This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #341, on the subject of The Song “Joined Together”.
This is the thirteenth song in our publication efforts, and you might think that given our methodology (explained in the first song post, linked below) all the best ones are gone. Indeed, I ranked this song number 17 for the quality of the song, and Tristan did not include it on his list at all; it was helped by the fact that as midi-instrument recordings go it was pretty good, coming in number 9 for performance and recording quality. So maybe the really good ones are done.
On the other hand, I have a set of CDs in the car which have all these songs in this order, and when my wife is driving she will insert this CD and advance it to start with this song. There are others she likes better, and she doesn’t dislike any of the first twelve, but she finds the string of songs starting with this one to be particularly good. (I invited her to contribute to the selection process, but she never did until after it was completed.) Maybe it’s because I had a couple friends perform this at our wedding; maybe it’s because it’s the first Christian marriage song I wrote–but she often complains that I didn’t write it for her (we were engaged at the time) but for our good friends David and Jess Oldham (nee Sue Parliman), who were getting married before we were. They did not ask me to sing it at their wedding. I offered to sing it at my sister’s wedding, who wanted me to sing something, but there was a line in it she didn’t like, insisting that death parts us. I don’t know that we know that, exactly, but she makes a point.
I wrote it at Gordon College, between the fall of 1975 (or possibly late that summer before I left for school) and that Christmas; Dave and Jess got married right around Christmas, and I had a recording ready for them to hear before that. It was written on the piano, the piano part probably the most complicated I had written to that point (mostly for the use of the left hand). I later figured out how to play the same chords in similar positions on the guitar, and made a recording of it to play for Dave and Jess prior to their wedding. I had recently installed a third pickup on my Harmony Rocket guitar so that I could reach the volume control and do cry effects (I had first heard and seen this done by the lead guitarist in Rock Garden (I think his name was Eddie Newkirk, but I never knew him) using a pedal, and later seen Phil Keaggy do it with the volume control on the guitar), and so I improvised the lead guitar part on a one-shot through recording. (I was using two stereo reel-to-reel decks at the time.) Decades later when I was doing the midi instruments I realized that I didn’t have a cry guitar, but that the effect approached the sound of a violin, so I used a midi violin instead.
Nothing else in Father’s plan
So affects your life:
Will you take him for your man?
Will she be your wife?
There is now a covenant
As love makes one of two.
Love will teach you what you meant
When you said, “I do.”
Love is patient, love is kind.
Never leave your love behind.
Love each other more each day
‘Til you’re old and grey.
Who knows what is yet to be?
We may spend eternity
Joined together, you and I,
Still as one when we die.
Bridegroom, stand beside your bride;
Keep her always by your side.
She has been God’s gift to you;
You are her gift, too.
Submissive to each other,
And bound with cords of love.
We know our loving Father
Ordained this up above.
Let no one ever separate
What God has joined as one,
But work out day by day this great
Thing God’s already done.
I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way. I will continue with additional songs in the future.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #340, on the subject of The Song “A Man Like Paul”.
I can pinpoint fairly precisely when this song was written. I was at Gordon College, and Pope Paul VI had just died. The process of electing a new Pope had begun; it would result in the appointment of Pope John Paul (who died a month later, the process repeating with the appointment of Pope John Paul II). Recognizing the significance of the appointment of so public a leader in Christendom, I was contemplating that, and my mind made some connections.
The Apostle Paul by Abraham Bloemaert
Peter, of course, is said to have been the first Bishop of Rome, and so the first Pope. (That’s contested–James appears to have been head of the church when it was led from Jerusalem, and the Eastern Church has never accepted that any individual was the head of the church, holding to a first-among-equals view.) I began my song with a verse about that first Pope, thinking that the church needed someone like him in particular ways, willing to stand for the message.
I also remembered that the Pope prior to Paul VI was John XXIII, known for his efforts to extend an olive branch to Christians outside the Roman Catholic Church, and I connected that to the writings of John the Apostle, who wrote so much about love in his short epistles. My second verse unfolded carefully in a way that could be identified with either of these Johns. So, too, my third verse, as radio news commented that Paul VI had focused on spreading the message and expanding the church, and the connection to the missionary work of Paul the Apostle was at that point obvious. I thus pieced together a song about five men, under three names.
That the song was about selecting a Pope was never obvious on its face, but the first person for whom I played it, one of my fellow students, knew that was what I had in mind. His response was that we had to find a way to deliver a copy of the song to the Vatican. I could not imagine any way to do that, and did not expect that the Vatican would pay any attention to anything I sent. A month later when the selection of John Paul was announced he came to me and said it appeared that the church got the message, but of course it had nothing to do with me.
Without the backstory, the song is a challenge to all of us to be imitators of the great men of the faith.
Written on the piano, it was probably the most complex chord progression I had created to that point, each verse beginning with the same half line and then diverging into its own unique music, diminished chords coming into the third verse, and the opening line becoming the closer. Playing it on the guitar was a challenge. I think I surprised myself when I was able to bring the third verse back to the opening chords for the last couplet.
