Presbyterian News Service: david m bailey succumbs to brain cancer
Singer/songwriter defied odds for a dozen years, inspired countless fans
david m bailey, a singer/songwriter who moved audiences as much with his story of personal courage in the face of terminal cancer as with his music, succumbed to Glioblastoma on Oct. 2 in hospice care near his home in Charlottesville, Va. He was 44.
The son of Presbyterian missionaries, Kenneth E. and Ethel Bailey, bailey was raised in Beirut, Lebanon. He spent some of his youth in Germany — where he learned to play the guitar and began writing songs — before returning to the United States, where he graduated from Grove City (Pa.) College.
bailey often joked that he "did all right in college but flunked corporate America." In July 1996, he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, a particularly virulent form of brain cancer. He then quit his corporate job and turned to songwriting and performing full-time.
"They told me I had six months. They were wrong," bailey said. "Despite what you might hear, hope is a very real thing, and with every passing day, there are more and more reasons to hope."
For 14 years he defied that diagnosis, writing and performing virtually non-stop, covering 45 states and 21 countries. His concerts were deeply personal, brutally honest accounts — rendered in a musical style that has been compared to James Taylor and Cat Stevens — of his struggles with his illness and his determination to make the most of whatever time God gave him. …
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