Bono teams up with Pat Boone for Billy Graham tribute.

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coemgen

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I'm not sure if anyone else has posted this. If so, I'm sorry. It's just incredibly interesting.

Here's the video: www.patsgold.com/video/tybg_240x180.mov

Then this is from www.rollingstone.com.

Boone Meets Bono, Again

Crooner concluding fifty-year career with help from famous friends

Pat Boone is celebrating -- and dropping the curtain on -- his five-decade recording career by issuing five albums in five different genres. Bono, James Brown and LeAnn Rimes lead the diverse group of artists joining the seventy-one-year-old crooner.

"I see this as my fireworks display," Boone says. "When I was a kid growing up in Nashville, my brother, two sisters and I would beg Daddy to take us out to the state fair to see the fireworks display at the end. We'd drive out at night, lie back on the car and look up at the night sky . . . If I can get on five different charts with five different types of music in one year, I'll feel like I made a mark."

The barrage began in March with American Glory, a record of patriotic anthems and military songs, and continues with the country-flavored Ready to Rock on July 12th, the gospel record Glory Train on August 9th, the ballads collection Hopeless Romantic on August 30th, and the R&B showcase We Are Family early next year.

Glory Train features "Thank You, Billy Graham," a star-studded tribute to the longtime evangelist, featuring an introduction from Bono, a spoken-word part from Larry King and artists like Rimes, Michael McDonald and Kenny Rogers trading verses.

Boone recruited Bono at a 2001 Grammy after-party following U2's win for "Beautiful Day." "I came up behind him and said, 'I think it's time Boone-o met Bono,'" Boone says. "And he said, 'We met before. Our group was just getting started and you were on tour in England. We were introduced to you, and you were very nice and encouraging. It meant a great deal to us, but I don't expect you to remember it.' Honestly, I did not remember -- but nobody knew his group at that time. When I asked if he'd be willing to participate in the Billy Graham tribute, he said in a flash, 'I will. I admire him greatly.'"

For the aptly titled We Are Family, Boone performs new versions of R&B classics alongside the original artists, such as Brown, the Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, Sister Sledge, and Kool and the Gang. Boone and producer Ollie Brown, a former drummer for Stevie Wonder, went to the artists' home cities to record the tracks, visiting Detroit, Houston, Phoenix, Miami and, of course, Augusta, Georgia, where the Godfather of Soul joined in on "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag."

"He agreed to do it, but he didn't know what it was going to sound like," Boone says of Brown. "So we brought the track in with us on ProTools and put it on. When it kicks off, he looks up and says, 'You got my groove. How did you get my groove?' And Ollie says, 'Mr. Brown, I learned to play drums by listening to your records. I got to where I could play every lick on every one of your records, and I didn't know until years later that you had two drummers.'"

After the album hits stores, Boone says he's going to hang up his mike. "I'm going to tip my hat and call it a day," he says. "My wife has been begging me for years: 'Please let us drift into some kind of private life, while we can still ambulate.'"
 
I watched the Bono part the other day, I skipped the Pat Boone part

I wonder if Bono has ever met Billy Graham, after all he's met practically every famous person in the world :wink:
 
I'm going to look some more because I'm curious, but I found this from Google

July 26, 2001
Bono Thanks Billy
(Filed under: U2)

"At a time when religion seems so often to get in the way of God's work, with its shopping mall sales pitch and its bumper sticker reductionism -- I give thanks just for the sanity of Billy Graham, for that clear, empathetic voice of his and that southern accent, and part poet, part preacher, the singer of the human spirit I'd say. Yeah, I give thanks to Billy Graham. Thank you, Billy Graham." - Bono, lead singer of U2, in a video on the [now defunct] Thank You Billy Graham website.
 
I haven't read that part of the book Bono In Conversation yet

I don't know if this has ever been posted here, Steve Stockman's review of that book

http://www.stocki.ni.org/news/items/item-566.phtml

"Elsewhere there are stories of being blessed by Archbishop Tutu and Billy Graham."