This is another recording done in an office with midi files for instruments, and it is a .wav file so it is rather large. It was number ten on my list for the quality of the song itself, number nineteen for the quality of the recording and performance due in significant part to the fact that it uses the midis and lacks the flavor of a live piano. It made Tristan’s list, tied for fifteenth, and so falls twelfth here. The recording can be found here.
A Man Like Paul.
So here are the words:
A man like Peter, a man like John, a man like Paul.
A great confession gave this man the keys,
The man who opened up the door.
The Jews and gentiles both came to believe–
I ask, could God have used him more?
And when it counted, he took up his cross,
And like his Lord before him, there he died.
We need more men like that, who count this world as loss,
And take the pain God calls them to with pride.
A man like Peter–such a man was John,
A man who gave himself completely to the King.
A church divided, and soon it would be gone.
Love for each other was the most important thing.
A man of faith, a man of prayer,
Waiting just to hear what God would ask.
We need more men like that, for only those who dare
To live for God are equal to the task.
A man like Peter, a man like John,
Someone must be found to spread the word,
In all the land, to every man,
Making sure that ev’ryone has heard.
God needs a man of faith and prayer,
Someone who will answer to His call
And for his Master would go anywhere–
Only such a man could reach them all.
Such a man was Paul.
A man like Peter, a man like John, a man like Paul–
Only such a man could reach them all.
A man like Peter, a man like John, a man like Paul.
I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way. I will continue with additional songs in the future.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #337, on the subject of The Song “Selfish Love”.
This song, like Time Bomb, was inspired by the people I worked with when I got into the secular work world after being cloistered in Christian colleges and radio ministry. The attitudes they had toward going out with each other caused me to recognize that for them physical love was a way of getting something, not giving something. The concept gave me this song.
This was my number thirteen song, and I put the recording and performance quality at twenty-five. That low ranking was partly because this is another that I recorded using midi instruments and I’m not entirely happy with that aspect particularly with the percussion, and also because although the four voices here are pretty good they’re not great, and when we did this with TerraNova we had a soprano that I recognized was outside my range, so I feel like the song is missing something in spots. On the other hand, I think this recording is better than the one on Collision Of Worlds. That one is rushed a bit, Kyle forgot what he was going to play on the instrumental and played something very disappointing, there were only two voices, there were problems with the rhythm in spots, and overall I was rather disappointed with it but didn’t see an easy repair within the time constraints. Tristan, meanwhile, put this as tied for number one on his list, one of his undisputed favorites, which kicked it up quite a few steps to place as number eleven overall.
This version has the bass guitar duet on the instrumental (and behind the last chorus) which I particularly like. The Andrews-Sisters-like vocals on the second verse came into existence because in TerraNova I wanted to have each verse sung by a different vocalist but my wife, our contralto, refused to sing a solo verse so I had to innovate by creating the trio there. I like it, so I’ve kept it. I think my wife didn’t like this song, at least then. She and Barbara used to call it Shellfish Love and do the little clam things with their hands that I remember as the Clam Cheer from scouts. It was another attempt to do the rock guitar thing (of which Passing Through the Portal was the success, Walkin’ In the Woods and Convinced appearing as other good songs that failed in that), but it came out more pop than rock, I think–but I still like it.
Lookin’ for a love, for a love that’s true.
Lovin’ isn’t lovin’ if there’s more than two.
Askin’ what a lover’s gonna do for you.
That isn’t love, that isn’t love,
That isn’t what lovers are s’posed to do.
You’ve got a selfish love,
That’s not what love is made of.
You’ve got a selfish love,
What will you do with your selfish
Love is still the answer to your achin’ heart.
When it comes to lovin’ you just play the part.
Lovin’ ’em and leavin’, you think you’re so smart.
That isn’t love, that isn’t love,
That’s the kind of lovin’ that tears apart.
You’ve got a selfish love,
That’s not what love is made of.
You’ve got a selfish love,
What will you do with your selfish, selfish love?
Love is never measured by the things your heart can feel.
Love is never anything unless it’s something real.
Love is not a miser seeing how much he can take.
Love is a commitment you will never ever break.
When you fall in love, you never fall too deep,
Makin’ all those promises you never keep.
What you sow today you’re gonna surely reap.
That isn’t love, that isn’t love,
That’s the kind of love that will make you weep.
You’ve got a selfish love,
That’s not what love is made of.
You’ve got a selfish love,
What will you do with your selfish
Selfish love,
That’s not what love is made of.
You’ve got a selfish love,
What will you do with your selfish love?
I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way. I will continue with additional songs in the future.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #335, on the subject of Bob Bennett’s First Matters.
Bob Bennett’s debut album, First Things First, reached the radio station not too long after I did, and I was immediately greatly impressed. From the opening cut Carpenter Gone Bad he shot straight for the mind, with solid arguments for believing in Christ set to comfortable light folk-rock music heavy on the guitar picking. My fond memories include Whistling in the Dark, You’re Welcome Here, I Belong to You, and the closing Healings. This was a gentle but heavily intellectual collection, and I was captivated by it immediately.
