The United States’ Bible Belt and the strongholds of American country music share a lot of geographical overlap. Virginian John Francis O’Mara, with his Theology degree and collaborations with Nashville’s finest, including Kenny Vaughn and John Carter Cash, likewise stands firmly planted in both camps. He has a new record out, his third full-length effort, entitled Forbidden Hymns. It clearly draws from both of those aspects of his life, as well as his passion for social justice.
That passion manifests itself in a couple of tunes that are hard to characterize as anything other than protest songs. Walking In Babylon features Vaughn on guitar in a rock ballad, drawing on the ancient example of an occupying army. It’s updated with an all-too-familiar current metaphor that “if you can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” Lately Mary also falls in the rock category, but more of an 80’s style. It posits we’ve come back around to a time when Jesus is sorely needed because “it seems again there’s no room at the inn.” The last song on the CD, Let It Be So, offers the cure for those worlds of woe as a hope, a proclamation actually, that a better world is indeed possible.
O’Mara’s country gospel vein gets laid open on Mighty Power, featuring Chris Scruggs on lap steel. It starts with a powerful church organ before bursting into a full-on outlaw country hymn where you just want to raise your arms and sing along. No One Gets Out Of Here Alive, a co-write with Cash, features choral harmonies and a plea to “let us hold to one another, as we stumble toward the light.” Another style of gospel tints Miracle, this time the R&B sound of Memphis and the Mississippi Delta, and it’s hard to do anything except sit back and just groove along. You get a little more of O’Mara’s Irish-American heritage in Maybe, a crooner-friendly cut about the regret, or maybe relief, of a relationship that’s over.
Music can be deeply spiritual without being religious, and John Francis O’Mara clearly understands that. Forbidden Hymns layers an empathy for the less fortunate and a desire to affect real change, not just “thoughts and prayers”, over Stratocaster guitar riffs and pedal steel twang. It’s a potent combination, and one well worth your time seeking out.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.