I just realized-is that quote from 2001 the same one that's in the Pat Boone video? I can't even remember..
 
In the Conversations Book he talks about receiving a blessing from Billy Graham. I have also seen a picture of Bono with Franklin Graham at a Samaritan's Purse event for African orphans and a picture in the Billy Graham Association's newsletter of Bono reading Seamus Haney or one of his other favorites to Billy's wife. Those are the Graham-Bono related anecdotes that I can recall.
 
I was just thinking about that picture the other day, I love it

U2_cuarta_etapa_20020507_FotoRevistaDecision_01_BonoRuthGrahamBell.jpg
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
I haven't read that part of the book Bono In Conversation yet

I don't know if this has ever been posted here, Steve Stockman's review of that book

http://www.stocki.ni.org/news/items/item-566.phtml

"Elsewhere there are stories of being blessed by Archbishop Tutu and Billy Graham."

That's an excellent review. I like the part at the end:

At the end maybe too influenced by Eugene Peterson whose paraphrase The Message Bono endorsed he says, “’Be silent, and know that I am God.’ That’s a favourite line from Scriptures. ‘Shut Up and Let Me Love You’ would be the pop song. It’s really what it means. If ever I needed to hear a comment, it might be that.”

:laugh: Bono interprets Scripture like no one else.

It's also good, and interesting, to know that Adam is “the most spiritually centred of the band.”
Way to go, Adam! :up:
 
Bono is such a slut.:wink:

He'll show up on anybody's album.

Pat Boone :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:


Come to think of it, he'll write a foreward to almost anybody's book.
 
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I'm bringing this back up because Mrs. Graham died yesterday. I kept thinking about that picture when I read that she died.

MONTREAT, North Carolina (AP) -- Ruth Graham, who surrendered dreams of missionary work in Tibet to marry a suitor who became the world's most renowned evangelist, died Thursday. She was 87.

Graham died at 5:05 p.m. at her home at Little Piney Cove, surrounded by her husband and all five of their children, according to a statement released by Larry Ross, Billy Graham's spokesman.

"Ruth was my life partner, and we were called by God as a team," Billy Graham said in a statement. "No one else could have borne the load that she carried. She was a vital and integral part of our ministry, and my work through the years would have been impossible without her encouragement and support.

"I am so grateful to the Lord that He gave me Ruth, and especially for these last few years we've had in the mountains together. We've rekindled the romance of our youth, and my love for her continued to grow deeper every day. I will miss her terribly, and look forward even more to the day I can join her in Heaven."

Ruth Graham had been bedridden for months with degenerative osteoarthritis of the back and neck -- the result of a serious fall from a tree in 1974 while fixing a swing for grandchildren -- and underwent treatment for pneumonia two weeks ago. At her request, and in consultation with her family, she had stopped receiving nutrients through a feeding tube for the last few days, Ross said.

A public memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday at the Montreat Conference Center. A private interment service will be held the next day in Charlotte.


Ruth Graham was considered her husband's closest confidant during his spectacular global career -- one rivaled only by her father, L. Nelson Bell, until his death in 1973.

"She would help my father prepare his messages, listening with an attentive ear, and if she saw something that wasn't right or heard something that she felt wasn't as strong as it could be, she was a voice to strengthen this or eliminate that," said her son, Franklin, who is now the head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

"Every person needs that kind of input in their life and she was that to my father."

Bell, a missionary doctor, headed the Presbyterian hospital in Qingjiang, China, that had been founded by the father of author Pearl Buck. Ruth grew up there and spent three high school years in what's now North Korea.

"What she witnessed in her family home, she practiced for herself -- dependence on God in every circumstance, love for his word, concern for others above self, and an indomitable spirit displayed with a smile," said the Grahams' youngest daughter, also named Ruth.

Despite her reluctance to be a public personality herself, Ruth Graham met many of the powerful and famous through her husband -- who was a spiritual adviser to presidents for decades. President Bush and first lady Laura Bush called her a "remarkable woman of faith" who "inspired people around the world with her humor, intelligence, elegance, and kindness."