When an artist or band releases a great first album, the fear is that they have have done their best work, and that which is ahead won’t measure up. Yet three years later he appeared again with a disk that was in one sense completely different, and in another a great continuation of what he had already done. From the smooth processed sound and emotional message of the opening title song, Matters of the Heart again impressed as it talked about life in songs like Falling Stars, 1951, A Song About Baseball, Madness Dancing, Together All Alone, Beggar, and Come and See, then wrapping up like bookends with Heart of the Matter. He had topped his debut impressively.
What really surprised me today was how many of these songs I remembered–not just recognized, but could sing along in sections of the words. They were well written and got inside powerfully. I have omitted songs that I would include simply because I have included so many from two albums. Somewhere I have both of these on vinyl; I’m going to have to find them and transfer them to CD so I can listen to them in the car. They are great collections throughout.
That was the last I heard from him, but he continued releasing albums every few years, the most recent in 2016 making ten in all. Everything I heard impressed me, and that’s rare.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #334, on the subject of The Song “Convinced”.
At one time this was my favorite song. It still ranks number 4 on my list, because I’ve written a few songs I like more. Tristan placed it tied for 9, which is pretty high on his list. The problem is in the recording. I think the vocals are near perfect, and the instruments, done as midis, are pretty good, but the mix is terrible. (For what it’s worth, it’s better in headphones than on speakers; played on CDs in the car and such the instruments are almost completely lost. Even so, I’m not really satisfied with the balance between the instruments, either.) It ranked 24th in recording/performance quality, entirely because of my dissatisfaction with the mix.
I was at the radio station. I recognized that I had written a lot of “songs of doubt”, as I mentioned in connection with That’s When I’ll Believe, and I wanted to write something that expressed faith. After all, I was putting doubt behind me and knew what I believed pretty firmly. I wrote this song with that in view.
My wife wanted to sing it with me, so I wrote a second vocal part. Then when we included it in the repertoire for TerraNova we wanted Barbara to sing also, so I wrote a third part. In the recording, the original second part was the top part on the chorus but the middle part on the verse. My wife still complains that when I wrote the third part I made her sing the middle part all the way through, so now when she hears it she doesn’t know which part to sing, but I didn’t want to be crossing the girl’s parts and Barb had the higher voice.
Convinced.
Lord, You’ve got me convinced.
I will never doubt You
Since
I found out You
Can be trusted more than I knew.
Ev’rything You said has proved true.
You said that I was a sinner,
And hopelessly enslaved.
I thought that I was a winner,
So why should I be saved?
But when a habit tried to break me,
I was in a bind.
I tried to change and couldn’t make me,
So I’ve changed my mind.
Convinced.
Lord, You’ve got me convinced.
I will never doubt You
Since
I found out You
Can be trusted more than I knew.
Ev’rything You said has proved true.
You said that freedom was in You–
I saw it in Your Word.
I couldn’t even begin to
Believe what’s so absurd.
But when I found no other answer,
You set me free.
You changed a mourner to a dancer.
Now you’ve got me
Convinced.
Lord, You’ve got me convinced.
I will never doubt You
Since
I found out You
Can be trusted more than I knew.
Ev’rything You said has proved true.
You said you’d meet my needs if I would put you first,
Yet when I trusted you, I waited for the worst.
But then you brought me through a very trying time,
And worked it all for good, so now I’ll say that I’m
Convinced.
Lord, You’ve got me convinced.
I will never doubt You
Since
I found out You
Can be trusted more than I knew.
Ev’rything You said has proved true.
All you said is true.
I will put my trust in
You
Because just in
Time I saw such clear evidence.
Lord, You’ve got me convinced.
I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way. I will continue with additional songs in the future.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #329, on the subject of CCM Guys at the Beginning.
Last time we covered the ladies of the eighties, a conglomerate article to help us get through everyone I think ought to be mentioned. This time we’re doing the same with some of the guys. This is a very broad shot here. Some of these gentlemen had virtually faded into obscurity by the time I reached the radio station, others were barely on the scene when I left it. Undoubtedly some of these people have a much bigger place in contemporary Christian music than would appear from my coverage of them; they simply weren’t that significant during the years when I was immersed in the industry.
I am starting with Randy Matthews, because he was someone known to me for one song long before I reached the radio station, from whom I never heard anything else. Yet his Didn’t He, released in 1973, was a classic in Christian rock music maybe before there were contemporary Christian radio stations.
For years I knew of Randy Stonehill only as one of the early Christian musicians connected to Larry Norman. I still don’t know any of his early work. However, when I was at the station we received his album The Sky is Falling, and for some reason we focused on the rather goofy song Bad Fruit as the song to play. I remember nothing else from his career.
Richie Furay was a very successful secular rock musician before he started doing Christian material, having been a founding member of both Buffalo Springfield and Poco. I remember his Myrrh releases I’ve Got a Reason and Seasons of Change, but not well enough to recognize any of the titles on them; I find very few in video form, and none that I remember.
Darrell Mansfield also appears here as a name I remember without any other information. He released several records with his self-named band, and was in the band Gentle Faith. I’m not sure we ever had any of his work at the station.
We did have a couple albums from Denny Correll—Standin’ In the Light, How Will They Know, and Something I Believe In. His bluesrock sound is captured in this song, the last cut on the last of those albums, Changin’ My Heart.
