The San Francisco Globe - Doug Seegers

I came across this article today that for me epitomises redemption and wonder. Glory in the ordinary things of life.  We all need things that just blow you away. Doug Seegers singing "Going Down To The River" does just that. 

Any lover of music has heard of Nashville, Tennessee. Home of the Grand Ole Opry and the Country Music Hall of Fame, Nashville also is affectionately called Music City. It's no wonder that country music lovers and hopeful performers flock to the city, crowding Music Row to bask in the history and exchange stories about their favorite country music stars. 

Jill Johnson, a Swedish country/pop star, decided to take a field trip to Nashville, all the while filming the trip as part of a televised documentary. It was then that she met Doug Seegers, a homeless struggling musician, sitting on a park bench. He sang an original song, "Going Down To The River" for her, and she knew she was meeting someone special. She and Magnus Carlson brought him into Johnny Cash's old recording studio and put together the video below. The song was an instant hit. Doug's song jumped to the number one spot on Swedish iTunes, and it even caught the attention of Lionheart Music Group. Doug was given a record deal, and in the summer of 2014, Doug's first album was released. Although it went gold and was a chart-topper in Sweden, he remains a virtual unknown in his home country. 

A voice like this, full of soul and history, deserves recognition. It's been a long time since we have heard a song so impassioned. When Doug sings, "I'm going down to the river to wash my soul again," he paints the painful portrait of a man in constant struggle with his demons, but one who also clings to the hope of redemption.

Seegers wrote the song two years ago, while he was still homeless and wrestling with his demons. "It was almost like a prayer I wrote to myself," he says, sitting in a corner office of his booking agency in Beverly Hills, hours before his first Los Angeles show.

A few months later, he was struck sober. "I prayed for [God's] help and I feel like he pulled me out of it," Seegers says, who has remained abstinent. "Also, I had none of the joneses or the cravings or the pain. I had nothing. He removed them all. It was instant."