Dottie Rambo Killed in Bus Accident

[Sam]

Originally Posted by Mrs. LPW

I think the way she went is the hardest to swallow. Very shocking and sudden.

Yes, but she went home while she was on her way from one concert to another. This is so much better than being in a sick bed or nursing home for a long time. This soldier was called to headquarters while in action, not in a sick bay.

She wrote a lot about Heaven and now she is enjoying the real thing.
I'm sure it's far, far beyond anything she could imagine.

[timlan2057]

I can't link this.

I can only embed it.

But I'd like to think she's singing a duet again with Vestal Goodman ...

Now that I think of it, I can't think of another modern songwriter who had a better, love, vision or passion for Heaven, and wrote more articulately about the Next Life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnQUK...eature=related

[timlan2057]

Well, that was just Vestal singing so here's Dottie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZRXP_wEHqA

[Barb]

Originally Posted by timlan2057

How very sad.

Now, I was never a super big Rambo fan even when I was a youngster.

But "The Singing Rambos" were such a part of our lives at JCM back in the days when southern gospel was king.

I've come to appreciate her music more now that I'm older.

Many of her songs were more "country gospel", but her soul and heart shone through what she wrote and sang, her Kentucky roots like Loretta Lynn's, or the east Texas piney woods that gave birth to such a great artist as George Jones or the north Alabama roots of Howard and Vestal Goodman.

Dottie, like the others, sang from the heart and captured in their music the true spirit of America, the Kentucky coal miner, the truck driver - the heart, soul, joy and pain of every day living and the hope of something better in the world to come.

The song of hers I'm thinking of right now is one that I'd normally think "corny" but it doesn't seem so corny right now - "Mama's Teaching Angels How To Sing" ...

...Gabriel will lay down his harp
And heaven's bells won't ring
While mama's teaching angels how to sing

[rgcraig]

The site has this posted:

Embedding disabled by request

[Barb]

I need to go to bed, but keep thinking about her music. Talk about poetry...

The sky shall unfold preparing His entrance
And the stars shall applaud Him with thunders of praise
The sweet light in His eyes shall enhance those awaiting
And we shall behold Him then face to face...

[Sam]

while we're thinking and talking about Dottie, here's a story:


Today's Christian, November/December 2003

Story Behind the Song
Dottie Rambo's "He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need"
By Linda Owen

"Amazing Grace," shall always
be my song of praise
For it was grace that
brought me liberty
I do not know just why
He came to love me so
He looked beyond my fault
and saw my need

Throughout the '60s and '70s, Dottie Rambo, her husband Buck, and their daughter Reba, made up The Singing Rambos, one of the most successful southern gospel trios of all time. As the group's main songwriter, Dottie was prolific. Today, hardly any modern hymnal fails to include one or more of her 2,500 songs. Dottie's best-known song, by far, is the inspirational "He Looked Beyond My Fault and Saw My Need."

In 1970, Dottie began writing a song about the grace of God, but was unable to finish it. When her older brother was hospitalized with cancer and told that he had only weeks to live, Dottie sat by his bedside and ministered to him. Within a few days, she persuaded him to marry the woman who had borne him five children. Dottie read the Bible to him and prayed with him. One day, after singing at a concert, she returned to ask: "Have you given your life to Jesus since I've been gone?"

Eddie, 37, stared at her with sad eyes. "After the wicked life I've lived, the Lord won't raise a person like me," he muttered. He reminded her of his time in jail and his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

"The Lord left the 99 to bring a lost sheep like you back to the fold," Dottie told him. She continued to pray for his salvation. Then she went home and finished "He Looked Beyond My Fault." For years Jimmie Davis, the southern gospel singer and former Louisiana governor, had asked her to write a song to the tune of "Danny Boy." With this song, she finally discovered the inspiration. Later that day, she returned to the hospital to sing the song to Eddie.

On Sunday, after she finished singing in an Ohio church, Dottie felt the Holy Spirit's assurance that Eddie had been converted. Hurriedly returning to Tennessee, she found her brother so weak that he could barely talk. "Yesterday I gave my heart to the Lord and he forgave me," he whispered in Dottie's ear. "When I get to heaven, I'll wait for you at the Pearly Gates so we can enjoy heaven together."

Before he died, Eddie asked his sister to sing "He Looked Beyond My Fault" at his funeral.

The experience left Dottie even more determined "to share with the many hurting and wounded people in this world the wonderful message of God's great and unconditional love."

Showing no signs of slowing down after 50 years of songwriting, Dottie continues to speak at seminars and appear on Christian television. Since July, she has been celebrating the release of her new album, Stand By The River, which includes an updated version of "He Looked Beyond My Fault." Dottie tells fans that she sings "He Looked Beyond My Fault" every night, even if she's not performing. "It continues to feel like a brand-new song to me," she says. "The joyful news of God's grace never grows old."

Lyrics by Dottie Rambo, © 2003 John T. Benson Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

A Christian Reader original article.

Copyright © 2003 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
Click here for reprint information.
November/December 2003, Vol. 41, No. 6, Page 14

[Sam]

Is anybody familiar with a song of Dottie's called "The Lord of Me" or does anyone have the lyrics?

[crakjak]

From what we could observe life was not particularly kind to Dottie, but out of her pain she sang and gave praise to God. She sang and spoke of where she is today in most of the songs she wrote, I believe it is greater than all she could imagine, may God comfort and guide her family left behind.

[jaxfam6]

I remember Dottie from WAY BACK WHEN. I was so very young and they all lived in Ohio and went to the ALJC church there. Having known them and seeing how big they became was always cool so we followed them and their music even after they left our area.
My late father-in-law and Reba had been boyfriend and girlfriend when they were young. Then they moved on and obvisously it was so that he could meet my mother-in-law and produce my wonderful wife.
Dottie did have many trials and tribulations during her life but she seemed to be an overcomer.
I will always remember them singing in church and at camp when I was little.

Sister Alvear were you ever in Ohio ministering and get a chance to meet them? They went to Bro Charles Smith's church back then.