Showing posts with label Whitney Houston. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Whitney Houston. Show all posts

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Interview (Part II) with Summer Pearson, actress/singer/worship leader/missionary for God

Good day, blog friends! :) Since we last visited with Summer (yesterday), there's been a special happening: Summer’s first music video released last night (Oct. 5) on YouTube! It’s for her song “Promised (Never Alone)”. View it here

If you want to win a copy of "Love Letters" (Summer's debut album), enter the music giveaway contest by selecting the link to yesterday's post with Summer. 

Here's the link,

Enjoy this continuation of your visit with Summer! :)

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Interview (Part II) with Summer Pearson about her debut album “Love Letters”:

Alexis: Do you write all of your own songs on “Love Letters”?

Summer: Yes, every single one. (The songs started as journal entries)

Only one song on the album, “I Need You” was actually inspired by Vincent the producer. He was kind of playing around in church one Sunday and he heard a melody and he told me, “Hey, I think you should write to this” and I’m like “Okay.” So he starts playing a sexy melody and remember, Vincent produces but he’s also an R&B artist. So when he’s playing it for me, I start singing the words that I heard I my head and I literally thought that we were writing a song for him or one of his R&B friends.

“I want you” and “I need you” kept coming out and at the end of that session, he said, “Great! I think that would be awesome for your album.” And I said, “My album? You know I’m a Christian artist.” And he was like, “Summer, I know you’re a Christian artist.” He said, “I know you’re a Christian artist. I think that would work for your album.” But I thought we were singing this for some man or some woman.

So I had to go home and kind of reset how I was viewing the song and I actually got Scripture for that one. So if you hear it, the second verse references that Scripture about “One thing have I desired of the Lord…” (Psalm 27:4). But getting in the Word and really praying about it helped me to sing the song anew and it’s often one of people’s favorite on the album. I’m so glad that I was able to get past my initial blinders on that song and really cry out to God because you know, we really do need the Lord. The song becomes a plea to God like, “I want You. I really need You.”

Alexis: What is your dream for “Love Letters”? What kind of impact do you hope that it will make on your listeners?

Summer: One of the things that I’m hearing about the album from many different kinds of people already—it’s only been out for a couple of weeks—is that the music is universal. I completely embrace that, because when I was creating the album itself and even when we were trying to figure out the sound of the music, we didn’t try to fit the music into any one genre.

The producer I worked with, his name is Vincent Richardson “V.Rich”, he’s amazing and both of us have very musical backgrounds. We enjoy classical music. I like folk. I like country. I like Contemporary Christian. He’s an R&B artist. There were so many different influences coming together between the two of us in the room and we didn’t fight against that at all. So the beauty of it is that now is that it’s created a project that people from all walks of life, different age groups, different ethnicities who have been exposed to different things can grab a hold of the music and I love it.

One of the Scriptures on my vision board is Matthew 28:18-20, The Great Commission. God’s sending us out in the world to make disciples for Him and I’ve felt that was part of my calling for a long time. So I now have a project that can reach beyond my borders to places that I may never ever be able to go physically. It’s a dream come true and I believe it’s what God intended and that’s what I want for this project. I want it to get out to the far corners of the world. I want people to be inspired and uplifted and healed.

It’s a challenge like I mention in the song “Release” to forgive, especially when someone has wronged you and they haven’t even apologized for it. They might even not feel bad for it. But it’s worth taking the challenge. When you really pay attention to the effects that unforgiveness and bitterness has on you physically, mentally, emotionally, it is so much better to rise about that and let it go.

Alexis: Who are your role models in the music industry? Name the top three and explain how they’ve influenced your life as a musician. 

Summer: Whitney Houston was a huge inspiration. I know every word to every song. I love the way she sings. I love the way she felt music! So, she was one.

Two, I think CeCe Winans and a lot of people who listen to CeCe think that I remind them of her. She has a gorgeous voice. I’ve listened to her from the time I was a kid. But also I love her spirit and she’s maintained such a beautiful demeanor, reputation. She’s had quite a career. I love how CeCe has been able to put music out that can reach a lot of different people. She’s a big inspiration!

Kirk Franklin is similar to the prior two with the extensive career. I call him the Modern Day David (A person mentioned in The Holy Bible) because David wrote all of the songs. He’s an incredible songwriter and I respect his craft so much.

