Religion

Story by PATRICK BUTLER
Religion Editor

"When it gets tough down here
"When this old world brings you to tears
"Fix your eyes on the King with His strength you can face anything
"When it gets tough down here"

"Tough Down Here" By Jerry Hubbard from the album "Through God Alone."

Somewhere on a lonely, dark stretch of West Texas highway late at night, guitarist Jerry Hubbard, 40, said he felt the presence of evil. It was so close, he said, it made the hair on his neck go up and chills down his spine.

"It was like something telling me if I kept walking the path I was walking, something really bad was going to happen," he said.

The evil Hubbard felt that night 11 years ago was close enough "to be right in the back seat" of his car, he said. It was so strong he wouldn't even look in the rearview mirror.

"I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was afraid I might see something in the backseat," he said last week. "I didn't want to see it."

The road of life had come to dead end for Jerry Hubbard. He had a wife, Debbie, three young daughters and a long career in country music that was going in circles, not up as it was supposed to. Teaming up with his songwriting and singing wife, the pair had been playing dates for years in bars, halls, country reviews, and even a very well-paying - and very late night - gig at a casino in Reno, Nev. The family finally moved to Nashville to see what it would bring.

But all they saw were lives that didn't work, Hubbard said. They saw marriages that didn't make it, and that the price of fame was far too costly.

"I couldn't live in Nashville," he said. "I had to get my family out of there."

He brought his girls close to his relatives in East Texas. "It was safe and comforting here," he said.

From the Piney Woods, he still pursued his passion of making it in country music, doing gigs all over Texas. It was still a tough row to hoe for the family and a crisis was imminent, Debbie Hubbard said.

Now Jerry was traveling through a literal and metaphorical darkness during that West Texas ride. He was on his way to meet former band members broken down by the side of the road. They had called and pleaded for help.

He knew, as he drove the dark road, they would ask him to plays dates in San Angelo. They'd want him to play the lightning lead guitar licks he was so good at; to touch their audiences with the delicate tones he'd dedicated himself to developing as part of his ticket to the big time.

Hubbard had to decide. Debbie and the girls would be left behind as he hit the tinsel trail once again. He knew something was going to break, had to give and be discarded. As he turned the choice over in his mind, he said he could see nothing but a complete darkness on the road ahead.

"That's when the evil came on me," said Hubbard. "I don't know how theological this is but right there in the car I gave my life to Jesus. I gave my heart to the Lord. Right away I felt a great load off my life just like that," he said snapping his fingers. "The contrast was immediate and startling."

Hubbard was right when he met finally met the boys in the band by the side of the road. The leader of the group, drunk, pressured him to come along. Jerry already had something else to live for.

"I'm not going on the road with you," Hubbard said firmly. "Ever again."

There was a pause.

"Why, you've been convicted," the band leader said looking at a new Jerry Hubbard. The change was so obvious even the band could see it, said Hubbard.

In religious terms "convicted" can mean "spiritually sentenced for sins committed" or "convinced of the reality of Christ." Perhaps it was both for the man who would later sing on the family's 2006 "Living Proof" album:

"I've always been a guitar ringer,
"A honky-tonk and country singer.
"Now I'm a Jesus-praiser,
"I quit the neon bands."

Jerry came home to Debbie, Emmylou, 9, Lorianne, 4, and baby Jeri Lynn that night in a big way. He made a public profession of faith at a church the next Sunday. He fully gave up his musical career, got a day job and started going to church often with the family.

"Discipleship is a must for a new convert," he said. "Our church in Frankston did that for us. It was wonderful, and so were our teachers.

The church learning was a night-and-day experience, he said, and they had no thought of returning to their former lifestyle. When music finally did trickle back to the family, he said, it was from a completely different world view.

"God gave music back to us in a new way about a year after we got saved and went to church, church, church," he said. "Our songs were about what we experiencing; the grace, the mercy, the love of God, out commitment to God. I gave up singing about breaking hearts, marriages and drunk people."

"These new songs were so easy for us to write," said Mrs. Hubbard. "It was slow at first, but we began to play again."

As the girls got older, they joined in. Emmylou, 20, plays the Taylor T-5 guitar. Lorianne, 15, plays a handmade Rozell mandolin. Jeri Lynn, who said she is "11 and 3/4," plays the drums.

The Hubbards' new sound is fresh and innovative, even turning the Contemporary worship tune "Happy Song by Delirious into a toe-tapping, hand-clapping style they call "sort-of-Bluegrass Gospel." The amazing thing is, the style works and is hard to resist.

At New Life Baptist Church on Sunday, the congregation of about 200 was on their feet and clapping hands enthusiastically as Lorianne sang out a Paul Baloche song, "Holy, Holy, Holy," leading on mandolin in the Hubbards' yet-to-be-named style.

Now their music fills the air at church functions, worship services, informal gatherings of believers and "anywhere God wants us to be," said Hubbard.

