Country Gospel: Tarrence Phillips' Musical Journey

0:00 Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball, if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today, I am joined by up-and-coming country Christian artist, terrence Phillips, so we're going to be talking to him about his career and everything that he's up to Shout out to Caden Gordon and the Caden Gordon Show for sending me all these wonderful singers.

0:42 So, terrence, thank you so much for joining me today. Man. Thank you, sir, for allowing me to be a part of your show man, I am truly excited boy, oh me too. Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself? Well, my name is Terrence Phillips and I am from Duncan, south Carolina, where I have been here for probably about 22, 24 years. I grew up here, so I'm just now returning back. My parents were military, so they've already retired and everything, and I wanted to come back where all my relatives pretty much are, and I've gotten married, have two kids, have three grandkids let's see.

1:40 I work at a paper company as a forklift operator, for the moment anyway, and then, of course, I am a part of a church ministry. I'm one of the praise and worship leaders there, and then, of course, on the side, I do what I do now, which is Christian country music, and I just got back from the studio a little while ago. And then, of course, now I'm here talking with you. All right. Well, do you want to tell the listeners about the church ministry that you're a part of?

2:27 want to tell the listeners about the church ministry that you're a part of. Yeah, the name of the church that I am a part of is called New Hope Baptist Church, and I've been there serving under the leadership of Bishop Alniel Bruton for about 24 years. I've been a part of his ministry as a praise and worship leader for about the same amount of time. I lead worship every now and again for them. I'm also an ordained elder of the church there and I go out and minister to people, give them the word, as well as through my music, I minister as well.

3:13 I am currently I've just recently signed with LBM Records, and so so far, I've just been amazed by their pushing me to do what I've always loved to do and encouraged me to keep going forward in music, thankful that they are a Christian label and they had actually been looking for a country artist, and I bless the Lord because I happened to be looking on a website one night and happened to come across their label and submitted a song that I had written a long time ago and was encouraged to send.

4:09 When I sent that particular song to them it wasn't probably 10 minutes later they responded back and wanted me to see if I was interested in being signed to their label. Tell the listeners how you got into country music, christian country music in the first place. Wow, how I got involved. Well, at one point I was doing the secular music and then, of course, because I've been singing pretty much all my life I've been singing since I was probably three years old.

4:57 I've always loved music of all genres, so I was out there doing the R&B for a little while and then, after I had accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, then I transitioned to the gospel music of, you know, the praise and worship, the contemporary gospel. And even though I grew up on all different styles of music, I eventually returned back to what I've always loved, which was country music. And so maybe, probably, I'd say, in the last 10 years, my heart's desire has been to do the country style music, of course Christian.

5:39 And so I started pursuing the Christian country arena and God just started, began laying songs upon my heart that I started writing, and my first song was entitled Thank you. And for a minute I put that song on the shelf, not really thinking that it would really go anywhere or do anything, not really thinking that it would really go anywhere or do anything. And one day, a friend of mine, who happened to be a videographer, who works for a Christian television station here locally and he happened to hear the song and he asked me one night what was I going to do with that particular song.

6:25 And I told him I wasn't really planning on doing anything with the song because I didn't really think it would do much of anything. And so he encouraged me to get the song put out. And so we got the song put out with a promoter, and he put it out and all of a sudden it just started blowing up. It started getting into the top 10 and I was blown away by that. And so I went ahead and started pursuing that particular song and put it out there and it was entitled Thank you, particular song and put it out there and it was entitled thank you.

7:10 And it's still uh popular today. He actually did a video for it, which you can now see on youtube uh, under terrence phillips, and uh, just type in the word thank you and it'll come up and uh. So from there, that's really much how I was able to get connected to the label, because that was the song that that really got their attention and uh, so from there, that's, of course, how I ended up being signed to lbm records okay, well, talk to the listeners about who are some of your big influences. You know whether they are big artists or small artists. You know who influences you to do what you do.