Jonathan McReynolds is a newer artist. I feel in love with his voice the first time I heard his voice on radio and immediately started watching on YouTube everything that was related to him. I bought his album and could not stop playing it. My kids were like, “Mommy, enough!”

He not only has a gorgeous voice, his songwriting to me is just so beautiful! It’s so real and it reaches down into me in ways that not everybody’s music does.

He’s also an inspiration because he’s one of those people who paved the way in Christian music when they don’t quite fit. He’s Black but he doesn’t fit into gospel music completely. He’s not necessarily Contemporary Christian in terms of what we would typically define as Contemporary Christian. He’s just creating the music that makes sense to him like what God gives him and I love it! There’s jazz in there, there’s rock in there, there’s so many great things in there!

Alexis: Tell us about how you made your first music video.

Summer: Heartfelt Pictures, which is a production company run by Denton Adams, produced the music video for me. His wife Nina did my makeup for the video. It was a phenomenal job and I was just so blessed because I didn’t have to ask for it. God literally put it on his heart to do a video for me and there will be more coming.

*...to be continued, Part III of this interview with Summer will be posted tomorrow (Oct. 7) to conclude this three-part interview series.
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Singer bio: 

Summer is an outstanding recording artist, radio personality, actress, and speaker. Summer is skilled at performing many musical styles, especially Gospel and Contemporary Christian. Her vocals are often described as beautiful, powerful, heartfelt and angelic. 

In Summer, there also lies a wonderful speaker and actress who connects with audiences of all ages and conveys messages with conviction and grace. She is reliable and professional in presentation, timeliness, and responsiveness. 



Summer has experience performing for corporate events, weddings, concerts, funerals, retreats, church services, and other events. She is accepting bookings through 2017 and welcomes the opportunity to work with you on your event.

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Buy Love Letters:

Summer's music is available for purchase in your iTunes store. 


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Connect with Summer:

Email - summerpearsonsings@gmail.com

FB - facebook.com/summersofficialpage
IG - summersofficialpage

Twitter - @summertimesings


Monday, February 2, 2015

True Love Stories: My Hero

"I Believe in You and Me" is a song to that comes to mind when I think of today's featured true love story. Whitney Houston sung that song so beautifully on the soundtrack to the movie The Preacher's Wife (1997). It was a classic movie in which Whitney plays the preacher's wife and Denzel Washington plays an angel of God sent for divine intervention. 

The song lyrics talk about how she believes in miracles and God sent her a miracle because the man in her life is a dream come true. Such is the case for Mrs. Angela Ruth Strong. God restored her from heartbreak to happiness. Here's the story...

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My Hero

Angela Ruth Strong's True Love Story

My love story is one of remarriage. So there’s a sad story that comes before this one. But I think like in every romance novel, the darker the black moment, the more powerful the conclusion. My black moment included, and I quote from one of many counseling sessions, “I can’t keep a husband, I can’t get a job, my kids don’t want to be with me, and I’m in trouble with the law.” Thankfully, the ridiculous charges were dropped, my kids became my best friends and I got a job I loved working in the publishing industry. But I still didn’t have a husband.

Enter Jim Strong. Great smile. Sporty. Intelligent. Funny. Loyal. Hard-working. And oh yeah, he could sing. The man of my dreams.

I knew I was in love with him the moment he came home from a softball tournament in Reno with three stuffed bears he’d won for my kids by playing a pitching game at Circus-Circus. Not only did he bring them home, he wore them home in his backpack with their heads poking up behind him like they were in a baby carrier. Plus, he’d been sending me pictures of the bears the whole weekend so I could show the kids. Pics of them buckled into the back of a taxi and sleeping in a drawer with blankets and pillows. *swoon*

But I was scared. Oh, how I was scared. See, right before my ex left, I’d had this talk with God. I’d been reading Psalms and decided to repeat David’s prayer of, “God, you are my all.” But then I thought, “Is this really true?” And I thought about how David had said, “Test me.” So I cried while writing in my prayer journal, “Test me.” And it just so happened that was the same week my ex started his affair.

I knew in my head that God wasn’t saying, “You want a test? I’ll give you a test.” I knew it had been Him preparing me. “You know I’m your all, Angela. You know it.” But I’d still made the connection of telling God to test me with my ex-husband leaving. So whenever Jim said to me, “You’re a gift from God,” I could never say it back. Because what if I hadn’t passed my test yet? What if God was going to take Jim away, too?

