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Living
Grace Bluegrass Gospel
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| Back to Front, L to R - Tim & Jetta McCool, Keith Gresham, Carman Davanzo, Bob Steele, Jason Rapert |
Living Grace History
Living Grace grew out of a group of friends who shared a love for bluegrass gospel music. Members of
this group first began playing together in 2002 as "Jason Rapert and Friends," and recorded a CD together that was
released in 2005. The CD with title cut "Run The Streets of Gold" has been very well
received by audiences across the region, and its release has led to numerous performance opportunities for the group which
then decided to take the name "Living Grace". After selling out the first printing of "Run The Streets
of Gold", the band is releasing a second printing of that first project in 2010.
Living Grace features vocalist and fiddler Jason Rapert, known to bluegrass fans in the Arkansas area
through his occasional performances with the group Hickory Hill Bluegrass Gospel, Clear Blue, and Shady Grove Bluegrass.
He began playing fiddle at the age of ten, learning to play by ear with the assistance of his grandfather, Conway Jarrett,
a fiddler himself. Jason played music with his family for many years at church and community events, and
since 1990, he has performed with a variety of bluegrass bands around Arkansas. In addition to playing
for the Lord, Jason is an evangelist and conducts missionary and humanitarian projects through Holy Ghost Ministries, www.holyghostministries.org.
Tim
& Jetta McCool are also original members of the band. Tim is featured on banjo and vocals in Living Grace.
Tim began playing guitar at age six, banjo at age ten, and bass at age 17. For 28 years, Tim played
with the Chisum Family Band, and he has also played with the gospel group Looking Up and with the Morris Brothers
bluegrass band. Tim's wife, Jetta, is also a member of Living Grace, and a vocalist in the band.
She too has performed with the Chisum Family Band as well as other bluegrass groups. Tim and Jetta
reside near Hector, Arkansas. Keith
Gresham sings and plays bass for Living Grace. He has been playing music for 30 years, beginning with the
guitar and later learning to play upright bass and banjo. He has been featured on several recordings and
has traveled throughout the region playing bluegrass since the early 1980s. He is also an original member of the band.
The most
recent additions to the group are guitarist Carman Davanzo and Bob Steele on mandolin, both from Conway, Arkansas. Carman
has become very well known in bluegrass circles for his extraordinary flat picking on the guitar. He is simply
one of the best bluegrass guitarists in the entire state of Arkansas and boasts years of experience playing with various groups,
including his other passion, the Davanzo Family.
Bob Steele rounds out Living Grace with that classic bluegrass
mandolin sound. Bob joined the band with Carman in 2010 and he has quickly added just the right touch to the group with
great mandolin breaks and vocal harmony. He comes from a musical family back in Kansas and grew up singing harmony around
the house with his family. He is a big fan of Winfield and you will probably see him jamming somewhere on the campground
there every year.
Living Grace blends the backgrounds of all the members of the band, steeped in
that all engulfing mountain bluegrass gospel sound you hear in small churches all over the south. Holy Ghost Ministries
is proud to sponsor Living Grace as it ministers to others through bluegrass gospel music.
Bluegrass and Evangelist Jason Rapert
Jason has been playing music for at least 25 years. Rapert grew up in Supply, Ark., in Randolph County,
near the Missouri border and started playing fiddle when he was 10 years old. He learned to play the fiddle by ear from his
late grandfather, Conway Jarrett from Warm Springs, in northeast Arkansas. The first tune he learned to play was an old Bob
Wills tune called "Faded Love."
When he was 12, he got serious about the fiddle, going to bed and waking up with music playing. Along with Grandpa Jarrett,
Rapert's favorite fiddler was Dusty Rhodes. He learned his first three chords on the guitar from his
grandmother, Pearl Jarrett. A great deal of his musical foundation was laid playing church functions and
community functions with his family who were all very musically inclined. Jason has played many, many local
get-togethers with his late Grandpa Jarrett and Uncle John Jarrett of Paragould, Arkansas. In addition
to playing with his family whenever called upon, over the years Jason played fiddle for Amy O – Amy Ogden was a young
country singer at the time from Pocahontas - when he was in high school. Since 1990 he has played with
various bluegrass groups including Borrowed Time Bluegrass out of Greenbrier and Conway, Shady Grove bluegrass out of Pea
Ridge, Arkansas, Whiskers & Lace, Clear Blue which is a group he helped form and his wife Laurie named. Starting
in about 2002 he formed Jason Rapert & Friends which formally became Living Grace in 2005.
Jason has performed in various venues as a guest
or featured artist including the FFA state convention in Hot Springs, the annual Second Baptist Church Beast Feast in Conway,
the Roundup country music show in Brookland, various local Rotary functions in Conway, the National Association of Retired
Federal Employees state convention in Conway, and various churches and bluegrass festivals in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
Other musical artists that have influenced his style of music include the works from fiddlers Bobby Hicks and Kenny
Baker, and Bluegrass artists Ricky Skaggs, Ralph Stanley, Bill Monroe, and Rhonda Vincent just to name a few.
Booking Information
To book Living
Grace at your church, bluegrass festival or for a gospel music function, please contact Jason Rapert at 501-472-2794
or jasonrapert@holyghostministries.org.
Living Grace ministers at churhces on a free will offering basis. For bluegrass festivals and non-church
venues within the state of Arkansas, a minimum of $500 is required to cover travel expenses.
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