Search

Driving Notes

The Official Blog of WNZR's Afternoon Drive

Open Search
Category

Album Release

Tasha Layton, Phil Wickham, MercyMe, and for King & Country Take Film to the Next Level!

We had a lot to talk about on this week’s Artist News Day! We checked out what some of your artists are up to: Tasha Layton, Phil Wickham, and for King & Country!

If you’ve seen their movie Unsung Hero, which talks about the Smallbone family’s upcoming and moving to America from Australia, you’ll be excited to see the next part of that story in for King & Country’s new documentary, No Turning Back!

This new film peeks further behind the curtain of the story of Unsung Hero and dives into the journey of how Joel and Luke Smallbone became for King & Country. As well-known as they are today, it is interesting to see the how hard the grind was at the birth of the band, and all of the road blocks they got to overcome. More information about tis film can be found here!

To watch this documentary, you can find the information here!

Phil Wickham is back with more worship songs on his new EP Psalm 8 (Hallé). This 3-song EP will be songs that you will hear on Angel Studio’s musical movie DAVID.

That’s right, one of your favorite WNZR artists will be heard voicing David himself on this upcoming movie, coming out December 19 in theatres, just before Christmas!

To learn more about this new release and about the upcoming movie DAVID, click here!

Have you ever wanted to see Tasha Layton as a stop-motion character? Well look no further than Tasha’s new Christmas All Year Long music video, where it’s entirely stop-motion!

We got to hear this song on The Afternoon Drive today! If you want to hear it and watch the incredibly made stop-motion music video along with it, go here:

All of this talk about our artists creating and being a part of incredible movies, documentaries, and films is getting us excited for the next big film from MercyMe! It’s the sequel to their movie I Can Only Imagine, titled I Can Only Imagine 2!

This story revolves around Bart and the band MercyMe’s big success after their song I Can Only Imagine hit #1, and sent them off on their musical career. Bart also now faces the responsibility of being a father, and he gets to learn how to raise his son who also has a diabetes medical condition. We’ll also get to see another artist, Tim Timmons, who became a big role model and mentor to Bart along this next step in his journey with Christ and in music! To learn more about this movie, click here!

You can watch the trailer for I Can Only Imagine 2 here:

Today, we got to have a conversation with Dr. Bob Tocheff, who talks about MVNU’s Advent Service happening on Wednesday, December 3, at 7:15PM!

This event is free and open to the public! It’s happening in the R.R. Hodges Chapel on the campus of MVNU. If you want to know more about who will be featured and what you can expect some of the repertoire to be, you can listen to the conversation we had with Dr. Bob on our SoundCloud!

We have some Christmas lyrics for Song Poetry this week! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire
Jack Frost nipping at your nose
Yule-tide carols being sung by a choir
Folks dressed up like Eskimos

These lyrics are from none other than Nat King Cole’s song The Christmas Song!

Congratulations to Tom from Howard for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Tune in on Wednesday for some fun facts on Who Knew Wednesday and a game of Who Am I?.

Thank you for listening!
– Joe and Ethan

0

Music Awards, Christmas Albums, and CeCe Winans Singing at the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving!!

Buckle in! We have a lot to talk about on Artist News Day! Here is all we talked about on The Afternoon Drive today!

Brandon Lake continues to add more awards to his repertoire! The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) declared Brandon won 2 awards on November 10th.

Brandon was awarded Christian Music Songwriter of the Year and Christian Music Song of the Year, which was Praise, a song that rose to #1 for 31 weeks, co-written by Brandon Lake and Pat Barrett. With these 2 new additions, Brandon Lake now holds around fifteen ASCAP awards!

Further information can be found here!

We’re not the only ones starting to get into the Christmas spirit! Blessing Offor is joining the party with a new EP titled To All A Good Night!

This EP includes some new Christmas originals, like To All A Good Night and God With Us. He also is throwing in his special twists on *NSYNC’s Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and Otis Redding’s Merry Christmas, Baby.