7:53 Oh man, when it comes down to some of the artists of today, or even some who've gone on, I'd have to say, like Stevie Wonder, the Sam Cooke, michael Jackson man in the Christian or gospel arena, I still love to this very day, cc Winans, the Winans brothers, some of Shirley Caesar, and then, of course, when you go into the country arena, oh, my biggest influences there were, like Ronnie Millsap and Randy Travis and Conway Twitty, charlie what's his name?

8:41 Charlie Pride, even like the Oak Ridge Boys, alabama. Many of them were a lot of my influences. Kane Brown is another one, someone who is from South Carolina, darius Rucker I listened to a lot of his stuff. Those are a lot. Those are still some of the big influences for me today, and even when you listen to some of my new releases that have since come out here in the last couple of months, there's similarities to Randy Travis as far as just the style and the arrangements and stuff.

9:26 And so I had a lot of big influences. I don't really, I don't think I even had any small people that were not well known that were influences for me, even my mother. I have to, I have to make sure that I let people know that my mom was probably my biggest influence because she she embraced my gift long years and recognized my gift a long time ago, and she's always been a great support net for me, as well as my wife, who also pushes me to just continue doing what God has called me to do.

10:10 And I'm thankful that I'm finally seeing the manifestation of my dream of doing Christian country come to pass, because I've always wanted to share my gift with the world, and so now this is the opportunity for me to be able to do that and share the love of Christ through my Christian country music, because that's what it's really all about is letting people know that God does exist and that God truly loves us, and he loves us so much and he's willing to do whatever it takes to to do whatever it takes to get us to come to know him personally and intimately.

11:00 And I'm thankful that God gave me that opportunity to do that, and now I'm able to share the gospel of Jesus Christ through the music that he's given me. Absolutely so. You talked about, you know mentioned your new releases here in the last couple of months. So talk to the listeners about you know any newer upcoming projects you know kind of explain them and what inspired them and anything else you want people to know about them recently, probably about a month ago, I just released Thank you. I did a remix of a remake of the original and of course that song originally was inspired by just.

11:44 I wanted God to know how grateful I was to him for, first of all, saving me, and then just how grateful I am to God for, for for choosing me. Because if anyone would have told me, uh, years ago that, um, I would be doing what I'm doing now, I probably would have told them they were lying and, uh, truthful. But I wanted this particular song, which has been released, to exemplify Christ and what he did for me. And I wanted to express it with the song Thank you, because truly, we cannot and will not ever be able to thank God enough for all that he has done and what he's doing in our personal lives.

12:34 And not only has Thank you been released, but also I've also released another song called my Everything, which also points to Christ, who is everything to me, who is everything to me. I mean he's my encouragement, he's my provider, he's my strength when sometimes I'm weak in my faith and in my walk with him. He's just everything, he's the very air that I breathe on a daily basis. And that song pretty much sums up who he is to me. Some of the words to the song are every morning when I wake up, you know, I wake up to a brand new day, you know, and every morning I get on my knees and pray before I start my day.

13:32 And then this next one that has just been released last week. It's entitled Trouble, and what brought that song about is you know, people go through life and sometimes they feel like, you know, there's no way out of their situation. But this particular song, trouble, just lets people know, it encourages them to know, that trouble doesn't last always. There is, there is a stopping point for the things that we deal with and we go through. Trouble doesn't last always, but you've got to have the faith in Christ.

14:16 You have to believe God's word. God's word says that you know he's peace in the midst of trouble. You know, and you know you can go through life with knowing Christ is with you. And so this particular song that has just been released on last week, which is out now on all of your major platforms if you want to hear it, on Spotify and on all of the other platforms YouTube and YouTube Music and Deezer it's on all of the major platforms. So if you type in my name, terrence Phillips, t-a-r-r-a-n-c-e Phillips, you can get every single one of the songs that have just recently been released.

