With 33 No. 1 hits, Twila Paris is a living legend to legions of Contemporary Christian music fans. On Tuesday, the Dove Award-winning singer also will be recognized by her peers as she is inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
The GMA (Gospel Music Association) Honors and Hall of Fame program will be held Tuesday in Nashville, Tenn. Other Hall of Fame inductees are gospel singers BeBe and CeCe Winans and Christian comedian and singer Mark Lowry. Roland Lundy, former president of the Christian media company Word Entertainment, will be also inducted.
Known for such hits as "He Is Exalted," "Lamb of God" and "We Bow Down," Paris began singing as a child. The longtime Springdale resident said she was amazed to find she was being inducted into the Hall of Fame -- whose members also include fellow Arkansan Johnny Cash, as well as beloved singers such as Mahalia Jackson, Albert E. Brumley Sr. and Dottie Rambo.
"It's one of those moments when your peers -- people I've worked with or been around for 30 something years -- are saying, 'We want to affirm you and encourage you,'" Paris said.
Paris credits her father, the late Oren Paris II, with instilling her with a love of God and music.
"He was the person who taught me to write a song and taught me to love God," she said. "The combination of those things is what I've done with my life."
The 56-year-old is a native of Texas but she says she "got to Arkansas as quick as I could."
She moved to the Natural State with her family at the age of 6 and has called Arkansas home ever since. She said the state and its people have shaped her in many ways.
"There's good soil to grow up in here," Paris said. "There are just good people, a lot of people who love God and understand the importance of God being central to their lives."
Paris said the music of Arkansas has influenced her musical path. She remembers listening to Southern Gospel singers at the Springdale rodeo arena with her parents and grandparents as a child, and said their home was often filled with classical music.
"The bluegrass that's around us now, I still love," she said. "I really did have lots of wonderful music all around me."
Paris' songs can be found in church hymnals across denominational lines and are sung by praise and worship bands, as well as by Christians all over the world. She sometimes hears from missionaries who have shared her music in towns and villages far from home, often adapting it into their own languages.
"What comes to my mind is Romans 11:36, which says, 'For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever.' A long time ago, I read that verse and what popped into my mind was a visual picture of a cycle of giving," Paris said.
Paris said she views her talent as a gift from God and can see the cycle at work when her songs find their way to those villages.
"This gift that came from him, moving through me, goes on out to people and places I don't know about who offer it back to the one it came from," she said. "That's the coolest thing I get to do right there."
Paris is still singing and tours occasionally, but she spends much of her time being a wife and mother. She and husband Jack Wright have a teenage son, Jack Paris, whom they call J.P.
"I don't record real often these days, just when I feel like there's a project I need to do," she said. "The same with touring ... I do every now and then, but most of the time these days, my primary role, my top priority, is as a mom and wife."
Her most recent project, an EP titled Hymns, was released last year. It includes some of the hymns that she and singer Steve Green sang together while on tour. The second half of each show was like an old-fashioned hymn sing, with the audience calling out requests.
"Part of our heart in that was these hymns are such a treasure," Paris said. "I of all people love contemporary worship, and yet, at the same time, I love how so many of our young artists today every now and then will record a hymn."
Paris said the news of her induction made her pause and think about her long career.
"You start to make this little list in your mind of all the people from the beginning -- my dad and grandma who helped teach me piano, to the guy who helped produce my first album, to the arrangers along the way -- who collaborated with you, who poured into you and mentored you," she said. "You realize, 'Oh my goodness.' That's why you need to give an acceptance speech, to make a small attempt to thank these people."
Paris said the recognition of her career is rewarding, but it's not what's most important.
"What's important is not that you impress other people, but that you please God," she said. "The further I go in life I realize I want my legacy to be something eternal. Am I pleasing God?"
NAN Religion on 05/02/2015