Here’s the full list of songs on Blessing’s EP:

1. To All A Good Night (Blessing Offor & Nathan Wallace)

2. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

3. God With Us (Blessing Offor & Andrew Skib)

4. Merry Christmas, Baby

5. Wonderful Christmastime

6. Snow Globe (Blessing Offor, John Thomas Roach,

Steven Colyer)

7. Like A Child (Blessing Offor)

8. Little Drummer Boy

Further information can be found here!

Do you ever wonder how much work goes into the writing of a song? Well, for some artists, it’s a lot more than you think!

We’ve discovered Jon Reddick, an artist with hits like God Turn It Around, I Believe It, and his recent #1 hit No Fear, paints his own album covers! That’s right, the one you see above you, and every album you see from Jon, are hand painted by Jon himself!

After knowing this, you can’t unsee it! More info about Jon’s heart behind his paintings can be found here!

If you love Gospel music and football, you have a special treat awaiting for you! CeCe Winans will be performing the National Anthem at the Detroit Lion vs the Green Bay Packers game on Thursday, November 27th, which is the day of Thanksgiving!

This game will be the Detroit Lions’ 86th Annual Thanksgiving Day Classic! You can watch CeCe perform at this huge event on FOX at 1PM EST!

Did you know TobyMac had a conversation on Focus On The Family?

Toby talks in this conversation about losing his son, trusting that help is on the way, and holding on to hope in all circumstances.

You can watch and listen to the entire conversation on their YouTube channel:

Here were this week’s Song Poetry lyrics:

Cloud by day, fire by night
Guide my way, oh, move me right
Break the chains, set me free
Make a way like I ain’t never seen

This week’s lyrics were a stumper! See if you can figure out the artist and song title from these lyrics, and check back in next Tuesday for a chance to win two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Tune in on Wednesday with Joe Rinehart and Gabriella Stanley for Who Knew Wednesday and a game of Who Am I?.

Thank you for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

0

Jamie MacDonald Announces Her First Studio Album!

We dug into the weeds a little bit on this week’s Artist News Day. We talked about Jamie MacDonald’s first upcoming studio album, as well as the details regarding MercyMe’s second debut to the silver screen, I Can Only Imagine 2.

Jamie MacDonald, recently signed onto Capitol CMG, announced her first ever album that will be coming out early next year! This self-titled album is scheduled to release on January 23rd, 2026 and will feature well-known favorites heard on WNZR like Desperate and Left It In The River.

You can expect this album to be full of honesty, faith, and healing as we see the story it tells. Jamie is telling listeners, “For over a decade, I’ve held onto God’s promise that I would one day write songs that would first heal me, and then bring healing to others. That time is now.”

You can find her taking some of the songs on her new record while she’s on the road this fall and upcoming spring! She’ll be coming to Ohio with:

  • Benjamin William Hastings on his At The Heart Of It Tour in Pickerington, Ohio on Friday, November 14th
  • Chris Tomlin on his Christmas With Chris Tomlin tour in Grove City, Ohio on Friday, December 19th
  • Phil Wickham on his Song Of The Saints Tour in Columbus, Ohio on Friday, April 17th

If you want to see Jamie live at any of these events, you can get tickets by going to the Concerts page on our website here!

We talked about MercyMe’s sequel to their box office hit, I Can Only Imagine last week, and earlier last week we got to take a look at their movie as they released the first trailer to I Can Only Imagine 2.

In this trailer, we see some of the struggles Bart goes through as he becomes a father. We also get a look at Bart’s new mentor, Tim Timmons, some struggles that he deals with, and how God uses him to help Bart as he learns how to be a good dad to his son Sam.

The full synopsis is found on their website here!

All of that and more is seen on their new trailer!

Here were this week’s lyrics for Song Poetry!

The truth of its nature
It’s always give and never take
It flows with that freedom
Surrendering itself away
Carves canyons through stone
Tells the rivers to run home

This week’s Song Poetry was a stumper! If you think you know the song title and artist of these lyrics, tune in next week for a chance to win two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Thank you for listening!
– Ethan Hershberger

0

MercyMe’s Next Headline Tour!

Today on Artist Newsday we talked about where you can see some of your favorite artists on tour. If you love seeing and hearing your favorite WNZR artists live, you can go to wnzr.fm/concerts and see all the places where you can catch your favorite artists hitting the road!

