A Southern storyteller sat down with a banjo and brought back a gospel hymn that has been moving people for nearly 150 years, and the story behind it is something you probably never heard before.
Story Behind ‘The Unclouded Day’
A Preacher on a Dark Road
It was August 1879 and a circuit-riding preacher named Josiah Kelley Alwood was heading home alone after a late debate in Spring Hill Ohio. It was about one in the morning. Then he looked up and saw something that stopped him right there on that road.
A rainbow was stretched across the northern sky against a thick black cloud while the rest of the sky was completely clear. It was a “moonbow”—a rare phenomenon caused by moonlight. He had never seen anything like it. He wrote later that it refreshed his spirit and filled him with a deep sense of wonder.
He went home, went to sleep and woke up the next morning with a melody already in his head. Within a day and a half he had written ‘The Unclouded Day.’
A Song That Just Kept Going
For years the hymn sat quietly inside church hymnals. Then in 1956 the Staple Singers recorded it and things changed. Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Brad Paisley all recorded it over the years. Each one found something real in it and passed it on.
WATCH: Sean Dietrich Performs ‘The Unclouded Day’
Sean Dietrich performed it with nothing but his banjo and his voice. His performance touched many hearts.
“And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” — Revelation 21:4 (NKJV)
