Movies With Michael : Cowboy Church #251

Sunday, January 11, 2026

Cowboy Church #251

Hello my friends and welcome back for another service of Cowboy Church.

Today's musical selection begins with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans with Wings of a Dove. This recording comes from their 1973 gospel album, In the Sweet By and By. This song was written by Bob Ferguson in 1958. However, most music fans would first hear the song when Ferlin Husky recorded it in 1960. That version of the song was a major hit staying number one on the country charts for 10 weeks straight. Naturally after this many more country singers would record this song, including Roy and Dale here.

This is followed by Cristy Lane with Love Lifted Me. This hymn was written in 1912 by James Rowe and Howard E. Smith. Rowe's daughter would later state, “I can see them now, my father striding up and down humming a bar or two, and Howard E. playing it and jotting it down…The two huddled together, working line by line, bar by bar, composing this hymn in tandem.”

Afterwards is Washington Phillips with Mother's Last Word to Her Daughter. He recorded this tune on December 2, 1929, in Dallas Texas.

Next is The Sons of the Pioneers with He Walks with the Wild and Lonely. This song was written by Bob Nolan, one of the founding members of the group and one of my personal favorite songwriters. When in a 1979 interview fellow cowboy singer and songwriter Stuart Hamblen asked Bob what he thought the best song he had written was, Bob answered that it was quite possibly this song. He explained why stating, "The lyrics and the music were so perfectly wed that I just couldn’t improve on it."

Then comes Jerry Lee Lewis with He Looked Beyond My Fault. This recording comes from his 1971 album, In Loving Memories (The Jerry Lee Lewis Gospel Album).

Up next is Johnny Cash with The Fourth Man in the Fire. This song is based off of a story from the book of Daniel. Though this story takes place during Old Testament times many (including myself) believe the fourth man to be Jesus. While most of us will not be thrown in a fiery furnace, this song reminds us that there is no place that through every hardship in life, Jesus is always walking with us and watching out for us. In the liner notes for the Unearthed box set, Rick Ruben remembered this song being recorded, "I can't tell you much about the song except that again it was one that he liked, but I can tell you why it sounds like he's getting frustrated. We were working in my living room, and we didn't have any editing equipment or engineering person - I'm not an engineer - we were just rolling the tape, and everything was live. If you're in the studio and you're doing a song with a long-spoken intro, and you got the intro right but there's something wrong with the song, you wouldn't have to do the intro over and over every time you redid the song. We didn't have that kind of editing capacity at my house, which is why when Johnny says 'Are you going to keep the intro from the last take? It was good' and I say, 'We can't do that,' you can hear the frustration in his voice."

Today's musical selection ends with Patty Loveless singing Sorrowful Angels. This comes from her 2001 gospel album, Mountain Soul.