She met Billy Graham at Wheaton College in Illinois. He recalled in 1997 memoirs, "If I had not been smitten with love at first sight of Ruth Bell I would certainly have been the exception. Many of the men at Wheaton thought she was stunning."

Billy Graham courted her, managing to coax her away from the foreign missions calling and into marriage after both graduated in 1943. In 1945, after a brief stint pastoring a suburban Chicago congregation, he became a roving speaker for the fledgling Youth for Christ organization.

From that point onward she had to endure her husband's frequent absences, remarking, "I'd rather have a little of Bill than a lot of any other man."

Ruth Graham moved the couple into her parents' home in Montreat, where they had relocated after fleeing wartime China. She stayed in western North Carolina mountain town the rest of her life.

The young couple later bought their own house across the street from the Bells. Then in 1956, needing protection from gawkers, the Grahams moved into Little Piney Cove, a comfortably rustic mountainside home she designed using logs from abandoned cabins. It became Billy's retreat between evangelistic forays.


Though the wife of a famous Baptist minister, the independent-minded Ruth Graham declined to undergo baptism by immersion and remained a loyal, lifelong Presbyterian. When in Montreat, a town built around a Presbyterian conference center, Billy Graham would attend the local Presbyterian church where his wife often taught the college-age Sunday School class.

Due to her husband's travels, she bore major responsibility for raising the couple's five children: Franklin (William Franklin III), Nelson, Virginia, Anne and Ruth.

Ruth Graham was the author or co-author of 14 books, including collections of poetry and the autobiographical scrapbook "Footprints of a Pilgrim."

In 1996, the Grahams were each awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for "outstanding and lasting contributions to morality, racial equality, family, philanthropy, and religion."

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell began her writing career with a Ruth Graham biography that depicted many deeds of personal charity. Cornwell said as a youth in Montreat she thought Ruth Graham "was the loveliest, kindest person ever born. I still do."

She helped establish the Ruth and Billy Graham Children's Health Center in Asheville, and the Billy Graham Training Center near Montreat.

Ruth Graham will be buried at the new Billy Graham Library in Charlotte -- a source of apparent discord within the family last year. This week, Billy Graham said he and Ruth had decided "after much prayer and discussion" they would be laid to rest at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway in the library's prayer garden.
 
MrsSpringsteen said:
I watched the Bono part the other day, I skipped the Pat Boone part

I wonder if Bono has ever met Billy Graham, after all he's met practically every famous person in the world :wink:

I don't know about him but I think hes met his son Franklin Graham who does Samaritans purse.
 
JCOSTER said:


I don't know about him but I think hes met his son Franklin Graham who does Samaritans purse.

I read an interview with Bono from sometime during the "Elevation" tour era where he talks about how Billy Graham called and said he wanted to the band to come to his and Ruth's house, so he could pray for them. Because of the tour the rest of the band couldn't go, but Bono went and said Billy prayed for him and offered a blessing. I'll see if I can find that interview anywhere.
 
I heard that when U2 was in Charlotte during the Vertigo tour Bono stopped by to see the Grahams. Don't know how true that is. I am sure he has met Billy.

Being from Charlotte there is lots of talk about Ruth passing away. It is wonderful hearing about what an amazing lady she was. Strong and full of grace. They were married 64 years. Wow...that doesn't seem to happen much anymore. How terribly hard to lose someone that has been by your side for so long. Thank goodness for the Hope he has.


What a sweet picture of her and Bono.
 
I saw a Billy Graham sermon on TV about a year or two ago where he said that Bono came to his house and stayed for five hours. Also, Time magazine mentioned some of the famous people that have been at his house and said that "Bono stopped by and played songs on the piano."

I wonder if that was before or after his piano lessons? :wink:
 
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Wow amazing. I have that 'Thank You Billy Graham' DVD tribute and Bono is there and one thing that was cool and he describe Billy as a " Part poet, part preacher, singer to the human spirit'.
 
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