Ronnie Hinson is one of the great songwriters of our day. Songs such as The Lighthouse have become some of Southern Gospel musics Greatest Hits . As a founding member of Southern Gospel Hall of Fame group, the Hinson’s, Ronnie wrote such classic Southern Gospel songs as, “Oasis ”, “Mercy Built A Bridge” and what many consider to be one of the top Southern Gospel songs of all time, “The Lighthouse”. Larry Hnson tells the story behind the Hinsons signature song: It was written in 1970, in the downstairs bathroom of a church then called The Pentecostal Tabernacle. We had been rehearsing songs that Saturday evening and found the necessity to have new material to stage. Ronny disappeared for several minutes, only to return to the church sanctuary brandishing a long fluttering piece of toilet paper. The title of the song was none other than The Lighthouse. It was first recorded the next year by The Goodmans and then by The Hinsons. Songs of Calvary and Journey Music, (then owned by Rusty Goodman,) co-published the song. Elvis recorded it soon thereafter... The Lighthouse quickly became a huge hit in southern gospel and remains one of the most recorded songs in the genre. From 1973 till 1980 The Hinsons were the co-hosts of the popular television show The Gospel Singing Jubilee. Although the Hinsons were an extremely popular touring group with excellent record sales, they were considered radical for their concert style, which was far more ministry oriented than most of the more established professional groups. Ronnie says: We were in a big church where we were rehearsing and I said to my brothers and sisters, ‘I’m gonna go to the little boys room downstairs and I’m going to come back up here in just a few minutes with a hit song. And I just laughed and they laughed at me.” “I came back up and had written some words on a piece of toilet tissue and I opened it up on the pulpit and said ‘This is my song. Are you ready?’ and I started singing it. One of them grabbed it, wadded it up, laughed and said as hard as it is let’s get back to the hymn books that’s not it.” “So we tried two more song books”, Ronnie remembered, “and it was almost daylight and my brother Kenny, sleepy young kid, guitar bigger than he was, said, ‘Get that piece of toilet paper out of the trash and open it up. I’ve got an idea’ and he started singing. The presence of the Lord filled the place. It was as bright in that place, it seemed in my spirit man, as noon.” Ronnie Hinson paused briefly then continued to tell the history behind his song, “The Lighthouse”. He continued, “From that point on it just took off. Everybody who’s who has recorded ‘The Lighthouse’. At one time I think they had several positions in the top twenty that were taken up by somebody else’s version of ‘The Lighthouse’ which is unheard of today.” He says that he had never seen a lighthouse before he had written the song and didn’t understand what was so special about his song. “I was so curious as a novice at writing. ‘What is so important about this song? What was –as we say in Tennessee – all of the hoopla about?’ I was so intrigued by it, what it was about this song, that I got on my bicycle and rode 30 miles to find a lighthouse. “ “It was the first time I ever laid eyes on a lighthouse, to my knowledge, unless I was a child and had seen it in a social studies book. I parked my bike, chained it to a fence post, climbed up on a sand dune and for the first time – at the Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Santa Cruz, California, I sat there and I saw the lighthouse and I thought, ‘What a picture. What a scene.’ The ocean was gray. It was desolate looking. It was like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie but there stood the lighthouse; hope in the middle of all that dreary hopelessness. Then I looked at my paper, my toilet paper, and I saw the picture that I’d never seen before. It came to life on that paper and tears ran down my face and I knew that there was something God had orchestrated and as I have learned how to write and have received a lot of awards for writing, I always look back and remember and God always keeps me humble with that one trip to the Lighthouse and remembering that I didn’t even know what a lighthouse was when I wrote it. youtu.be/4n0CQ-XZrpA
Posted on: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:55:34 +0000
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