Wondrous Love is a gospel album by Blue Highway, released by Rounder on 24 June 2003 (Rounder 0524). The band, formed in Tennessee in 1994, was Tim Stafford on guitar, Wayne Taylor on bass, Shawn Lane on mandolin and fiddle, Jason Burleson on banjo and Rob Ickes on dobro. The Bluegrass Discography gives Dark Horse Studios in Franklin, Tennessee, as the recording location for all thirteen tracks.
The title song is the old hymn “What Wondrous Love Is This,” whose text was first published around 1811 and whose text and tune were first printed together in The Southern Harmony in 1840. Here Wayne Taylor sings lead with Lane on tenor, Stafford on baritone and Burleson on bass, and Alan O’Bryant is also credited with a vocal part; the only instrument credited is Lane’s mandolin.
The rest of the program mixes songs the band wrote with well-known gospel numbers: Bill Monroe’s “Wicked Path of Sin,” A.P. Carter’s “Live On Down the Line,” “This World Is Not My Home,” credited to Jimmy Martin and Paul Williams, and the traditional “The Old Rugged Cross,” an instrumental that closes the album. Stafford wrote “Chasing After the Wind” and “The Ground Is Level at the Foot of the Cross,” and Lane wrote “I’m Asking You” and “Ahead of the Storm.”
The title song was named Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2004, and the album was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Southern, Country or Bluegrass Gospel Album category.
Tracklist
- 1 Wondrous Love Source Recording 3:23
- 2 Traveling Preacher 2:25
- 3 Wicked Path of Sin Source Recording 2:38
- 4 I'm Asking You 3:35
- 5 Live On Down The Line 2:46
- 6 Chasing After The Wind 2:54
- 7 Seven Sundays In A Row 3:36
- 8 This World is Not My Home alt version 2:49
- 9 Ahead Of The Storm 3:26
- 10 Old Brush Arbors 3:07
- 11 The Ground Is Level At The Foot Of The Cross 2:58
- 12 It Won’t Be Long alt version 2:32
- 13 The Old Rugged Cross alt version 2:59