After coming out with a new record, Wonder + Awe, last August, MercyMe are going out on the road this Spring to bring you some of their new favorites from this album on The Wonder + Awe Tour! Of course, they’ll be performing some of your favorites from previous albums!

Joining the band on the road will be their friends Big Daddy Weave, alongside Sam Wesley and Tim Timmons, who play a huge role in MercyMe’s upcoming movie! If you want to learn more about the heart behind this tour and what to expect from it, click here!

The band will be arriving at Toledo, Ohio on Thursday, March 19th! Ticket Information can be found here!

MercyMe’s Wonder + Awe tour will be connected with their upcoming theatrical release of I Can Only Imagine 2, which you can see in theatres February 20!

Returning to the silver screen with a sequel, this movie will dive deep into Bart’s life after MercyMe’s breakout hit, I Can Only Imagine, skyrocketed the band’s popularity. You’ll see Bart face as his past as he tries to be a father to his son, Sam. A big mentor in Bart’s life, Tim Timmons (played by Milo Ventimiglia from This Is Us), enters Bart’s life as the band goes on their biggest tour to date!

To read the full synopsis and stay updated for this upcoming movie, click here!

Anne Wilson’s third studio album, Stars, is out now! This record features 12 new songs, with one we hear on WNZR called God Story! You can learn more about this new album here!

This new release is being supported by her upcoming headline tour, called The Stars Tour, which is stopping in Akron, Ohio! It’s 90% sold out, so if you want to grab tickets, you still have some time!

Anne will be at the Akron Civic Theatre in Akron, Ohio on Friday, November 21! You can get tickets here!

Here were this week’s lyrics for Song Poetry:

Well, I find myself daydreamin’
Like never before
There’s joy and pain, like sun and rain
Through every open door

Rene from Mount Vernon came sliding in at the last second during today’s show and snagged a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! She correctly guessed the song title and artist, which were Heaven On My Mind by TobyMac.

Tune in on Wednesday for fun facts and a game of Who Am I? on Who Knew Wednesday!

Thank you for listening!
– Joe and Ethan

0

Christmas Tours!! Already?

Today on Artist News Day, yes, we’re already talking a little bit about Christmas! Some of your favorite WNZR artists are bringing their Christmas tours to Ohio, and they could be coming to a city near you!

Chris Tomlin is coming to Grove City, Ohio, on his tour called “Christmas with Chris Tomlin”. He’s bringing a special guest, Jamie MacDonald, along with him!

Chris is excited for this night of worship, prayer, and even laughter as he put it! It’ll be a great time worshipping with him and Jamie MacDonald. They’ll be at The Naz Church in Grove City, Ohio on December 19th!

You can get tickets by clicking HERE!

We Are Messengers are coming to Wooster, Ohio on their “A Celtic Christmas” tour!

Hailing from Northern Ireland, they’ll be bringing a Celtic style of music that is worshipping and glorifying God! The band will be in Wooster, Ohio at Movement Church on Sunday, December 7th!

You can get tickets by clicking HERE!

One of your favorite worship music artists, Pat Barrett is releasing his fourth studio album called Walk Through Fire!

This new release is coming out this Friday, October 3rd, with a total of 11 songs on it! This album is coming after his third album, Shelter, which he released in October 2023!

Pat is going on tour with Brandon Lake and Franni Cash on Brandon Lake’s King Of Hearts Tour this Fall and Spring! You can find tickets on our concert page HERE!

You can find out more about this new record HERE!

We’re seeing a brand new album from Tasha Layton coming out next Friday!

Tasha’s new album is called Life In Me, which features songs we’ve heard on WNZR, like Thank You Isn’t Enough ft. The Choir Room and Worship Through It ft. Chris Brown! This is what Tasha says about this upcoming release: “This album is so special to me! Each track really represents a season from my walk with Jesus. In its entirety, the album is a beautiful picture of His life in me.” She can’t wait for you to hear these songs!

You can find more information about this record HERE!

Today, we took some lyrics from a song we listened to on The Afternoon Drive and turned it into a poem for Song Poetry!

