The Virginia Aires: "Drugs" (Dove Records 2008)

"Drugs”
The Virginia Aires
Dove Records 2008
www.solidrockworldwide.com/virginiaaires.htm

This summer, the popular Virginia Aires quartet of Chesapeake, VA declared jihad on drugs.

“Drugs are a trick of the enemy,” the group harmonizes in that languid tempo characteristic of modern quartet singing. It’s a song that bemoans the devastating impact substance abuse has on the abuser and his or her family, but it also encourages abusers to have hope, to seek freedom from the captivity of addiction. “Drugs and alcohol have you hooked/but you’re still somebody in God’s book,” Kenny Halsey reminds the listener.

Talking with some of the group members at GMWA this year, I learned that the group is really pushing this single (pun not intended) in hopes that more lives will be saved by turning away from drug and alcohol addiction. In other words, they're not out for the sole purpose of promoting a quartet record; they are doing what every good gospel singer does: promote a new way of living.

The Virginia Aires also hope the public understands that addiction is not someone else’s problem. Halsey hammers it home with vivid imagery: “It could have been my daughter or yours/knocking from door to door.” Amen.