My friend and musical colleague Betty McDaniel died on Monday June 2, in Knoxville Tennessee, 3 days after receiving surgery for 2 brain aneurysms. She was 2 months short of her 50^th birthday.

The first time I heard her play was as Betty Chaba at the Soft Rock Café around 1980. Originally from Edmonton, she moved to Vancouver in the 70’s, and was known for her electrifying sets with Roy Forbes (then known as “ Bim”) and Foreman Young Band. She had become quite well known in the musical community as a session singer in studios, having performed with the “Ladies In Lights” at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre – a show involving a dozen of Vancouver’s best professional female singers. That night at the Café I saw her solo with acoustic guitar on a bar stool - and this is before it became cool to do it unplugged. The set she did was warm, intimate and there was a surprising bluegrass/country influence in her pop style voice. She just loved to sing and had a kind of spunky vitality, if not a lot of class.

Somewhere in the mid 80’s I heard via the grapevine that Betty Chaba had become a Christian and that she had married – her last name now McDaniel. A year or so later, I ended up sharing a concert night at First Baptist Church with her, along with a few other local artists. There was that bluegrass touch again, but something joyous and bold too. We hit it off right away that night and kept in touch ever since.

Betty has been more of an inspiration to me and to many other musicians than she probably knows. Certainly, she experienced all the highs and lows of being a Christian musician who operated with equal grace in secular and faith related venues. She didn’t fit the mould of contemporary Christian music when that was happening, nor did she fit the burgeoning worship music scene of today. She advised many of us to not try and fit into anything but to seek God’s mandate in our lives and not get the industry/mandate thing confused. But she wrote songs from the heart, for the heart, biblical songs about life in Christ, and songs about being REAL. Engaging, gutsy, honest, challenging, sweet and funny, she was a troubador of the heart’s landscape.

She was also an extraordinary person. She lived in many different worlds and touched many lives. Over the last ten years she developed a following in the Carolinas in the US, largely due to radio airplay, a great stage presence and a unique ability to share from the well of a broken heart. She was hired to speak at many women’s events and also teach group seminars. She often had the most prim and properly dressed either in stitches or in streams of tears – usually both – simply because she was so real. She was courageous and willing to share her life experiences, and somehow the pain and the beauty of what she said would pierce through to the core. She avoided spiritualizing everything, and instead would share eloquently about life being sometimes achingly painful. Somehow she’d pull that ache out of the darkest corners of people’s lives, out in to the light. It was in this place that many would encounter the “Suffering Servant”.

I remember the first time I heard Betty sing “ He Looked Across The Years”’ – a song inspired by “The Zion Chronicles” – a well known historical book trilogy by Brock and Bodie Thoene. This song formed part of a full CD release by the same name, with songs written with producer Jim Woodyard and Bodie Thoene. As she sang this song, it hit me that this was no lady going through the motions. This was the power of real conviction – she knew that Christ had looked across the years and died for her personally. She did this same piece at the BC Country Music Association Awards, and there was a holy hush in the space. She was a really good artist with a good ministry – an artist who won the Best Country Gospel Singer over four years in the 1990’s at the B.C. Country Music Awards. Her CD “Come To My Table” (1988) is regarded by many as a classic.

She was well read and she was deep. She lent me her copy of what she viewed as

C.S Lewis’s finest work “ Till We Have Faces”. If she liked a song by another artist you had to hear it – either that, or she’d record it herself! One of her favorites was “God Believes In You”

by US artist Pierce Pettis, recorded on her last CD “ REAL”. She practiced believing in other artists, by showing a loving belief in them, myself included. Moreover, she just never gave up with her own craft. She had 4 kids to raise, but soldiered on to record 8 independently financed albums (including a children’s album). She prayed, wrote quarterly pithy newsletters - wherein she demonstrated she could have been a preacher - had potluck parties with other gifted musicians in the lower mainland and joked “ where else can I get all of you to play for free? ”

Betty still had much to live for. I had an email from her in April this year, telling me how excited she was to be hired by the Life Skills group “Choices” and that she would be going down to the States once a month to work with them. She was halfway through recording her next CD with her closest musical ally Jim Woodyard. There is a bittersweet element in life that paradoxically, just as new horizons open, a precious life that has loads to offer and has not yet reached its prime, is suddenly terminated. This is sad stuff and no amount of “this is God’s timing”, will comfort her family in this dark time of loss. If any one of us had departed right now, and Betty was here instead, she would be the one who would be compassionately real. There’d be no pat statements from her as that would likely block any further dialogue or stop us hearing what’s going on in each others hearts.

I believe Betty’s death is the stuff of irony and loss that was already a considerable part of her life tapestry. I have 3 other hunches to share. One is that Betty’s music, which many will continue to listen to and discover anew, will have eternal consequences. The second is that she will hear a very big “ well done my good and faithful daughter”. Lastly, I know I’m really going to miss her company very much.

In closing I leave you with a quote from Betty’s last newsletter in January 2003.

“My well of strength, courage and compassion has grown deeper, not been diminished by my struggles, because God gave me the grace to hold fast to Him. And His grace IS sufficient for me; in my darkest hours He really has been my Light and my salvation, and in my weakness, His strength is here. The anchor holds.”

For more information about Betty McDaniel, please visit www.bettymcdaniel.com/

Michael Hart is a recording artist and teacher & lives in Ladner B.C.

SONG FOR BETTY

YOU SANG LIKE A ROBIN

WROTE SONGS FOR THE HEART

YOU SPOKE IN A PROPHET’S WIND

AND YOU NEVER GAVE UP

YOU OPENED YOUR HEART

BIG AND WIDE AS IT WAS

AND OUTPOURED THE LOVE OF GOD

TO SO MANY OF US

SING A SONG OF MOURNING

ONE OF OURS HAS GONE DOWN

HER BEACON IS SHINING

THRU A SOUL THAT WAS FOUND

A LIFE THAT HELD BEAUTY

INTERTWINED WITH THE PAIN

LIT UP BY THE GOOD NEWS

GOD’S ETERNAL FLAME

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YOU RAN THE RACE

AND WHEN YOU GOT TIRED

YOU DRANK IN THE PURE RIVER

THEN CLIMBED HIGHER AND HIGHER

YOU’VE STIRRED UP MY SOUL

THAT WAS NUMB AND ASLEEP

AWAKENED MY HEART AND MIND

TO LIVE IN THE DEEP

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LIFE IS A MYSTERY

AND NO ONE CAN KNOW

HOW SOMEONE WITH SO MUCH TO GIVE

HAD TO LEAVE US AND GO

ONE THING IS CERTAIN

IN THIS UNCERTAIN WORLD

SHE’LL HEAR “WELL DONE MY FAITHFUL ONE”

WELCOME HOME TO YOUR LORD

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Words and Music by Michael Hart Published by Soulkeeper Music June 2003