Gospel Recording Artist to Perform in Concert

LOMA LINDA >> Tickets are selling fast for the Inland concert by award-winning gospel recording artist Guy Penrod next month, sponsors of the event report. Most familiar to audiences for his 14 years as lead singer with the Gaither Vocal Group, Penrod will be featured in a live concert at Loma Linda University Church on August 20. Online and telephone ticket sales for the concert, part of the singer’s national “Pray about Everything” tour, opened June 1 at www.itickets.com and (800) 965-9324, explains concert series coordinator Dr. Bob Soderblom. All-reserved-seat prices range from $10 to $30 depending on location, he says, with prime-seat VIP tickets $50 each. Earliest ticket buyers can choose preferred seat locations in each price category. Penrod is known to millions for his Grammy and Dove award-winning recordings and his many televised appearances with the Gaither Homecoming Tour and Gaither Vocal Band. His rare Inland Empire concert appearance is co-sponsored by the host church and the nearby Calimesa Seventh-day Adventist Church, in collaboration with the Calimesa Community Concert Series. Visually striking for his flowing white hair, Penrod left the Gaither vocal organizations to launch his successful solo ministry in 2010. His 2012 recording, “Hymns,” became that year’s top-selling southern gospel album, and this year’s January release, “Guy Penrod Live,” opened in the number two position on Nielsen’s contemporary Christian music chart. His first solo DVD, “Live Hymns and Worship,” was also released this year and debuted at number one in Billboard’s chart for music videos. He was named “Soloist of the Year” by the National Quartet Convention in 2013. Born into a Baptist pastor’s family and growing up in Texas and New Mexico, young Guy showed musical promise at an early age. He recorded his first album as a high school student in New Mexico, singing all four parts. After graduation from Liberty University, Penrod pursued his musical career as a studio and back-up singer, working with many notable musicians. During that time he met Christian recording mogul Bill Gaither and in 1994 began his long-running affiliation with the Gaither Vocal Band. Today he lives on a farm in Tennessee with his wife Angie, their eight children, and an assortment of real cows and farm animals. The children – seven boys and one girl (the youngest) – are all home-schooled. Information about the Loma Linda concert, including directions to the church, is available on a recorded concert telephone line at 909-795-4960. The church is at 11125 Campus St., Loma Linda. Tickets are not being sold at the church, however, and none will be available at the doors when they open at 7 p.m. that night for the 7:30 concert. Popular credit cards are accepted for advance ticket sales, and concertgoers can enjoy free covered parking in a structure immediately across Campus Avenue from the church, Soderblom says.