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Forbes Declares Michael W. Smith’s Cover Of “Waymaker” Go-To Comfort Song In Present Global Pandemic

May 27, 2020

– Forbes Declares Michael W. Smith Cover Of “Waymaker” Comfort Song In A Global Pandemic

American business magazine, Forbes has declared Michael Smith’s cover of “Way Maker” as a go-to-song comfort song in a global pandemic.

The song was initially recorded by Multi-award winning Nigerian Gospel artist Sinach way back in 2016 following the release of her “Way Maker” album. Michael Smith’s version of the song has held the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Christian Airplay Chart for the past two weeks since the release of the radio version while also boosting a total of 19 million plus views YouTube and fans all over the world have reached out to thank him for recording it.

Following the release of the radio version of the cover, the Grammy award winning gospel artist revealed that there have been many positive feed backs from his fans all over the world.

“I’m getting most of the feedback from these concerts, It’s amazing. I feel like I’m playing stadiums with 100,000 people tuning in from around the world. And as I’m reading comments, there are so many about ‘Waymaker.’ People are quoting lyrics and saying things like, ‘You have no idea how much I need this song right now.’ Whether that’s in Italy or Zimbabwe or South Korea, I mean literally around the world”. he shared

Given the strong global response, Smith decided to record the song in other languages. He started with Italian. “We obviously watched what was going on in Italy and I just woke up on night thinking what if we did this thing in Italian? And I immediately thought of Vanessa because her whole family’s from Italy. (Vanessa Campagna is his back-up singer who accompanies him on ‘Waymaker.’) So, we brought in a coach and we did it. It was really a lot of fun.” , while also sharing plans to do the song in both Spanish and Portuguese.

The worship leader also revealed how his daughter was instrumental in him listening to the song for the first time “I didn’t write the song, I discovered it through my daughter, Anna, who was going through a bit of a trial in her life. She asked me if I’d heard this song called ‘Waymaker’ and I said no. So, she played it for me and I ended up recording it.”

He remembers being struck by the crowd’s reaction when he performed it live for the first time at a show at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville almost two years ago.

“Most people want to hear what they know and if you play a new song they’re usually like ‘whatever.’ But this time there was this kind of gasp in the audience and people were like ‘whoa, I’ve never heard this song before.’”