Just months ago I was about to play a current version of “Amazing Grace” during my old radio show. I did, what I thought would be, some quick trivia research to share on the air about the song. To my amazement, “Amazing Grace” is celebrating its 250th Anniversary this year (2023). That is Amazing!!!
As a fan, musician, and DJ… I figured this must be the “Most Recorded Song” of all time. The old TV reporter in me wanted to get all the facts though. That’s when I was completely puzzled by several articles that quoted a
Guinness Book of World Records post. Apparently, a group of George Gershwin fans claim they hold the “Most Recorded Song” record from their collection of “
public performances [of “Summertime”], of which 67,591 have been recorded.“
But that just didn’t add up compared to the multitude of artists, performers, ceremonies, and churches globally where “Amazing Grace” has been performed and often recorded for well over a century since the invention of recording devices. After my research, I realized that if just 1 in every 1,000 churches alone around the world sang and recorded Amazing Grace on any given Sunday… it would topple the currently claimed record in just 1 day. If only we could get the word out to everyone about our challenge.
That 67,591 number might seem big at first glance, but it’s minuscule compared to other numbers my research revealed. Something 10x more AMAZING occurred when I contacted CCLI. They oversee the copyright licensing of music performed in over 300,000 churches worldwide. Their team did some preliminary research and we were all astounded at the “irony” of the results. Their website alone had over 675,266 downloads of Amazing Grace lyrics/charts from their site in just the last 10 years. That’s almost exactly 10 times the current Guinness Record we’re aiming to break. So CCLI kindly joined the challenge and are promoting it to their 300,000+ clients.
With this great news, I then put in the application with the Guinness Book of World Records to officially make it the “Most Recorded Song” of all time. But I was shocked as they flatly denied me from even trying to challenge this particular record saying: “This is an Editorial / ‘fact’ record… that can not be challenged.” “It will not be possible… under any circumstances.”
Hmmm… For this kid born with 1 arm… the words “will not be possible” always sound like a daring challenge…
Their rejection just fueled my passion to see justice prevail. Their protection of this particular record seemed a little odd that they would make it “off-limits” to challenge, but the Guinness rep did kindly say that their judges might reconsider this record if we can prove we broke it. My hope is not to just break the 67,591 recordings they’ve accumulated over Summertime’s nearly 90-year history… but to obliterate that record!
So come join me to do the “impossible” together! The challenge just started on Sunday, November 12th, 2023. The results are still being tabulated and so many of you are just now learning about it as word spreads. Let’s keep the momentum going and keep the challenge alive as we try to break the record in the remaining weeks of this 250th Anniversary year.
What if musicians, bands, choirs, churches, and singers combined their efforts globally to share and show the same “Amazing Grace” that this song so powerfully illustrates?
In an era of so much division in the headlines, this has the potential to spark one of the most positive, most inspiring, and most unifying events of this year!