Mylon LeFevre was born into one of those Southern Gospel family bands, and sang with them. His first song was picked up by Elvis, and then by many others, making him wealthy overnight; he sang with other bands, but in the sixties was attempting to launch something in the vein of Christian contemporary/rock music, for which there was not yet a market despite the rising Jesus movement. He became involved in drugs which nearly killed him, and then returned to a clean life, and in 1982 released the first album with his new band, Broken Heart, entitled A Brand New Start. I was unable to find any recognized cuts from this online, but the band continued producing albums through 1990.
I encountered them on stage at Creation ’82, where I was working stage crew and reporting for the radio station. In setting up the band had placed a small amplifier behind LeFevre for his electric guitar; there were two other guitarists in the band who were working with the sound crew. The head of the sound crew asked about plugging LeFevre’s guitar directly into the main system, which the guitarist declined, and then the suggestion was made that the amp could be miked, again declined with the explanation that LeFevre’s drug use had seriously damaged his ability to play, and the guitar was really more of a prop so he would have something in his hands while he sang. Still, the band was impressive, and he could still sing.
Every morning during the times when we weren’t twenty-four hours our radio station came on the air with Johnny Fisher, and his All Day Song from his 1974 release Still Life, reportedly his third album but his first on a recognized label (Light). I remember the release of his 1982 Dark Horse album on Myrrh, which I remember was good, but can’t find any cuts from it online; in a drawer somewhere I have a promotional T-shirt from that album which no longer fits. I might have the album itself on vinyl somewhere, but I’m afraid I don’t have a good catalog of my record collection.
Carman first reached us with his self-titled Priority Records release in 1982. It had a neo-rock-‘n’-roll sound reminscent of Elvis, of which Some-O-Dat was the memorable cut. Then sometime within the next year we received a promotional single of a live version of a really clever and rapidly popular song, Sunday’s On the Way. Not long after an album was released with that title, but the studio version of the title song lacked the life and excitement of the live single, which does not appear to be available anywhere. The link here is to a similar live performance worth hearing. I put this down as the best song Carman ever did, although I don’t know most of his career for which there is an album release as late as 2014.
Jazz fusion guitarist James Vincent had released four albums through secular labels before Sparrow Records delivered his 1980 disk Enter In to us. The title song typified the style, and several other songs from the album are available in online videos.
According to his discography, Tim Sheppard had a couple albums out in the 70s before the release of 1979’s Songtailor, and a couple more in the 80s plus some appearances with other artists in collections, and then one more release in 2017. I only ever heard Songtailer, and I only remember one song from it–but I remember it, one of the great songs that I still sing in the car decades later, The Fiddler.
Joe English made his name as the drummer for Paul McCartney’s Wings, but in 1980 he released the first of five Christian solo albums (with many often well-known supporting artists), Lights In the World. I vaguely remember songs like Get Ready, and that for the time the production values were impressive.
I have the impression that Bob Ayala was very popular in other places. I remember the album cover from Joy By Surprise, which had very strong Narnia imagery. I was also impressed by the more subtle Narnia imagery of the next album, Wood Between the Worlds. Unfortunately, I recognize none of the song titles.
Wayne Watson also goes down as someone popular elsewhere, but was one of those “just another solo act” guys for us. However, his cover of Touch of the Master’s Hand still brings tears to my eyes when I try to sing it, and his later New Lives for Old, while not as memorable, was still good.
I’m not quite old enough to remember Dion and the Belmonts, but I do remember his 1961 rock-‘n’-roll solo hit Runaround Sue. Dion DiMucci had a long and reasonably successful secular career, and then in 1980 hit the Christian contemporary field with the Dayspring release Inside Job. I am embarrassed to say that I don’t remember any of the song titles from that or the next two albums, both of which were sent to the radio station while I was there, because I not only played cuts from them, I attended a small concert at a local church and had a chat with him afterwards, which I only remember as something we did (my wife with me at the time). I do remember that he was good, talented and worth hearing. He has continued to release albums nearly to the present, of which I of course know nothing.
What I remember about Michael W. Smith is that from the beginning with The Michael W. Smith Project in 1983 my mind connected him to Amy Grant. I can’t even tell you why. I can tell you that he is still around, and I hear him on the local Christian stations from time to time with new material. The track lists from his early albums ring no bells.
I’m sure there were a lot of other male vocalists at the time; these are the ones that came to mind for whom I didn’t think I could do a whole article, but I’ve got more on the list ahead.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #328, on the subject of The Song “Still Small Voice”.
I liked this song, ranking it number 7 for quality of the song; Tristan had it tied for his number 5. The problem was in the quality of the recording and performance, which was hampered by a number of foolish mistakes.
There is a version of this available on Collision Of Worlds which is probably better than this. I opted against it because Jonathan sings it, and while it’s good, that was 2012 and he was a much better singer a few years later–and although I’m including some recordings from that album, it didn’t seem right to use one I didn’t sing and he didn’t sing quite as well as he would later.