Here were this week’s lyrics:

Take my heart and let it move
In spirit and in truth
For the glory of Your Name
With every breath that’s in me
With every song and melody

Today’s Song Poetry came from Lauren Daigle and her song Let It Be A Hallelujah.

Congratulations to Chris from Gambier for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in on Wednesday for a special broadcast, celebrating our 39th Anniversary!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Ethan Hershberger

0

We’re Looking Forward To Christmas With Natalie Grant!

We had a packed show with artist news from Natalie Grant, Phil Wickham, and more from the 2025 GMA Dove Awards!

Natalie Grant is now signed to record label Captiol CMG, and with this, she’s already announced a brand new Christmas album, with some old-timey classics like Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, and Jingle Bells! This will be her first Christmas record in nearly 20 years, and she’s so excited for it!

Did you know there’s only 100 days until Christmas? So alongside this album release, Natalie Grant and Danny Gokey are going on their annual “Celebrate Christmas Tour”, which is on its 10th iteration!

To learn more about this new album and tour, click HERE!

Last week, we talked about Phil Wickham’s brand new album, Song Of The Saints that released last Friday, 9/12/2025! Now this week, Phil is celebrating this album release by going on tour with this record, appropriately called the “Song Of The Saints Tour”!

He’ll also be bringing special guest Jamie MacDonald with him!

To learn more about this tour, click HERE!

Zach Williams’ album “Jesus Loves” is coming out this Friday, 9/19/2025! It’s title track, Jesus Loves, has been climbing The NZ Top 10 for quite a while now!

To learn more about this new record, click HERE!

More GMA Dove Awards Performers and Presenters have been revealed!

We’ll get to see some favorite WNZR artists performing on October 7th, including Tauren Wells, for KING & COUNTRY, CeCe Winans, Josiah Queen, Elevation Worship, ELEVATION RHYTHM, and so many more!

We also see some WNZR artists presenting awards, including Bart Millard, bodie, Chris Tomlin, Crowder, Natalie Grant, and many more great presenters!

There will be even more announced in future weeks! To see the full list of artists and guests performing and presenting, click HERE!

We took some lyrics from a song we heard on The Afternoon Drive today and turned it into a poem! Here were today’s lyrics:

Every heartbroken, lonely soul sitting all alone
And every outcast, stuck in their past, scared of letting go
These are the ones
The ones that Jesus chose

Today’s lyrics came from Zach William’s song Jesus Loves!

Congratulations to Satarah from Howard for calling in and guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in tomorrow for some fun facts for Sonfest 2025 on Who Knew Wednesday!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

0

Josiah Queen Is Going On His First Big Headline Tour!!

We got some exciting stuff on Artist News Day this week! Let’s get into all the news:

Josiah Queen is taking his sophomore #1 album, Mt. Zion, on tour this Spring 2026, and you can catch him stopping by in Columbus! He’s bringing his friends Jervis Campbell and Gable Price with, who appear on his Mt. Zion album!

This concert will be taking place in an outdoor venue, KEMBA LIVE!. If you want to be a part of this night of worship, praise, folk, and joyful music, ticket information is available HERE!

We’ve gotten the pleasure to see Zach Williams on the charts with his title track to his new album, Jesus Loves! We’re gonna get to see this full album release next Friday, September 19th!

With a full 12 songs on this record, Zach Williams strongly believes in these songs, saying, “I’ve always believed in writing songs for real people who are going through real things.” More information about what Zach Williams is saying about his new album is found HERE!

Forrest Frank has come out with the deluxe version of his album Child Of God II! This album features artists we love on WNZR- Crowder, Cory Asbury, even The Figs, who we here on the song Lemonade!

More information about this album can be found HERE!

We’re happy to see that bodie released his debut album called No Skips! This album includes his hit Whisper & The Wind, which, at one point, made it on The NZ Top 10!

More information about this album can be found HERE!

We took some lyrics from a song we listened to during The Afternoon Drive to play Song Poetry! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Every time I call You, Jesus
I call You, I call You Savior
Worthy of glory forever
Something comes out of the grave
Every time I call Your Name

Today’s Song Poetry song was I Know A Name from Elevation Worship and Brandon Lake!

