social sciences, and the study of religion. I hope that as the financial climate improves, money will again be provided by the university for this kind of project. I also want to thank my codirectors for the Music, Religion, and the South project, Allison Pingree and Greg Barz, whose persistence and imagination never failed and who encouraged me to step out of the narrow confines of the Divinity School and engage the larger university as a scholar. I also wish to thank Vanderbilt Divinity School for bearing with me xvi — Acknowledgments in this project, and for the generous sabbatical to turn my research into this book. I wish to thank three students, all song-makers themselves, whose work with me has been inspirational over the past four years. First, David Perkins, who unknowingly has challenged me to bring my love of music to bear in my teaching and scholarship, and whose fully lived life, musical genius, and scholarly acumen have been both a model and an inspiration. Second, Jewly Hight, whose skill interviewing musicians and persistent generosity toward their life and work have shown me how to balance my often overbearing critical tendencies with a healthy dose of listening and appreciation. Finally, Sherry Cothran Woolsey, whose CD project memorializing the women of the Hebrew Bible, recorded in my studio as I worked on this book, became an actual laboratory for this entire writing project from start to finish. With students such as these in classroom and conversation, one cannot help but develop creatively as a scholar and teacher. Many thanks to Carey Newman, my editor at Baylor University Press, for his pivotal insights regarding my work. Carey provided a much-needed creative assist, encouraging me to turn this work outward from my native field of homiletics toward the larger theological guild. He also provided excellent counsel on the development of the logic and flow of this book. Finally, I once again must thank my wife, Annie, who puts up with countless hours of music blaring forth from my home studio, hosts musicians who tromp through the house with guitars, drum kits, keyboards, and other instruments at all hours of the day and night, and has learned to enjoy the life of musical fandom, going out regularly with me in Nashville to hear countless bands and songwriters and traveling to remote music festivals to sit at the feet of the masters. She has been a “rock ’n’ roll widow” many nights, and endured many evenings of helping me carry amplifiers, microphone stands, and musical instruments to and from musical venues of all shapes and sizes. It is a blessing to be married to someone who participates in my musical obsessions. ...

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