Babbie Mason has spent more than four decades making Christian music, but apparently there was a time when some listeners had absolutely no idea who was behind the voice coming through their radios.
The veteran singer-songwriter, now 70 and still very much in the game, opened up about race, identity, longevity, songwriting and her next album during a wide-ranging conversation with Andy Chrisman on the 1 Degree of Andy podcast. The episode was released Aug. 20.
And one of Mason's more eyebrow-raising memories came from the early days of her career.
As a Black woman making music in the predominantly white contemporary Christian music world, Mason recalled arriving at concerts and discovering that some people who had heard songs such as "Each One Reach One" on the radio had assumed she was white.
"I thought you were a white girl," Mason remembered people telling her when they met her at the product table.
Rather than allowing herself to be boxed neatly into either CCM or Black gospel, Mason said she eventually came to understand that her musical identity didn't have to belong exclusively to either camp.
"I don't necessarily want to produce white music or black music," she explained. "I just want to produce good music that blesses the body of Christ."
Mason now views that in-between space as part of her calling, saying she can look into her audiences and see Black and white Christians and people from different denominations worshipping together. She believes God has positioned her "in the middle to bring the body of Christ together."
The conversation became even more serious when Chrisman recalled witnessing racism directed at singer Alicia Williamson while the two traveled together with Truth. He remembered seeing Williamson personally attacked because she was Black.
Mason said experiences surrounding race can produce "a deep sense of resilience" and compassion. Yet she emphasized that she continues to see God's blessings as greater than the burdens.
But the podcast wasn't all heavy reflection. Mason also dropped some fresh music news: she has another Christmas album coming.
The upcoming project is titled A Joyful Christmas With Family And Friends, and this one really does live up to the "family" part of the title.
Mason revealed that her son Chaz appears on the record, joining his mother and producer/vocal arranger Cheryl Rogers for trio performances. It's particularly nostalgic territory for Mason, who noted that she hasn't recorded a trio like that since "Standing in the Gap" with Helen Baylor and Cindy Morgan.
And mother and son are doing more than harmonizing together.
Mason and Chaz have recorded a new arrangement of Donny Hathaway's Christmas classic "This Christmas," with Mason describing their version as "amazingly crazy cool." Chaz also arranged several of his mother's vocals for the project.
There's another intriguing song on the record called "A Seat at the Stable," co-written with songwriter Greta Roaw. Mason described the song as imagining what it might have been like to sit beside the manger after Jesus' birth, watching Mary and Joseph and hearing the infant Jesus.
The song also illustrates something Mason says has kept her creatively alive after all these years: she believes her greatest songwriting collaborator is the Holy Spirit.
"My best writer friend is the Holy Spirit," Mason said, explaining that inspiration can arrive as a title, melody, groove, something she reads or even something said during an ordinary conversation. For Mason, the songwriter's job is partly learning to listen because "the Holy Spirit is always singing."
That philosophy has some history behind it.
Mason revealed that her signature song "All Rise" actually emerged after an initially bruising experience at the Estes Park Christian Artists Seminar in 1984. She entered its songwriting competition only to have her song criticized - or, in Mason's wonderfully dramatic description, taken like her "little baby" and shredded "into little millions of little pieces."
She didn't quit.
Mason went home and, within days or weeks, wrote "All Rise." The experience of standing nervously before judges helped inspire her to think about what it would mean to one day stand in the presence of God.
Then came the delicious comeback: Mason returned to Estes Park the following year with "All Rise" - and won first place in the songwriting competition.
Doors began opening, eventually leading to a deal with Word Records. Her first Word album arrived in 1990, following several years in which Mason said she was writing "like a crazy person."
Decades later, the woman whose song was once shredded by competition judges is still writing, recording, mentoring younger songwriters and leading worship.
In fact, Mason's career has taken another unexpected turn. After decades of traveling in music ministry, she is now on staff as a worship leader at Eastside Baptist Church near Atlanta, the church she attended for years. Her son Chaz frequently leads alongside her.
For Mason, being rooted in a local congregation again has brought something touring couldn't always provide: knowing the names, faces, families and birthdays of the people she worships with every week.
And at 70, retirement doesn't appear to be the message she's preaching.
Mason said older Christian leaders bring something that simply cannot be manufactured overnight: wisdom forged through "all the peaks, all the valleys, all the dark times" and victories. Her own experience of adapting to modern worship technology - including in-ear monitors, clicks and guide tracks - has convinced her that age doesn't have to mean standing still.
"You adjust, you evolve, and God helps you to do it," Mason said.
Forty-plus years after "All Rise," that's probably the biggest takeaway from Mason's story.
She isn't merely hanging around Christian music as a legacy artist. She's writing new songs, recording with her son, mentoring another generation, learning new ways of leading worship and preparing another album.
Apparently, Babbie Mason still has plenty to say - and she's certainly not ready to sit down.
