Life Song Revelations by Billy Chernoff

The charts are based on a survey of more than 200 radio stations in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

“It didn’t dawn on me at first how special this award is,” said Chernoff, who will accept his trophy and also perform at Leighton Buzzard in the London suburb of Bedfordshire, England. “I haven’t released the new album in the U.S., so this is a big surprise. I’m tickled to death to be honored by listeners, radio stations, and music industry professionals in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world.”

International hits on Chernoff’s Life Song Revelations CD are Jesus Is (top five), Nothing Became Bread (top five), Let’s All Live On In A Song (number one), and I Believe In An Old-Fashioned Jesus (number three). The CD will be released in the United States later this year on the Spotted Pony label.

Chernoff has been a highly successful country and Christian artist in Canada since the late 1960s, recording hit songs such as No Lonelier Than You on Spartan Records (number 10 on Canada’s record charts), Susie’s Better Half on RCA Canada (top five), and When You Were A Lady on RCA Canada (number one). To Ma Ray, Tom O Ray, a song on RCA produced by Ronny Light in RCA’s Studio B in Nashville, topped Canada’s RPM record charts and charted regionally in the U.S. in 1970.

In the early 1970s, the artist teamed with Woody Guthrie’s cousin, Jerry, to write the classic Fresno Rodeo, a song that later was nominated by Casey Tibbs for a Heritage Award with the Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City.

During the 1980s, Chernoff performed across Canada with the popular acts Orange County, Billy & Dean and Lonesome Highway.

The recording artist returned to Nashville in 1992, re-teaming with Light for a new recording of the album Fresno Rodeo. He later performed the title track at the Country Music Association of Texas Awards Show in Brady, Texas.

Chernoff’s Magical Mystery Man, a CD produced by David Hamilton in Calgary, Alberta, for the Edmonton-based Old Hippy Records, hit the Americana top 100 in 2004. The album is still charting in the Roots Music Report.

The artist began releasing singles from the 10-song CD Life Song Revelations in the United Kingdom in early 2006. Light produced again in Nashville. Last fall, the Country Music Guild nominated Chernoff for Male Vocalist for 2006.

“The NCM Radio Mike Award is one of the highest honors a country or Christian artist can receive,” Chernoff added. “It shows that with hard work and determination, anything is possible.”

For more information about Billy Chernoff or his new CD Life Song Revelations, call toll free at (877) 442-4228 or visit http://www.billychernoff.com.

BILLY CHERNOFF … TUGGING AT THE HEART-STRINGS!

A classy, unique and infectious Canadian-country performer, Billy Chernoff once said very thoughtfully and humbly, as he surveyed the diversity of musical expression, “There are as many artists as there are tastes in music!”

I agree with Billy to a degree, because even in the country music arena, appreciation-of-art is always a personal decision one makes. Yet I do not find it difficult to pin-point exactly why many people like Billy Chernoff above others of the genre. He has clear-diction and gentle and engaging singing tone which, when wedded to a quality lyric (and an apt country instrumental setting), tugs at the heart-strings.

Personality-wise, Billy admits to being “pretty easy-going for the most part”, maintaining a positive outlook and basic faith in God and his fellow man. With an pertinent smile and a philosophic pose, Billy says, “I guess that my character’s backdrop is white with some dark in the forefront, rather than a black background with only some white in the forefront!”

FROM RESOURCEFUL STOCK

Billy was born on a very cold December 14th, 1944, two weeks before Christmas. It was at the height of World War II, but fortunately, Grand Forks, British Columbia - Canada (his birthplace) was thousands of miles away from the hostilities of Europe and the Pacific.

Originally from Russian descent, fifty years before, his Grandparents were religious escapees from a rural area around the Caspian Sea. Along with about 7800 other persecuted souls, they fled from their homes because of ethnic-cleansing and under the risk of being martyred for their Christian pacifist values. Gratefully, they settled safely on the northern prairies of Canada in 1899. The tired escapees were granted a hundred year amnesty against army conscription by Queen Victoria and given tracts of unsettled land that they bravely broke, tamed and farmed communally. After only a couple of generations the resourceful Russians immigrants were assimilated into the Canadian culture and society at large.

Billy left school after the 10th grade and went to work grooming and exercising race horses in Vancouver, British Columbia. Music, however, was always a big part of his life from the very early start. He sang in choirs as a child and started writing my own songs at fourteen years of age when he received his first guitar. Later he started playing in clubs in the Toronto, Ontario area at the age of 21.

He felt the magnetic pull of Music City, USA and so predictably moved to Nashville, Tennessee to write and record for RCA Victor, the prime label of the era. He was pleased to join the top label headed by his hero Chet Atkins. Billy recalls, “I would have to say Chet Atkins was a hero for everyone because of the kind of man he was, and what he accomplished during his tenure at RCA. The artists he signed and the records he produced speak for themselves. The worldwide appeal that he brought to his instrument (the guitar), country music in general, and the ‘Nashville Sound’ are legendary.”

Another great hero that Billy cites is Tillman Franks of Shreveport, Louisiana. Billy remembers the exiting days when Tillman was the artist-bureau chief of the long-running ‘Louisiana Hayride’ radio show that was carried on KWKH Radio. “Tillman Franks had an important hand in developing the careers of some of the great names of country music including Webb Pierce, Johnny and Jack, Kitty Wells, David Houston, Johnny Horton, Hank Williams. and, of course, Elvis Presley.”

