“We all go through a lot of stuff. We all face a lot of things in this journey of life. Through it all, we don’t have to face it all alone.”
That’s a key takeaway from spending time with John Berry.
Through his music, his journey, his songs and stories, the Grammy and Emmy award-winning singer and songwriter’s personal truth is about faithfulness.
“There are good friends and good families with us,” he says. “More importantly we have a Creator that loves us so much that he sent Jesus. There’s nothing more important.”
Berry’s bringing his decades of music to Gladewater and Jackson’s Cozy Theatre for a 7:30 p.m. performance May 9, about 40 years since a motorcycle wreck turned the country crooner’s career from an on-his-feet day job toward a stool, a guitar and a spotlight.
The show lands about three decades since the then 34-year-old first had a song top the charts.
“I hate to say it, but I missed a lot of it,” Berry says. “I had brain surgery the same day ‘Your Love Amazes Me’ was my first No. 1 record. I kept asking, ‘How’s it doing?’”
Friends and family helped him write on a poster to communicate and to learn the good news.
“I know it sounds like a bad Hallmark movie, but that’s what it was.”
At 65, Berry’s still got a lot going on these days. Other health battles aren’t holding him back, especially as a slew of his tracks hit the 30-year mark. He and wife, Robin, reside today in Gallatin, Tennessee, about 30 minutes north and east of Nashville, but Gladewater’s familiar territory – their two sons, Sean and Caelan, are raising families nearby.
It’s Berry’s first time, though, to bring “a night of songs and stories” to the venue, though he has a fond memory of catching an Opry show there years back. That was well before the building was revitalized by local entertainer and developer Jackson Foltyn and his team.
“I’m looking forward to being there. I’m excited to play,” Berry said. “Jackson’s done a lot of work and investment in that little theater.
“There was so much that had to be done. I’m glad to see someone come in there and save it.”
Berry has a good idea of what it means when someone puts their love and attention into saving something broken.
Life’s put the musician in the hospital numerous times, but God’s faithfulness has brought him back from the brink time and again.
It was in the early ‘80s that Berry, riding a motorcycle, was struck by another motorist, leaving him with two broken legs and a broken hip. The experience left no outward scars, but his gait has never been the same.
“If you come see me live at a show, I walk with a pretty good limp,” Berry says. “The silver lining to that very dark cloud was I couldn’t go back to the warehouse manufacturing job I had. But, I could sit on a school with a guitar and make a living, so that’s what I did.”
His musical ambitions earned Berry a record deal in the ‘90s and, eventually his first hit – peaking alongside his brain surgery.
Several years later, “I ended up pushing my vocal chords and worked too hard in Fall of ‘97, ended up losing my voice and having to cancel my Christmas tour that year,” Berry recalls. “I ended up having to have vocal cord surgery – I had to take almost a year off.
Throat cancer six years ago was treated with both radiation and chemotherapy.
“I think I’m most comfortable wearing a hospital gown,” Berry quips. “Of course, I’m not the most good looking in it.”
In September 2024 a carotid artery weakened by the radiation developed an aneurysm and caused a stroke.
“Fortunately, there were no long-term effects, but I can’t drive a bus anymore, I can’t have my commercial driving license. I’m fine with that,” Berry says. “You just thank your Lord that your faithfulness continues.
“God has been faithful to see me through, see my family through. We’ve been able to maintain and sustain and keep going.”
As Berry sees it, his music hasn’t changed much at all over the years. Granted, he’s not one to spend too much time analyzing his work. He’s here to make music.
“I just play what comes out,” he says. “I hear stuff I like, and that’s what I do.”
The industry, however, changes a little more each day.
“They left ol’ grandpa behind,” Berry laughs. “It’s all good: I still get to go out and play, get to sing for people who have enjoyed the music over the years. It’s even nicer to meet people who have heard me for 30 years, and I’ve never met them. It’s always a treat.
At the same time, “There’s always people there who have never heard me before – or think they’ve never heard me before. From the stage, I can see them lean over to somebody and mouth the words, ‘I’ve heard that one too!’”
May 9’s ‘An Evening with John Berry’ is a continuation of the longtime ‘Songs & Stories’ effort alongside Robin.
“We had so much fun, we kept adding shows. It ended up being a 22-month run and a two-disc set,” then Robin turned it into a tour book and, ultimately, the project evolved into a TV show featuring Berry’s bandmates and a string of his close friends in the music business.
“They’d sing songs that they wrote or record that mean a lot to them,” he said. “We want people to hear the songs as they were meant to be,” focusing on the story and the relationship to the performer/writer.
At Jackson’s Theatre, “We’re just gonna sing songs and tell stories and share music that means the world to me.”
One of Berry’s fondest memories also came during the toughest time of his life – eight weeks fighting the throat cancer in Thursday treatments.
“By Friday night I was worthless. I was hugging the toilet for several hours,” he recalls. “One night I had to get up. I don’t know how long I’d been in there. Robin came in and sat down on the floor next to me. While we were sitting there, she would remind me of all the times God had been faithful to my family through things she had heard about. Faithfulness from God to my family before she had met me.
“She told me of God’s faithfulness to her family. Through her dad’s cancer. Then God’s faithfulness to see me and Robin through.”
Certainly, “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is a song that stays close to heart. The couple will mark their 37th anniversary two months after Robin joins Berry on stage May 9.
“She’ll share some stories about me she probably shouldn’t but I’ll try to tamp her down,” Berry jokes. “I hope folks will come out and be with us. We should have a great time. I look forward to being there,” sharing truths about faithfulness.
“I keep plugging away, doing my thing, see where it all leads. It has been quite a ride.”
– By James Draper