See Rascal Flatts’ Sunny Take on Shenandoah’s ‘Church on Cumberland Road’
Rascal Flatts were in a giving mood during a week that sorely needed it, performing as part of the Bobby Bones Show‘s ongoing “Joy Week” and then visiting Good Morning America to perform for the show’s “Day of Giving” for hurricane and flood relief. On Bones’ show, the trio has some fun with Shenandoah’s “Church on Cumberland Road,” bringing along a band for the in-studio rendition.
With their cover choice, Gary LeVox, Joe Don Rooney and Jay DeMarcus smartly link themselves to the grand tradition of full band vocal groups that proliferated in the mid-Eighties and Nineties. Shenandoah’s “Church on Cumberland Road,” written by Bob DiPiero, John Scott Sherrill and Dennis Robbins, was Shenandoah’s first Number One as well as one of the first songs Rascal Flatts ever performed as a trio. In their version, Rascal Flatts leave the arrangement alone, pitching it up slightly from the original but keeping those multi-part harmonies intact and making room for some nifty instrumental solos in the middle.
The trio was the latest country act to give an intimate concert in the Bobby Bones Show studio, as part of the DJ’s fundraising efforts for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Having met and surpassed the original goal of $50,000, the campaign will shift its focus by donating additional funds raised to the Red Cross for Hurricane Harvey relief efforts.
Rascal Flatts doubled those efforts on Good Morning America for the show’s “Day of Giving,” singing their 2011 hit “I Won’t Let Go” as well as their latest release “Back to Us.” Beginning October 6th, the group will set up its limited Las Vegas residency, “Rascal Flatts – Night to Shine,” at the Venetian Theatre.