UNIVERSAL IN SCOPE

Billy says that he considers a good song is defined as one that communicates an emotion or feeling of the human condition that is universal in scope and nature. Such a song, Billy adds, transports the listener to a place that transcends language, and makes the listener feel the song as if it was written just for him. “An example of that would be ‘Cold Cold Heart’ penned by Hank Williams Senior.”

As an enthusiastic Christian believer, Billy declares, “Gospel songs go much deeper than secular music. They have the capability of striking at the very essence of one's inner being. They go much deeper into the heart or intellect than secular music could ever do.

Gospel lyrics give a person a quality choice as they promote an uplifting way of life that is full of hope and optimism. The word ‘Gospel’ means ‘good news’ and is not just for believers, but for humanity-at-large especially those persons who are searching for something to believe in. I believe good Gospel Music can lead a person to the truth of what the ‘governing principle of the universe’ is, and ‘what the purpose of our existence’ is all about. From what is known, to what can be known comes through faith.”

THE BEST IS YET TO COME

Uneasy at the thought of dwelling too much on past successes(of which he has many), Billy says, “Without doubt, I think the best is yet to come! … I feel very fortunate to have been influenced by some of the people I've know along the way.

It's been a privilege and a joy to travel the USA and Canada taking my brand of North American country and cowboy music to the people and making my living from it! …I enjoyed even the small and medium-size venues as well as the bigger clubs, associations, and music festivals. For the most part, I have been flying under the media's radar and not creating too much fuss or hype. Now in 2006 with the release of the ‘Life Songs’ album that may be changing. Inter-denominational opportunities are presenting themselves for my music ministry. I would call that a highlight that is beginning to hatch.”

The Chernoffs have three kids of whom they are rightly proud. “In 2006 we have two girls aged 9 and 12 named Meagan Mabel and Catherine Grace. We also have a boy aged 15 called John William. They all live in Vancouver, British Columbia with their Mom (Dianne Lynn) and me, of course, when I'm not on the road. To spend quality time with my kids is an essential for me.

We make home in between three different locations – Vancouver-BC, Grand Forks-BC, and Nashville-TN. We raise our children in Vancouver so I spend as much time there as I can. My 91 year ‘young’ Father resides mostly in Grand Forks-BC my hometown so I pass through there as much as I can, and of course I work out of Nashville. That’s where my record company is and my immediate network of people that I work with are.”

While being interviewed for a segment of the ‘Grace and Glory’ Christian radio show in Mexia, Texas in the summer of 1999, Billy says that he came to realize that the oral tradition of worship and teaching (that he had been raised with) had left out a most important part of the Christian experience.

He says, “Truth dawned on me- as it did Nicodemus in his encounter with Christ recorded in John’s Gospel (John 3:5) in the New Testament. Christ declared that all men need to be ‘born again’ or in other words, experience the ‘new birth’. For me, I personally experienced a totally transforming and a life-changing event that even more convinced me of God’s existence… Nowadays, the debate rages about ‘intelligent design’ v ‘evolution. Some of the greatest scientific minds of our day are starting to yield and re-think their positions under the weight of all the compelling ‘intelligent design’ evidence that is so overwhelming. In my view, a creation of the magnitude of Planet Earth necessitates a Creator. I think that it would take a lot of outrageous faith these days to be an atheist! When I asked my 9 year old daughter, ‘How do you know that God exists?’ She promptly answered, ‘How would we exist if He didn’t?’”

WORD OF MOUTH PROMOTION

Billy hopes to broaden his fan-base in the USA and the UK and in particular target the Christian/Country markets. He has completed a new Country-Americana album this year (2006) that he will be releasing early next year. He has also started on a new Gospel album as well that I hopes to finish in the New Year. Billy says, “I hope to be able to go on writing songs that I love to sing, and making the best records I can, Then I hope to go around the country performing those songs. Being able to work steadily all these years is a blessing and a success in itself. Via the word-of-mouth, people tell other people about me and my music. With a positive media profile plus the word-of-mouth from audiences, I’m pleased that the news is getting around internationally about my music.”

PAUL DAVIS

BILLY W CHERNOFF

LIFE SONGS

REVELATION

Billy masterfully fashions his Nashville sound. Here is an absolute gem of which highly motivated Billy should be proud. Gentle-on-the-ear and communicative, there’s nothing tasteless about this 5-star country-gospel undertaking. The whole repertoire concept is a welcome release from the customary themes. Yes it is syrupy and down-home but there’s nothing artless about it. It is a truly appropriate observation and comment on subjects by a great talent fronting top-class Nashville sessioners produced by Ronny Light. Billy’s country-gospel songs are emotional and stimulating. Particular highlights are ‘I Believe In An Old Fashioned Jesus’ and ‘Nothing Became Bread’. This is most listenable so invest in it! All songs are new to me (except the first ('What A Friend' and Gary Paxton's last) but they are story-telling, poetic, descriptive, and easy-to-understand. PAUL DAVIS

Average Customer Review: 5