The problem was I didn’t have another recording that wasn’t buried in a long concert tape, and I needed one. I recorded this in my living room, and made a couple of rookie mistakes. One is that I was a mere few days out of the hospital and not fully recovered, and it’s a demanding song to do solo; I’m not sure it’s a great performance. The other is that I recorded it on a recorder with automatic level control (ALC) in a room in which an air purifier was running. The air purifier wasn’t really noticeable as background noise, but when the music stops it comes to the foreground fairly quickly. I should have anticipated that, but I didn’t realize that the recorder had ALC (which I also should have realized). I think I was twelve or thirteen when Jay Fedigan and I recorded something on a cassette deck with ALC, and we hit a cold ending which was immediately followed by the ticking of a clock we had not even realized was in the room. Put it down as stupid of me.
The recording is here. It’s not a bad recording, but that I wrote the song, with help from Tyler Choniger, for 7dB, where we had three vocals, and so it’s missing at least two, not to mention a rhythm guitar and other instruments. We only had two of us singing for the Collision recording, although we were going to add a third. If I were doubletracking in a studio I would make it four. As it stands, You’ll have to imagine at least one more.
I had written most of the chorus, but for the last line, when I brought it to Tyler, and I thought it was going to echo some of the ideas from Walkin’ In the Woods, about churches failing to deliver what people need. Tyler suggested that the opening words should close the chorus, and then I started writing the verse. He wanted to include the D69add4, so we slid up to it in the middle of the verse; I thought that sliding from the CM7 to the D69add4 was becoming almost cliche (I did it in Holocaust, that I clearly remember) and so on the bridge I decided to go the other direction, which gave us the descending feeling in the chord progression, which went well with the overall theme of struggles in the song and gave the idea for the “sinking feeling”. Its history is told in slightly more detail on the Collision website notes on the song.
In the original version we counted out the beats for a measure’s pause after the bridge. Jonathan didn’t like that, so eventually I changed it so that he would start that last chorus when he felt it and we would all come in on his cue. That’s more the way I do it in this recording.
The vocal cadenza at the end was intended to be a freeform ad lib cadenza, and I hope it sounds like that, but I don’t really do improvisational cadenzas all that well and find I do much better by experimenting with the music and writing one. Thus this is the cadenza as I always sing it, although I suppose technically if someone wanted to sing something different that would be within the parameters of the song. I happen to like this one very much.
Still Small Voice.
So here are the words:
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul,
And the still small voice tells me God is in control.
The pressures of life are closing in;
Temptations are luring me to sin.
My problems are tearing me apart.
I feel like I’m dying in my heart.
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul,
And the still small voice tells me God is in control.
It’s not in the thunder, not in the pyre,
Not in the lightning, not in the fire,
Not in the sermon, not in the choir.
There’s a still small voice.
The deadlines are coming way too fast;
Before I can reach them they have passed.
I’m struggling to get things up to speed,
With too many mouths I need to feed.
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul,
And the still small voice tells me God is in control.
It’s not in the thunder, not in the pyre,
Not in the lightning, not in the fire,
Not in the sermon, not in the choir.
There’s a still small voice.
I know that God is on the throne,
And yet I have this sinking feeling.
I know He calls me for His own,
And so I reach to Him for healing.
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul,
And the still small voice tells me God is in control.
It’s not in the thunder, not in the pyre,
Not in the lightning, not in the fire,
Not in the sermon, not in the choir.
There’s a still small voice, God is calling to me
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul, Ev’rything is in control.
And the still small voice tells me God is in control. He is on the throne, calling for His own, He will not abandon me,
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul, He calls my name, He leads me on, tells me where to go,
And the still small voice tells me God is in control. I can hear that still, small, still small voice speaking to me speaking to my
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul, Soul, the still small voice of God, Holy Spirit, let me hear your
And the still small voice tells me God is in control. Voice, loud and clear, small and still, from the heart of God,
There’s a still small voice speaking softly to my soul, The still small voice I hear.
And the still small voice tells me God is in control.
It’s not in the thunder, not in the pyre,
Not in the lightning, not in the fire,
Not in the sermon, not in the choir.
There’s a still small voice.
I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way. I will continue with additional songs in the future.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #326, on the subject of The Song “Mountain, Mountain”.
I ranked this number 15 as far as best songs go, and number 16 on quality of recording and performance, and wonder that I placed it so low, but there were a lot of good songs from which to choose; Tristan, who has learned to play this one of all my songs, had it tied at number 1, which brought it to number 8 on our combined list. (The ranking system is explained in connection with previous web log song posts, linked below.) The recording is here. That’s a WAV file, so it’s rather larger than the mp3s I usually post.
Mountain, Mountain.
It is hard to know where to begin, but I suppose it has to begin with Barry McGuire. If anyone out there knows him, please tell him that the song I wrote about him is here, and I would love for him finally to hear it. I wrote about Barry in my history of Christian contemporary and rock music series in #266: Minstrel Barry McGuire, where I mentioned the advice he gave me reported, after a fashion, in post #163: So You Want to Be a Christian Musician. He is also mentioned in some detail in #268: Voice of the Second Chapter of Acts and #272: To the Bride Live, and he will be mentioned again. Yet it is that first concert, the first time we met, that matters here.
After the concert I joined the throngs crowding around Barry, who had come down from the stage into the audience area to interact. Barry was then probably the biggest name in contemporary Christian music, but apart from that he is a large and imposing presence both for his size and for his character. I asked the question I had asked many others, about what someone should do who wanted a career in Christian contemporary music, and he took several minutes to address it.