The spiritual lives of the Hubbard daughters appear to fully be their own. During an interview with the family at New Life last week, Emmylou quietly read the Bible in a pew while other family members recounted familiar family history.

In performance at the Texas Gospel Music Hall in Athens last week, moody and evocative Lorianne Hubbard stroked the mandolin with a fearless authority and sings as if to wake up the world. She only wants "to sing Gospel," she said after the Athens show.

"I don't want to play stupid songs," she said, "I want to sing songs that will make a real difference in people's lives. If that means I don't get well known, than that's what it means. That's OK."

Emmylou's poetic and pointed compositions are vulnerable self-exposures, full of a fragile but strong determination and set in striking melodies that adds soul to the sister act. She wrote the song "Clay."

"Though it seems this useless clay
"Will never be worth much
"Everyday it's being transformed
"Under the Potter's gentle touch
"Oh, and someday when it's finished
"It won't be useless anymore
"Cause it's the King of Kings who's at the wheel
"And I've seen His work before."

Her fingers also fly along the fretboard on lead guitar, presumably as a result of the guidance she gets from Dad. Jeri Lyn, who keeps a steady beat throughout and rarely missing, asks to sing at shows and does. All of the girls are "ones to watch" in the future generation of Gospel, said Walter Jones, pastor of the New Life Baptist Church where the family attends.

"These girls love the Lord with all their heart," he said. "The Hubbards are a true family. Their heart is in ministry. There is nothing in any of their lives, public or private I have ever seen that would make me hesitate to fully commend them. Our church just loves them."

And prays for them, he said.

"We love it that they go out each Sunday morning," he said. "They're an extension of our church. If we're not preparing people to go out and share the Gospel with a lost world, what are we doing church for?"

The Hubbards have never sought to sign with a major "Christian" label. They go where they're invited each weekend and play where "God wants us to play," they said. The size of an audience, or even if they can be paid much, doesn't matter at all, Hubbard said.

"The Lord has provided for us this far, and he will continue to do so," said Hubbard confidently. "We'll go wherever he wants us to go."

Jerry still works a part-time job to make ends meet. The Hubbards sell their CDs that Jerry records himself. Their music ministry is supported by various contributors who believe in their message and try to fill in financial "holes" the family may face. The Hubbards have produced three CDs, and are "very busy most of the time," he said.

In the midst of a recent eight-weekend concert blitz, the family stopped long enough to play a free concert at the Salvation Army Thanksgiving Dinner in Tyler on Thursday.

"We love the Salvation Army," Hubbard told the packed community center, "and we love the people the Salvation Army serves. Thanks so much for allowing us to come."

Through word of mouth, and some media, the group is getting more exposure. Jones asked the Hubbards to take 15 minutes of the church's weekly radio program broadcast on "The Ranch," 104.1 FM, at 11:30 a.m. Sundays. "I think there's no end to what you're going to see with them," he said. "This family has the ability, the desire and the belief in God to be at the top."

But is that where Jerry Hubbard even wants to be anymore? The Hubbards, with their unique, joyous and touching sound, might be only a few steps away from regional or even national recognition; the "fame" ironically so elusive in former years.

Hubbard is an outstanding guitar player with a penchant for sudden, joyful surges of cascading leads while eliciting tasteful tonal delicacies from his electric guitar. But all his musical discipline is for only for one thing, he said.

"It's the Name of the Lord," said Hubbard. "That's it."

Now that the family has turned from its former "famous" pursuits, would Jerry and Debbie Hubbard take those last steps to being well-known? The elder Hubbards know the pursuit of fame is a potential pantheon of pain containing a myriad of ways to steal, rob and destroy families.

"Maybe we would," Hubbard said with a smile, while Debbie smiled at him, nodding. "But maybe not. Being well known would have to lift up the name of the Lord. We couldn't even think of doing it any other way."

In "Singing Praises To The Lamb" Hubbard writes,

"I thought those Nashville boys were kings,
"Livin' had to be in Tennessee,
"I seen the heartache fame can bring
"In lives that seemed so grand."
"Took so long for me to see,
"The truth behind that dogwood tree,
"He died on the cross to set me free,
"I'm singing praises to the lamb."

Before accepting an interview invitation, Hubbard said, "I just want to make sure it's something that's going to lift up the Lord and that all the praises go to Jesus."

And during the interview Hubbard, who cuts his own albums, works a job to support the kids and send Emmylou to Tyler Junior College, said he really doesn't have lot of things. Unless you count his relationship with the Lord of the Universe, that is.

For more information about the Hubbards, visit their Web site at www.hubbardfamilymusic.com

THANKSGIVING SERVICE: The Hubbard Family sings at the New Life Baptist Church in Tyler during the church’s Thanksgiving celebration on Sunday. The family often is on the road Sunday mornings. “That’s OK,” the Rev. Walter Jones of New Life said “If we’re not preparing people to go out with the Gospel, then what is church all about?”
((Staff Photo by Mark Roberts))