Grammy award-winning artist and longtime country music artist John Berry is back in Cedartown for the holiday season as one of his last stops ahead of Christmas to help bring the spirit of the season to Polk County.
Set to start his 27th year on tour this week, Berry is excited once again to bring a message of hope during the holiday season and reminding everyone of the real message of the season that this is the time of year celebrating the birth of a savior.
Berry, now long into his fourth decade in music, noted ahead of the tour his goal every year is to ensure that he spreads that message of the savior’s birth as he crosses the southeast and Midwest on his holiday tour that begins in Sugar Hill, heads upward to Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, and then back to Georgia before all is said and done.
“The message is that god sent his son and we celebrate that at Christmas,” he said.
He arrives with his band for the Friday, December 15 concert with an original show that features holiday classics and contemporary favorites. After more than two decades of playing his Christmas tour, Berry said one key thing to keeping it fresh is to mix up the setlist.
“We have songs on the every year list, some songs on the every other year list, and some on the every three year list,” he said. “They are all songs that we love to sing. We mix in with traditional and some new things, and we really mix it up and it keeps the show fresh.”
There isn’t one particular song that Berry insisted was his favorite to perform.
“They’re like my kids, I love them all,” he said.
But what keeps Berry on the road and touring with the Christmas Show with his band every year are the people who keep coming out to see what he’ll bring to the stage with each successive visit.
“The people who come to the show year after year,” Berry said was part of his motivation to continue with the tour annually. “Its so cool to be with them and to have that rapport with them and how much they enjoy the music. Its pretty spectacular.”
He said too that despite challenges, he has found a way to perform his Christmas Tour annually. That includes a bout with throat cancer in 2019 and the 2020 pandemic shutdowns on concerts and other performances.
He only did five shows that year, including a spot he has been throughout his run of Christmas tours: Macon.
Berry said that their Mayor insisted he come and do the show, and they made accommodations to move from one venue to a larger one to help ensure the audience had adequate space around each other.
His second to last stop before he finishes his tour this year is at the Grand Opera House in Macon for his 27th year on the Christmas tour. He’ll be in Cedartown at the Performing Arts Center just the night before.
Tickets remain on sale for the show through the CPAC website. They start at $40 for the back rows, and $45 for seats closer to the stage. a $25 add-on for VIP experiences are available as well. Learn more about that here.
Berry’s career started in the 1970s, when he recorded music at home and eventually after many years working regionally he broke out with Liberty Records in the early 1990s, and has been nominated for Grammy awards for songs like “Your Love Amazes Me” and CMA nominations and awards throughout his career. He had Top 10 hits in the 1996 release of Faces including “Change My Mind” and “She’s Take a Shine.”
This after he was hit by a car on his motorcycle in 1981 and nearly died, has underwent throat surgeries and cancer treatments, and brain surgery to remove a cyst in 1994. Life itself for Berry is centered around the hope he finds that music can spread more than just joy.
“I love doing it. I’ve been doing it forever,” he said. “My first record came out in 1979, so in six years now it’ll be 50 years old. I’ve been doing it a long time, and it is a big part of who I am.”
