For 34 years, the country community has come together to support and bring awareness to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Since Alabama’s Randy Owen called attention to the mission of St. Jude during Country Radio Seminar over three decades ago, more than $950 million has been raised with the help of the genre, its annual radioathons, and online campaigns like #ThisShirtSavesLives.
Videos by American Songwriter
The St. Jude Country Cares Seminar, held in Memphis, Tennessee, in October, invited countless country artists, songwriters, and radio executives to tour the campus and learn more about the hospital. American Songwriter was in attendance and chatted with nearly 20 artists and songwriters on their experience at the hospital. Many artists toured the hospital grounds for the first time and expressed their surprise at how hopeful and uplifting their visits were. Families never receive a bill for treatment, travel, housing, or food at St. Jude.
[RELATED: Brothers Osborne on Why They “Will Always Be Champions for St. Jude”]
“You hear about St. Jude so much but actually getting to be here in the facility and seeing what’s going on, it has really inspired me,” HunterGirl tells American Songwriter. “Going back to Nashville, I’m going to have St. Jude in my heart and whatever they need, I’ll always be there.
“I was already up in the room writing a song and it’s very inspiring,” she continues of penning a tune about her St. Jude visit. “I think everywhere I write a song, but especially here. My songwriting, it’s from the world around me and things that I’m going through. … I think this song that I’m writing now, I’m very excited to hopefully help somebody else.”
Just like HunterGirl, Owen was inspired by St. Jude years ago. He penned Alabama’s “One Big Heaven” about his experience at the hospital.
“I was visiting the children and I saw on this door, the window had a picture of a cloud and it said, ‘Big Heaven,’ so I got to thinking about that,” he says. “I thought, ‘Well, if it is a big heaven, it must be a really big God that takes care of that big heaven.’ So, I came back from being up here and wrote ‘One Big Heaven.’ That was directly responsible for one of the visits. I did that song the first time and got a lot of people singing along. It’s one of the songs I’m proud I wrote.”
Since St. Jude opened its doors in 1962, the hospital has helped develop and implement better therapies so that more than 80 percent of U.S. childhood cancer patients become long-term survivors. One of those survivors, Lindsey Alsup, served as a campus guide during the seminar. The former patient now works at St. Jude and shares her journey with visitors. She also detailed the power of music she’s seen firsthand.
As Alsup explains, the hospital’s music room allows students to write and record songs. Some patients have recorded their first EPs in the music room while others have gone on to sell them and tour after being discharged from the hospital. Three music therapists are also employed on campus to work with patients.
“One of the things that moves me the most is that they do heartbeat recording,” Alsup says. “They take a child’s heartbeat, put it to a song, give it to the family. If that child passes away, they still have that connection to the child. That’s the first thing you hear when you find out you have a child, and it’s something that [families] can keep forever.”
She also told the story of one former patient who found his voice as a songwriter and rapper while undergoing treatment at St. Jude. Nick, who goes by St. Nick as his artist name, wrote his first song through journaling while at St. Jude.
“He was very quiet when he got here,” she recalls. “He was a basketball star and so he’s supposed to be a basketball star. This was not supposed to happen. So he had a hard transition having to be a kid with cancer. But while he was here at St. Jude he ended up finding a path he didn’t know, which is rapping. He’s actually written an album and he ended up writing one of my favorite songs of his, ‘I Do This 4 The Jude.’ It’s all about how he’s dedicating his life to supporting St. Jude. … He’s doing great.”
I do this for The Jude
Fight after fight
They’re saving lives at The Jude
–“I Do This 4 The Jude”
Singer/songwriter George Birge made his fourth visit to St. Jude in October. A father of two, the singer says he most enjoys hearing former patients talk about the future they’ve been given.
“The inspiration comes from seeing people persevere, seeing people breakthrough challenges, seeing people given bad news and turn it into good news,” he says. “As a songwriter, that’s what life is. It’s not always how you want it to be, but it’s what you make out of it. I think there’s no better example than St. Jude and it definitely is going to be an inspiration for my songwriting going forward.”
Tigirlily Gold’s Kendra and Krista Slaubaugh echo Birge’s sentiment of their visit to St. Jude being an inspiration. The sister duo add that they hope to inspire and bring people together with their music, and this is exactly what St. Jude is all about.
“If we can write a song that does that for someone and maybe heal someone in some sort of way, of course this inspires us,” Kendra says.
Many of the artists in attendance during St. Jude Country Cares Seminar took part in the This Shirt Saves Lives online movement. Throughout November and December, artists shared #ThisShirtSavesLives on their social pages asking fans and followers to take part in the campaign and become a Partner in Hope, where a monthly donation of $19 gives donors a T-shirt. Since its launch in 2017, the campaign has distributed nearly one million T-shirts.
For Brothers Osborne, who were honored with the 2023 Angels Among Us Award for their involvement with St. Jude over the past decade, getting involved with the children’s research hospital quickly became a lifelong mission.
“It’s never what people expect it to be,” John Osborne concludes. “You go in there with a bit of trepidation and worry about it on paper, [thinking] it should be gloomy. Then you walk through there and it’s the most hopeful atmosphere on the planet. To meet those kids, who at six years old have lived more life than people who are our age, and they have so much wisdom baked into their experience, it’s very impactful. It was very easy to get involved with St. Jude … once you visit, that’s it. You want to be a partner with St. Jude forever.”
Photos: Courtesy of ALSAC: St. Jude
