{"id":989,"date":"2009-11-30T13:47:30","date_gmt":"2009-11-30T13:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/2009\/11\/ruben-studdard-christmas-in-your-arms.html"},"modified":"2009-11-30T13:47:30","modified_gmt":"2009-11-30T13:47:30","slug":"ruben-studdard-christmas-in-your-arms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2009\/11\/ruben-studdard-christmas-in-your-arms.html","title":{"rendered":"Ruben Studdard premieres his new Christmas song, Christmas In Your Arms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/118\/import\/Ruben_Studdard_XmasInYourArms_Cover.JPG\" width=\"200\" height=\"200\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/span>Here&#8217;s a special Christmas present, just for Beliefnet readers: The premiere of Ruben Studdard&#8217;s new Christmas song, &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221;!<br \/>\nThe song doesn&#8217;t release until December 8th, when you <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/RStuddard_iTunes\" target=\"_blank\">can buy it on iTunes<\/a>, but you get to hear it here first!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Listen to <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/RStuddard_CIYA_WindowsMedia\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221; in Windows Media Player<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Listen to <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/RStuddard_CIYA_RealPlayer\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221; In Real Player<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The song has special meaning for the R&amp;B singer, and so does Christmas.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><br \/>\nWhen he comes to the phone for our interview, Studdard is singing. &#8220;I&#8217;m just writing a song for the saints,&#8221; he says. He&#8217;s only into the second phrase he says, but adds, &#8220;I&#8217;m feeling real inspirational these days.&#8221; He bursts into song again:<em> &#8220;I love the Lord, He heard my cry.&#8221;<\/em><br \/>\nSpiritual inspiration isn&#8217;t something seasonal for this R&amp;B star, who says, &#8220;The older I get the closer I grow to God, and my relationship gets stronger because I understand a lot differently than I did when I was a child, of course.&#8221;<br \/>\nStuddard has been involved in his church his whole life &#8211; the Rising Star MIssionary Baptist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, to be exact &#8211; and that&#8217;s where he got his musical start. He says sInging with the choir and in front of the church congregation helped prepare him for his professional singing career.<br \/>\n&#8220;I can even remember as a child singing a solo,&#8221; Studdard laughs, &#8220;and being so afraid that I had to hold onto the piano and stand on the side of my choir director to just make it through a song.&#8221;<br \/>\nIt was at church that he was encouraged to sing, and it&#8217;s his church family that still keeps him grounded.<br \/>\n&#8220;I always know that there&#8217;s a place where I can go where they won&#8217;t be calling me Mr. Studdard or beating around the bush when they think I&#8217;m doing something wrong,&#8221; Studdard says. &#8220;Everybody needs some people in their life that&#8217;ll be just completely honest with them. Because the world, they&#8217;ll chew you up and spit you up and smile in your face when you&#8217;re doing good and bad. And my church is just not that place. You know, you&#8217;re doing something out of pocket and they&#8217;re gonna let you know.&#8221; He laughs. &#8220;I appreciate them for that and I just love them.&#8221;<br \/>\nAnd it&#8217;s not just at home that Studdard has that spiritual support. &#8220;The one thing that I prayed about before I went on [American Idol] was that God would introduce me to people that grew up like I did.&#8221; Right away, he made friends in L.A. who were Christians, and when he won the competition, he took his band on the road, a group of Christians with whom he&#8217;d been playing gospel cover tunes. His road manager is his best friend from childhood.<br \/>\nBut Christmas is when his philosophy &#8211; &#8220;My whole life is based on family&#8221; &#8211; really kicks into gear. From family Christmas parties to Christmas morning breakfast at his aunt&#8217;s house to the church Christmas pagents, he&#8217;s surrounded by family and friends.<br \/>\n&#8220;I really feel like even though I didn&#8217;t grow up in the richest of situations,&#8221; he says, &#8220;I feel like I won the birth lottery, because I have so many great people around me.&#8221;<br \/>\nAnd that&#8217;s why his new Christmas song, &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms,&#8221; is so special to him. It&#8217;s a remake of an Alabama song &#8211; Studdard is a huge country music fan, believing that country is &#8220;the only industry that hasn&#8217;t lost the heart of the people.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;I really wanted to just put something out that everyone could just listen to and it would uplift people&#8217;s spirits,&#8221; he says. &#8220;The song is just saying, basically to your wife or your family, that it doesn&#8217;t matter where I spend Christmas as long as I spend Christmas in your arms.&#8221;<br \/>\nRuben Studdard&#8217;s latest album, <em>Love Is,<\/em> is in stores now. For more about American Idol&#8217;s &#8220;Velvet Teddy Bear,&#8221; visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rubenstuddard.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ruben Studdard&#8217;s website.<\/a><br \/>\n<i>Got a gospel or Christian music news tip? <a href=\"mailto:joanne@joannebrokaw.com\">Send me an email!<\/a><\/i><br \/>\n<i><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=GospelSoundcheck&amp;loc=en_US\">Click here to subscribe to Gospel Soundcheck by email <\/a>and have the Gospel Soundcheck headlines delivered daily to your email inbox. And don&#8217;t forget to <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/joannebrokaw\" target=\"_blank\">follow me on Twitter!<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s a special Christmas present, just for Beliefnet readers: The premiere of Ruben Studdard&#8217;s new Christmas song, &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221;! The song doesn&#8217;t release until December 8th, when you can buy it on iTunes, but you get to hear it here first! Listen to &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221; in Windows Media Player Listen to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,47,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-idol","category-christmas-music","category-gospel-music"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ruben Studdard premieres his new Christmas song, Christmas In Your Arms - Gospel Soundcheck<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2009\/11\/ruben-studdard-christmas-in-your-arms.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ruben Studdard premieres his new Christmas song, Christmas In Your Arms - Gospel Soundcheck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Here&#8217;s a special Christmas present, just for Beliefnet readers: The premiere of Ruben Studdard&#8217;s new Christmas song, &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221;! The song doesn&#8217;t release until December 8th, when you can buy it on iTunes, but you get to hear it here first! Listen to &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221; in Windows Media Player Listen to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2009\/11\/ruben-studdard-christmas-in-your-arms.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gospel Soundcheck\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-30T13:47:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/gospelsoundcheck\/files\/import\/Ruben_Studdard_XmasInYourArms_Cover.JPG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joanne Brokaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ruben Studdard premieres his new Christmas song, Christmas In Your Arms - Gospel Soundcheck","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gospelsoundcheck\/2009\/11\/ruben-studdard-christmas-in-your-arms.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ruben Studdard premieres his new Christmas song, Christmas In Your Arms - Gospel Soundcheck","og_description":"Here&#8217;s a special Christmas present, just for Beliefnet readers: The premiere of Ruben Studdard&#8217;s new Christmas song, &#8220;Christmas In Your Arms&#8221;! 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