I returned to my dorm from the concert and immediately wrote this song. The first verse, the verse about the mountain, was about Barry. From there I looked for, and found, three other nature images which conveyed something people desire.
I took my guitar to a common area where there would be more students, and played it for several. I remember Angelic Andy (and I wish I remembered his name, although I have many memories of him otherwise including his parka which matched mine) heard it, and asked me to play the verse about the sun again. I have found this to be true of the song, that those who like it generally have a favorite verse (mine will always be the mountain) which touches some part of themselves. My son Tristan insists that the second and third verses should be switched, because the river is connected to the mountain, but I keep them as they are because glory is connected to greatness.
I have met Barry twice since then, as I elsewhere have mentioned.
I opened for him at the Gordon College March Thaw, which I think must have been 1977. That was something of a fiasco. Jeff Zurheide and I and a drummer named Ken Spear (or Speer?) were supposed to play backup for Reverend Harold Bussell, former RCA piano recording artist and then our Dean of Christian Life. Someone had claimed there was a piano in the banquet hall, but when we got there it was a disaster, and although I rushed back to the school to borrow an electronic piano from a friend, Harold wouldn’t perform on an instrument he’d never played. That left the three of us, and Barry had specified that there shouldn’t be a male vocal band before him so we were faking instrumentals–me on keys, Jeff on guitar, with Ken on drums. We also discovered about the same time that the school’s portable public address (P.A.) system had been burned out by some previous user, and was not available, so at that point I had to cobble together a makeshift P.A. from a couple of instrument amplifiers and my microphones. When Barry took the stage he made a joke about how one day he was going to come into a place that had a tin can on a mike stand with strings running to cans on all the tables. I confess the joke stung, because all things considered it was a decent bit of rigging to get a sound system up and running for him and no one ever thanked me, that I recall. After the show I caught up with him, guitar in hand, but he asked that I just give him a chance to get out and get some sleep. This was the second time I had seen him in a year; I figured I would see him again.
It was most of a decade before that happened. In the early 80s when I was a disk jockey on contemporary Christian radio station WNNN-FM he was playing a concert hosted by one of our bigger supporters, and at the last minute someone arranged an interview with me on the air. I don’t remember a lot of that interview, but after it I put on something that would play for a few minutes and walked him to his car. I didn’t have a guitar, and it didn’t occur to me to sing the thing a capella, and shame on me for that. I have not seen him since.
We performed this with Cardiac Output, and so there is already a page of lyrics for it here. Perhaps the reason this is low on my performance list is because of that–in Cardiac Output I sang the first verse, Lori sang the second, we did the third in a sort of Simon & Garfunkle duet in which we kept passing the melody back and forth, and the fourth verse was done as a trio reminiscent of Peter, Paul, and Mary. I didn’t have the sheet music for those, didn’t take the time to recreate them, and wasn’t sure I could make the soprano sound good if I tried, so this recording does not have the vocals which I really did like.
So here are the words:
Mountain, mountain, great and tall,
Can you teach me anything at all?
I see your greatness, your majesty;
How can greatness grow in me?
The mountain answered, calm and sure,
“What do you want greatness for?
Be humble, serve in love, and wait.
Only God can make one great.”
Sun, oh sun, up in the sky,
All men see you–tell me why
And how such glory here may shine,
So I can make such glory mine.
I got this answer from the sun:
“Do not be foolish, little one.
I am what I was made to be,
And so God’s glory shines in me.”
River, now to you I turn.
Have you some secret I can learn?
You move mountains ev’ry hour;
How can I control such power?
The answer came to me with force:
“The power is from God, of course.
I do whatever He may ask;
He gives me strength to meet the task.
Ocean, ocean, deep and wide,
I’m asking you to be my guide.
In fullness none may challenge you.
I’d like to know such fullness, too.
The ocean roared–I heard him laugh–
“My fullness you would like to have?
Become, then, empty of all else,
And let God fill you with Himself.”
I can only hope you benefit from the song in some way. I will continue with additional songs in the future.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #325, on the subject of The 2019 Recap.
Happy New Year to you. A year ago I continued the tradition of recapitulating in the most sketchy of fashions everything I had published over the previous year, in mark Joseph “young” web log post #278: The 2018 Recap. I am back to continue that tradition, as briefly as reasonable, so that if you missed something you can find it, or if you vaguely remember something you want to read again you can hunt it down. Some of that brevity will be achieved by referencing index pages, other collections of links to articles and installments.
For example, that day also saw the publication of the first Faith in Play article of the year, but all twelve of those plus the dozen RPG-ology series articles are listed, described, and linked in 2019 at the Christian Gamers Guild Reviewed, published yesterday. There’s some good game stuff there in addition to some good Bible stuff, including links to some articles by other talented gaming writers, and a couple contributions involving me one way or another that were not parts of either series. Also CGG-related, I finished the Bible study on Revelation and began John in January; we’re still working through John, but thanks to a late-in-the-year problem with Yahoo!Groups that had been hosting us we had to move everything to Groups.IO, and I haven’t managed to fix all the important links yet.