Congratulations to Kari from Newark for calling in and correctly guessing the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift card to Watts Restaurant in Utica! Tune in tomorrow for some fun facts on Who Knew Wednesday!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

0

CeCe Winans Wins Contemporary Female Artist Of The Year!

This Artist News Day is packed with award winners, a new album, and artist interactions! Let’s get into the news!

This past weekend, the queen of gospel music, CeCe Winans, had the honor of receiving two Stellar Awards, the Contemporary Female Artist Of The Year award and the Albertina Walker Female Artist Of The Year award!

CeCe is known for her big gospel hits like “That’s My King” (Which is up for a GMA Dove Award), “Come Jesus Come”, and of course, her rendition of “Goodness Of God”!

After the results of the Stellar Gospel Music Awards, we’re excited to see what happens with the GMA Dove Awards coming up in October! You can stay up to date with the Dove Awards by clicking HERE!

We have loved the music Phil Wickham has been bringing us, including his hits “The King Is In The Room” and his current #1 song “What An Awesome God”! These songs have been a great preview as to what we’re going to see on his upcoming album, which is called Song Of The Saints!

This new album from Phil is coming out next Friday, September 12, featuring the two hits previously mentioned, alongside songs he has loved performing live during the Summer Worship Nights tours this past summer!

You can learn more about this album on Phil’s website by clicking HERE!

Don’t miss out on our posts on Facebook, Instagram, and X! Not even Tauren Wells is missing out on our posts there!

Every week, we post Tunesday Tuesday on our social media, (You can follow us @WNZR_90.9FM) and this week’s Tune was Tauren Wells’ song “Let The Church Sing”. We were so excited to see Tauren comment on the post saying “It’s the parenthesis for me 😂”.

Join Tauren Wells and follow us on social media! Just click on the post and you can follow our page!

We had a throwback song for our Song Poetry this week! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Staring at a stop sign
Watching people drive by
T. Mac on the radio

Got so much on your mind
Nothing’s really going right
Looking for a ray of hope

This week’s song poetry lyrics are from the song Overcomer by the late Mandisa!

Congratulations to Erica from Howard for being the first to call in and guess the song title and artist, taking home a $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

0

Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham’s Summer Worship Nights Recap!

Today we checked out what your WNZR artists have been up to this summer on Artist News Day!

Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham took some time this summer to go coast-to-coast with Josiah Queen on The Summer Worship Nights Tour! With sold-out shows and audiences of over 30,000, the trio brought the worship with them every night. From familiar worship songs like “Trust In God” to their hits like Lake’s Hard Fought Hallelujah, Wickham’s What An Awesome God, and Queen’s Can’t Steal My Joy, every song was sang to lift up and glorify the Name of Jesus!

Not only that, but Lake and Wickham went beyond the coast of the U.S. to wrap up the tour in the UK, worshipping with an audience of 35,000! With the response of this year’s Summer Worship Nights, we’re looking forward to see if Lake and Wickham will continue the tour next summer!

Tasha Layton is bringing listeners a brand new album, featuring songs we love like Worship Through It and Thank You Isn’t Enough! This one is called Life In Me, and she’s released the title track for this album, which features Rachael Lampa!

If you want to read more about this album and Tasha’s thoughts about it, read the JesusFreakHideout article HERE!

We’ve been talking about Josiah Queen’s new album, Mt. Zion, this month, and it just came out last Friday!

If you’re a fan of his songs Can’t Steal My Joy and Dusty Bibles, those songs are featured on this record, among many others! You can read more about this album by checking out the review on JesusFreakHideout by clicking HERE!

We had a stumper for this week’s Song Poetry! Here were this week’s lyrics:

Three brothers in a fire
Willing to die for their faith
But You were with them in the fire
And they walked out the next day

And Daniel met a lion
Because he chose to pray
But You shut the mouth of that lion
And he walked out the next day

This week’s stumper lyrics are from the song Unashamed by Matthew West!

Congratulations to Brady from Mount Vernon for being the first to call in and guess the song title and artist, taking home two $5 gift cards to Watts Restaurant in Utica!

Thank you so much for listening!
– Xander and Ethan

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