15:03 And, as a matter of fact, next week, fridayiday, I will be releasing another song and it's entitled um. The song is about you, which is a love ballad, uh, to my wife, um, because I met her in the church and uh, at her in the church and uh, it's just, you know, one of those kinds of songs that I wanted to use to write to recognize her and, uh, let her know how much I love her and appreciate her for being who she is in my life.

15:45 And uh, you know, it's coming out. As I said, it'll be out next week Friday. So be on the lookout for that particular song. It's called Song, is About you and it's really a song about her. And you know anyone who's got a loving spouse that you know God sent you. That is everything that can handle you in a way that other people probably wouldn't be able to handle you, you know, because truly, god does place people in your life that only that individual can handle. You know, vice versa, whether you're the husband or the wife, I truly believe that the person that God has placed in my life, she's the only one that could handle me.

16:33 She's the only one that knows how to comfort me when I'm frustrated and frazzled. You know, and vice versa. So you know, this song is that kind of a song. Okay, well, I know you threw out your name name. You know how people can get in to check out your music on their podcasts or the streaming platforms, but do you have a website or any other contact info that people can contact you? I do. Um, if you will type in terrencePhillipsMusiccom, It'll take you straight to LBM Records and if you look under the artists, you'll find my name in the list of artists that are there Terrence Phillips.

17:29 And of course, you can go straight to all of my videos. You can go straight to my bio, you can. It'll take you to all of my photos, my photo gallery. It'll also take you to the upcoming stuff that's getting ready to take place. It'll also take you to the upcoming stuff that's getting ready to take place. So anyone who wants to know more about me or what I'm doing those kinds of things it's can just go to lbmrecordscom and look up the artists and you will find me in that list of artists and pull up my stuff and it'll take you from there.

18:19 All right, we'll close this out with some final thoughts. Maybe, if that was something I forgot to talk about, that you would like to touch on any final thoughts you have for the listeners okay, um, I just want people to know, um, check out my stuff, check out everything that I'm putting out there. Hey, look on, look on my website for upcoming events, upcoming, uh, things that are getting ready to take place here in the next couple of months. And if I wanted to leave a word of encouragement to people, I just want people to know that you know, as I said in one of my songs, trouble doesn't last always.

19:03 I know life can be hard sometimes and life can seem to pull you down, but I need you to understand that if you look up, if you look to the one that is able to keep you, you will be in the most peaceful place that you can ever be in, even in spite of what you might be going through. I want to encourage someone that, if you don't know Christ, get to know Christ as your Lord and Savior. He is going to be the best decision you ever make in life.

19:45 And you are talking to someone, or listening to someone, who learned that even in your most darkest moment, when you make a conscious decision to accept christ as your personal lord and savior, god can do anything and everything in your life but fail. You know family and friends sometimes disappoint and fail us, but God never fails. No matter what you go through, no matter what trials and tests you may face in life and tests you may face in life know that God loves you so so much that he will do anything and everything in his power to get you to have a relationship with him.

20:36 And so, if I were to leave you with anything, trust God. Trust God with every fiber of who you are and know that he is there for you. He, he, he won't ever leave you. He never forsakes you, and that's a promise that he gives in his word that he'll never leave you, nor will he forsake you. And with that I just want to say thank you to you, curtis, for allowing me to be on here and to share my testimony and to share a little information about me, so that your people, the public, will go out and you know, check out my stuff and you know when you a positive message about christ and what christ is able to do in their life.

21:51 And with that I'll turn it back over to you, curtis absolutely well. ladies and gentlemen, visit terrence phillips musiccom. Check out all the songs on the streaming platform. Keep up with everything that he's up to. Visit wwwcurveball337.com for more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Thank you for listening and supporting the show and Terrence. Thank you for the great music and the great message that you share. And thank you for joining me. It was truly an honor and a privilege.

22:32 For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, visit wwwcurveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.