It was on a jog where God opened my eyes. And the funny thing was that I’d been praying, “God, open my eyes,” but thinking about something completely different.(God knows how to answer the questions we aren’t smart enough to ask.) He gave me this verse: "Every good and perfect gift is from God"(James 1:17).

Everything about Jim had seemed too good to be true. But if he really was that good, then he would be a gift from God. I ran home and looked up every scripture I could find with the word “good” in it.

First one: Taste and see that the Lord is good
 (Psalm 34:8).

Last one: Now you have seen that the Lord is good (1 Peter 2:3).

This was the moment where I finally accepted Jim as a gift from God. I bawled my eyes out. Overwhelmed with gratefulness. Because I really didn’t deserve him. (I’d been in trouble with the law only a year before, remember?) But God gave Jim to me anyway.

He rescued me because he delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

Jim proposed in a movie theater. I thought we were going to a movie. I had a mouth full of caramel corn when I realized that the preview was really a slideshow of us. And that all the other movie viewers were really friends and family.

We got married in the English garden at my mom’s tea house. Dad did the wedding. My son walked me down the aisle to the song “How He Loves Us.” The kids shot silly string at us when we kissed. Then I hopped on the front of Jim’s decorated knee cart (Achilles surgery—another story) and we rolled away to the sound of a Harley revving its engine. There was also a carriage ride involved. And my daughter’s stuffed rabbit joined us for our first dance. The evening ended with him crooning to me like Michael Buble. “I’m feeling good…”


It was better than a fairytale because it was real life. But the thing about real life is that our tests never end. We still have Achilles issues and the blending of families and the headache of finances. But when I feel like we can’t handle anymore, I remember the lesson I’ve already learned.

God will rescue us because he delights in us. So in knowing that God is the hero of every story...we can all live happily ever after.

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Angela Ruth wrote a book! Here's the book cover and blurb: On shoot in beautiful Sun Valley for her newest film, rising starlet Emily Van Arsdale meets handsome stunt consultant Tracen Lake. Despite their different lifestyles, the adventurous duo shares a bond. As filming wraps up, will Emily be able to leave Sun Valley--and Tracen--behind? 


Buy Angela's book, http://amzn.to/163rDPT

Author bio: Angela Ruth Strong writes romance as well as middle-grade novels. When she's not writing, you can find her teaching aerobics, hanging out with her hubby and three teen/tweens at home in Idaho, or on some new adventure like winning a hamster ball race. She'd love it if you'd drop by to visit her at www.angelaruthstrong.com and share your story with her.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Live for today

Dear friends,

February 11, 2012 was a sad day for many professional music artists and fans as one of their best performers, Whitney Houston, died tragically at the age of 48. The death of recording artist/actress Whitney Houston sent shock waves around the world. 
People who never met her but adored her work and music, felt the deep pain of losing someone who they have always loved. One of those people is me. "Whitney Houston was one of my favorite artists," I found myself telling family and friends. "She's on my list of famous people who I wanted to meet. I hope I meet her in heaven."

It took a message on GodTube to open my eyes to a greater purpose. I'd like to share the video with you then explain what I mean after you've viewed it. Here's the video:


Alive (Natalie Grant) from worshiphousemedia on GodTube.

After viewing this video, I was reminded of the greatest person to ever have lived, walked, breathed and ministered on this Earth-- Jesus Christ is His Name. He's my Lord, Savior, Redeemer and Truest Friend. When life on Earth comes to an end, JESUS is the One I want to meet when He comes again in those great clouds of glory to usher His faithful followers into eternity.

I loved Whitney Houston for her God-given singing voice and artistic talent but I am reminded that it's not the created (Whitney or anyone else I have admired) that I need to be giving praise and adoration to-- it's JESUS Christ, the Creator of Life. At the end of the day, it's JESUS who gives us the peace of mind to sleep and the breath of life to awake each morning, rise up and go about our day. It's JESUS who died for us and was resurrected (on what most people in America like to call "Easter Sunday") in order to serve as our High Priest in Heaven. He is our Mediator between God and humankind. HE is my HERO. And of course, He's at the very top of my list of people I want to meet! :)

My prayer for you is that your hearts will be filled with the love of God through the gift of His Son Jesus Christ and if you haven't already, you will make things right with God. The Bible says "tomorrow is not promised" (Matthew 6:34), so let's make the most of today. :)

God bless you always, dear hearts!

Love,

Alexis