At that point we were also about a quarter of the way through the novel Garden of Versers as we posted a Robert Slade chapter that same day, but that entire novel is indexed there, along with links to the web log posts giving background on the writing process. In October we launched the sixth novel, Versers Versus Versers, which is heating up in three chapters a week, again indexed along with behind-the-writings posts there, and it will continue in the new year. There are also links to the support pages, character sheets for the major protagonists and a few antagonists in the stories. Also related to the novels, in October I invited reader input on which characters should be the focus of the seventh, in #318: Toward a Seventh Multiverser Novel.
The first one after the recap of the previous year was an answer to a personal question asked impersonally on a public forum: how did I know I was called to writing and composing? The answer is found in web log post #279: My Journey to Becoming a Writer.
I had already begun a miniseries on the Christian contemporary and rock music of the seventies and early eighties–the time when I was working at the radio station and what I remembered from before that. That series continued (and hopefully will continue this year) with:
Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it is evident that the music dominated the web log this year. In May I was invited to a sort of conference/convention in Nashville, which I attended and from which I benefited significantly. I wrote about that in web log post #297: An Objective Look at The Extreme Tour Objective Session. While there I talked to several persons in the Christian music industry, and one of them advised me to found my own publishing company and publish my songs. After considerable consideration I recognized that I have no skills for business, but I could put the songs out there, and so I began with a sort of song-of-the-month miniseries, the first seven songs posted this year:
I admit that I have to some degree soured on law and politics. Polarization has gotten so bad that moderates are regarded enemies by the extremists on both sides. However, I tackled a few Supreme Court cases, some issues in taxes including tariffs, a couple election articles, and a couple of recurring issues:
I was hospitalized more than once this year, but the big one was right near the beginning when the emergency room informed me that that pain was a myocardial infarction–in the vernacular, a heart attack. Many of you supported me in many ways, and so I offered web log post #285: An Expression of Gratitude.
Most of the game-related material went to the RPG-ology series mentioned at the beginning of this article, and you should visit that index for those. I did include one role playing game article here as web log post #303: A Nightmare Game World, a very strange scenario from a dream.
Finally, I did eventually post some time travel analyses, two movies available on Netflix. The first was a kind of offbeat not quite a love story, Temporal Anomalies in Popular Time Travel Movies unravels When We First Met; the second a Spike Lee film focused on trying to fix the past, Temporal Anomalies in Time Travel Movies unravels See You Yesterday. For those wondering, I have not yet figured out how I can get access to the new Marvel movie Endgame, as it appears it will not be airing on Netflix and I do not expect to spring for a Disney subscription despite its appeal, at least, not unless the Patreon account grows significantly.
So that’s pretty much what I wrote this year, not counting the fact that I’m working on the second edition of Multiverser, looking for a publisher for a book entitled Why I Believe, and continuing to produce the material to continue the ongoing series into the new year. We’ll do this again in a dozen months.
This is mark Joseph “young” blog entry #324, on the subject of CCM Ladies of the Eighties.
The number of people in Contemporary Christian and Christian Rock music back in the early eighties didn’t seem all that large, but as I’ve been working through those I remember I perceive that it will take a long time to get through even all those I think worth mentioning. Thus I decided to do some conglomerate entries, naming and briefly recalling many who probably deserve more attention than I am offering but not from me. There are a lot, and this article will be substantial because of that, but we’ll break them up, ladies first.
Melissa Manchester, 1975
We featured Evie Tornquist Karlsson when we wrote about Ralph Carmichael, as her version of Pass It On (linked there) probably made the Kurt Kaiser song famous. Evie is one of several female vocalists whose career began when she was single who then married, kept the maiden name in the middle and added the married name. Her first album, Everything Is Beautiful, had its US release in 1971 when she was fourteen years old, then was released in Norway two years later; she had four releases in 2007, but they appear to be compilations released in Norway. She did mostly middle-of-the-road covers of contemporary hits from many artists, but also had a substantial Norwegian career. Her husband was a Norwegian singer-songwriter. I remember her for Give them All; my wife won’t take me to the local shopping center for fear I might break out singing Give the mall to Jesus.
Sandi Patty, sometimes Sandy, sometimes Patti, is another contemporary MOR vocalist who did mostly covers, but did them well. I once characterized her as the Linda Rondstadt of Christian music–great range, fabulous voice with soaring highs, could have sung opera or pretty much anything she wanted. This early live rendition of How Majestic Is Your Name demonstrates some of her talent.
Twila Paris came from one of those family gospel singing groups, and recorded her first album, Little Twila Paris, in 1965 when she was about seven years old. She did not record another one until 1980. She received numerous awards over the course of her career, but I confess I know her name but do not remember a single album or song.
Lilly Green was a singer-songwriter whose third and final album, I Am Blessed, was the only one I ever heard–but the fourth song, Crucify Him (this video has a bit of dead air at the beginning) quickly became a favorite.
Micki Fuhrman‘s third and final album, Look Again, came out in 1981, and I found a favorite song on it as well–so much so that decades later when I saw a cassette copy of the album I bought it to listen in my car. The song is entitled I Stick With Winners, and is a clever take on why faithfulness. There were several other good songs on that disc, but I’ve got a lot of girls to cover here.
