When COVID took over our lives in 2020, many of us stayed home. Businesses, including musical venues, went wanting for customers. For musicians, this meant that available “gigs” were few and far between. My friend George Gagliardi had spent over a half-century writing songs, singing, playing, teaching. Music wasn’t just his trade or even just his craft – it was his way of life. COVID wasn’t going to change that.
George Gagliardi was perhaps the most creative person I’ve ever known. Soon after COVID sent many of us to our couches, George found his audience on Facebook. Creating videos for all his pals (and they are everywhere) to enjoy, he sang, played, and even recited. I told him more than once how impressed I was at how prolific he was during that time, often writing new songs “as the Spirit moves me.”
After George passed away last month, I got to thinking how I didn’t want those performances to get lost, over time, in the maze of Facebook posts. Of his countless (literally!) performances over a career spanning over a half-century, perhaps only a relative few were recorded, and even those are scattered in different places. But his numerous Facebook videos – especially those recorded since COVID hit in 2020 (for he continued this practice, just not as frequently, after things got back to “normal”) – are all easily available. How wonderful it would be, I thought, if there were one place we could go to view George’s wonderful videos.
So I took this on as a project during the past couple of weeks. I now present, for your listening – and viewing – pleasure, a new YouTube channel, “George Gagliardi’s Music & Musings – for his pals.” This channel contains 163 videos – yes, you read that right, one hundred sixty-three. I encourage you to click the link and bookmark it. You’ll want to come back, again and again.
All but two of these 163 videos were posted by George to his Facebook page, and all but two of the 161 Facebook posts were recorded in his apartment, the exceptions being a video of George playing Christmas music in Union Station in Kansas City, MO (posted on Christmas Day 2020); and one of George playing piano in the McIver Chapel at Wilshire Baptist Church, his (and my) home church (posted September 7, 2021).
In addition to the 161 Facebook videos, I took the liberty of including two earlier videos that are special to me personally, both recorded in the Community Hall of Wilshire Baptist Church: (1) George playing and singing his beautiful song, In the Shelter of My Father’s Loving Arms, at the 2011 T. B. Maston Foundation dinner; and (2) George playing and singing Big Bad Bill Jones (to the tune of Jimmy Dean’s Big John) at my retirement dinner in 2018.
On the channel, all 163 videos appear in chronological order. For each of the first two videos, the date shown after the title is the date of the performance; for the other 161, the date shown is the date on which George posted it to Facebook. Also, I’ve copied-and-pasted George’s own description of each video into the Description area so that you can read what George had to say about it. For many of them, he posted the lyrics.
As I’ve sat with all of these 163 videos the past two weeks, I’ve been impressed by the diversity of the music. Many of them are songs George had recently written, sparked by a particular event or even a dream; others are songs from, as George put it, his “vault.” Rock, swing, jazz, blues, romantic, soulful, some reflecting his deep faith in Jesus and yet acknowledging his (and others’) questions for God. Some are downright fun, silly (for example, The Night of the Living Zoombies, posted Sept. 12, 2020), and even irreverent (George’s irreverence was gentle but pointed), and there are a few in which George expresses his frustration with some situation, system, or attitude. Then there are those times when he put his own arrangements to longtime standards, giving them a “Gagliardi feel.”
A few of the videos are of George reading passages from his book, Some Hope for the Holidays. When the book was published, I bought copies for myself, family, and friends, and asked George to autograph them. I sent one to a dear friend in Florida. A few months later, he called to tell me that some of George’s devotionals gave him the feeling that George – whom he never met – was speaking directly to him. That so pleased George when I told him. After all, that was so George, using his writings – whether musical or otherwise – to get to the heart of where people really live. Speaking of holidays, you’ll find a special treat in a video from Dec. 10, 2022, in which George gives us a tour of the Christmas cards and decorations in his apartment, or – as George called it – Christmas at the Gagliardi Estate.
There is no “definitive” George Gagliardi song. The many facets to George’s music, musings, and personality make it impossible to easily define him. There is a common thread, however, to all of these videos – George’s unmistakable grace, love (for God and for people), and his thoughtfulness.
By thoughtfulness, I mean not only consideration for others – such as the time, just a month after my wife passed away in 2021, that George wrote a beautiful piano piece he titled A Hymn for Those Who Now Sing with the Angels and played it on Facebook, dedicating it, by name, to me and several others who had recently lost loved ones.
But thoughtfulness also means that George was constantly thinking – about world and national events, and their effect on people he cared about, which is everyone; about the deeper meaning of faith and the questions it raises; about people and their concerns – his empathy, his ability to listen to others and understand, as best he could, what they were going through, was unique; and about different kinds of music, and new “spins” he could put on old standards.
His work with special needs children and with senior citizens spoke to his love for putting the gospel of Jesus into action, though he could put it into words as well as any preacher could.
I’ve done the tech work to put this YouTube channel into motion, but it’s really George Gagliardi’s “creation” and that of the God who inspired him. Whether sacred or secular, I feel certain that all of George’s music was inspired by the God he worshipped.
I’ve made this channel for George’s pals, a group among whom I was proud to be numbered. Even those of us who knew George as a close friend will, I believe, find ourselves getting to know George even better as we view these videos. (I have.) George and I were friends for almost 20 years, but some knew him for 50 or more, so I’m a latecomer to the Gagliardi family of pals.
By the way, the first time you go to the channel, before you click on a video, just look around at the “thumbnail” pictures of the videos, and enjoy gawking at the many different outfits George donned for them. He rarely, if ever, repeated an outfit. George had more costume changes than Madonna in Evita (Google it), and – more often than not – he had an explanation for it, such as wearing fall colors for The Colors of October, posted Oct. 2, 2020; or a t-shirt evoking Julie London for George’s arrangement of Love for Sale, a song that she recorded, posted July 14, 2021.
George’s pals are legion. He made friends everywhere he went. His musical collaborators are too many to count. Then there’s Facebook – if he encountered you there, you were his pal. I encourage you to share this YouTube channel and its videos with the same generosity that was George’s. As others are introduced to George through these videos, they will feel they are his pals, too.
I was blessed to have George Gagliardi as my friend for these many years. Our numerous “chat-and-chews,” as he called them; the many birthday celebrations at Red Lobster, Olive Garden, etc., of which I was privileged to be a part; running into him at Wilshire frequently; driving with him to Howard Payne University in Brownwood, in 2010, for the Currie-Strickland Christian Ethics Lectures; attending his concerts at Wilshire – these are just a sampling of our friendship.
Five days before George’s passing, I visited him in hospice care, and we both said farewell to each other until we meet again on the other side. I hope my visit was a blessing for him; I know it was for me. Among these videos is one that George wrote after visiting a friend of his in hospice care, which he titled When It’s Time to Say Goodbye, posted July 18, 2023. His opening lines are “You don’t want to be a blubbering mess . . . You don’t want them to see you being stressed out.”
Even then, almost a year-and-a-half before his passing, George’s lyrics of his angst in visiting his friend anticipated the angst I experienced during my last visit to him. I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, that I wouldn’t make him feel sorry for me. It wasn’t easy, but I made it through that visit without crying. I was emotional, sure, but I didn’t cry. Then, when I got out to my car, the tears all came gushing forth. I’ll be forever thankful that God gave me that last visit with George in this life . . . it was a good one.
George has left us a rich legacy through his music – whether sacred or secular; vocal or purely instrumental. His spirit is alive in all of us who knew him and were touched by him, and I pray that George’s music and musings will touch generations to come.