Nashville songwriter and record producer Jason Deere regularly invites a revolving cast of musicians termed Nashville Tribute Band to assist him in tours and album projects, many of which have a Christian and spiritual perspective. The band was officially formed by Deere and Dan Truman, the pianist for the country group Diamond Rio, to be a slightly secularized outreach touring and recording collective for the Mormon faith. Deere began to write a cycle of songs that would chronicle the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Bringing in an ever-changing, ever-expanding and revolving cast of musicians and singers (Truman; Brad Hull, Matt Lopez, and Tim Gates of the country group Due West; David Osmond; Katherine Nelson; Billy Dean; Ron Saltmarsh; Mindy Gledhill; and Dyer Highway among them), Deere told the story of the Mormon Church with a trio of albums attributed to Nashville Tribute Band, Joseph: A Nashville Tribute to the Prophet (2005), Trek: A Nashville Tribute to the Pioneers (2007), and The Work: A Nashville Tribute to the Missionaries (2011), and released them on his own Deere Records imprint. Redeemer: A Nashville Tribute to Jesus Christ appeared from Shadow Mountain Records in 2014, again attributed to Nashville Tribute Band. In 2016, the group honored the best known of all Christian holidays with a new album, Merry: A Nashville Tribute to Christmas. To celebrate the release, Nashville Tribute Band set out on tour, focusing on venues in Utah and Idaho. The Word: A Nashville Tribute to the Bible arrived in 2018, followed in 2020 by Praise: A Nashvillle Tribute to the Hymns. ~ Steve Leggett