Looking over Cynthia Clawson‘s discography I recognize nothing but one song, on an album I never saw–but I know it was released to radio stations as a single, under the title Take Us Home for Christmas, and it’s a wonderful Christmas song which at the time was something new and different. I remember it decades later as one of those new Christmas songs that were worth the vinyl.
On that same subject, Pamela Deuel Hart made Always Christmas the title song of what appears to be her debut album, an otherwise undistinguished collection of familiar Christmas music. Regrettably, this song, which recalls a notion from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, that it was always winter but never Christmas until He turned her life around so it is always Christmas and never winter, does not appear on a web search for videos. She released several more albums, but I never heard any of them.
Kelly Willard was one of those artists whose name came into my head but to whom I could make no connection–until I looked up her discography and immediately recognized the title song of her debut album, Blame It On the One I Love, a light jazz-influenced contemporary hit. Kelly is also known for a duet she did with the previously-covered Paul Clark, Woman…The Man That I Love.
Karen Lafferty released a few albums through Maranatha Music, but her best known song is not on any of them. Rather, Seek Ye First appears in several multi-artist collections focused on worship music. I remember it well, because it was used by one of our local ministries as the opening theme of their radio show. It was one of the first popular songs in the worship music genre, at a time when evangelistic songs were still preferred but slowly fading and a lot of Christian music was moving toward exhortation.
Jamie Owens released two albums under her maiden name, Laughter In Your Soul and Growing Pains. The latter included the song The Victor, which Keith Green heard and recorded, pushing Jamie to success in the field as the song was picked up by The Second Chapter of Acts and became a standard. Then she married her producer Dan Collins as they were working on her album Love Eyes. It, and all her subsequent albums, was released under her name Jamie Owens Collins. During that time, she managed to write the song Daniel which appears on the album, and to produce it herself without his knowledge, and then arrange for the recording to be played when she walked down the aisle at their wedding. Unfortunately, no video version of the song was found online.
There were a few albums in our radio collection by Janny Grein, and I recognize the covers for Free Indeed, Covenant Woman, He Made Me Worthy, and Think On These Things–what I don’t recognize is any of the song titles, but I do recognize that she was a Christian folk artist with a long career.
I remember Kathy Troccoli every time I hear another New York-style huge voice alto (think Bette Midler). The chorus of the title song of her debut album Stubborn Love has stayed with me all these decades, with its lush broadway-style production and her powerful voice coupled with the uplifting message–if you’re not listening to all the linked songs in this article, you probably do want to listen to this one.
Every time I hear the name of Casting Crowns lead vocalist Mark Hall, I wonder if he’s possibly the son of a girl for whom we had two albums. The first must have been Flying, because it’s the only album listed under her maiden name, Pam Mark, but by the time she released her second album, This Is Not a Dream, she was Pam Mark Hall. I don’t remember any titles from either of those albums, but her album Never Fades Away has a familiar look and sound, with several familiar song titles on it. These include Little Miss Much Afraid (with what sounds like Fireworks‘ Marty McCall supporting vocals), Lord of the Starfields, and others not available on video.
I recognize enough Reba Rambo album covers that we must have had a stack of them at the station, including her first, the 1969 release Reality, although I recall no titles from that. She was more of a contemporary southern gospel artist, but borderline. I remember the standard He Looked Beyond My Fault (And Saw My Need) from 1971’s Songs My Mother Taught Me, The Land of Oohs and Ahs/Somewhere Over the Rainbow and the title song from from 1977’s Lady, and a couple songs from The Lady Is a Child. A few of the intervening albums don’t look familiar, but I remember the album Dreamin’. It appears that her last release was 1982’s Lady Live. In 1980 she married Dony McGuire, and they released several albums as a duo through 1987.
In creating this list I remembered the name of rocker Leslie Phillips, who later recorded as Sam Phillips and Sam Burnett. Her album Beyond Saturday Night in 1983 pushed the envelope a bit for solo female CCM vocalists, as demonstrated by Put Your Heart In Me, and I vaguely remember the 1984 album, title song Dancing With Danger.
I’m adding one more artist to this list. We never played anything, nor indeed had anything, of hers at the radio station, and I can’t vouch for her faith (which she cryptically attributed to the influence of, of all people, Paul Simon). She was a member of Bette Midler’s backup band The Harlettes before launching her solo career, but Melissa Manchester recorded one song on her 1974 Bright Eyes album that was an expression of faith that most Christians never heard. Oh Heaven (How You’ve Changed Me) (a slightly different arrangement from the album version, but well done live). Although when I arranged it for my friend Sue Adams Kirkegard (RIP) I changed the words to the last line of the last verse (to “You’ve got to ask Him in yourself”), it’s still a great song that should be remembered.
That’s not all the girls–we already did articles on Honeytree, Amy Grant, quite a few ladies who were part of larger bands but had separate careers (Sandra Crouch, Tremaine Hawkins, the girls of 2nd Chapter of Acts), and we’ve got at least one more still on the list. These, though, manage to cover a lot of those who deserve to be included but for whom I would be hard-pressed to remember enough to support a separate article.
