Re: Quality Christian Music

Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 19:50:30 -0700
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian
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Donna Michelle <email-address-deleted> wrote in message
news:email-address-deleted...
> As a Christian who frequently leads guitar-music worship at our
> church, I have often been disappointed with some of the repetitative
> and uninspired modern Christian music. Of course your music isn't uninspired?
(I don't include Graham
> Kendrick in that - his simple beauty often moves me to tears!) Much
> of it seems rather lifeless, and prompts me to consider Cliff's famous
> lyric:_Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?_
Who's Cliff? Did Larry Norman steal the lyrics from someone named Cliff?
Worked with Cliff Richard some as I recall...but why do I have the feeling
you mean Cliff Barrows?
For others of
> you who are searching for something truely inspiring, I can certainly
> recommend the CDs of two American groups. 'Take Six' are a wonderful
> black group, whose combined voices span about 4 octaves, and who often
> sing
> A Cappella, convincingly imitating all the instruments as well! Well, the immitate the intruments anyway. :-) They've always been really
gifted guys vocally for sure. Soooo back to 'inspiration'. Let's see if we
can define that. Are you talking about 'prophetic inspiration'? Like as in
God's spirit giving you communication from his heart? I personally believe as I often say that music can be used to reach a
dimension of soul and spirit that words cannot often alone. I believe God
has given many people insights to use all aspects of communication. In
recent years I've been away from a lot of exposure to videos but I've seen a
few great ones several years ago including "You Consume me" by DC Talk
(Which at first take can sound like "YOu can sue me" if you aren't careful.
:-) ) Awesome piece of communication. I find it both inspired and inspirational. Trouble is the market is SO
full of crap because...people who are spiritually luke warm want to buy crap
to fill their compromised existance with a happy note from their Idol they
named "Jesus". Sorry to say a lot of people will be surprised when they
look straight up and see him coming from the skies, as Norman also noted. More
> recently, I've been introduced to the Bill and Gloria Gaither and
> their Homecoming Friends, singing Gospel music in harmonised parts,
> using unusual transitions of key and style. You can't stop yourself
> wanting to join in!
Oh...sure I can. :-) I have an old Gaither Trio Record here. Wanna buy
it? My whole passion is after using the communication avenue that music
affords to address glaring issues I see in the spiritual realm in what's
called the 'church' and in reaching out to the world. I don't have much
time for other people's music unless it's something that's really going to
minister something new to me. Sitting around smiling and tapping my toe
dreaming of heaven can wait. There's work to be done here. One album is called _What a Time!_, but there's
> also a Christmas album whose name I can't now remember, but whose
> music stays with me forever! Happy listening! May you be inspired!
Oh those happy Christmas albums! They sure do inspire me.Heheh. Hey I like
a lot of songs touted as christmas songs any time of the year. And I hate a
lot of them any time of the year. (The sappy ones and the ones that are
actually promoting demonic Santa Claus/elf shit and the like). Donna. My recommendation is spend a little time looking at the history
of Christian music first off while being in a prayerful attitude. I wish
you were here. I'd run you through an archive and help you understand how
various artists have been crying out to people with a passion from the Lord
for a long time. And how other artists have been content to appeal the
mainstream, apathetic, "when we all get to heaven" crowd. HEY. I've got
news. If you can't live in love with your brothers and sisters here...don't
worry about heaven. You won't be there. There's so much strife. So little
depth in the truth of God's word. Here's a list of stuff to seek out that
might bring you up to snuff on your historical perspective at least, and if
you're even through Bozeman, MT drop on by.
1) Larry Norman- Upon this Rock 1969 One of the first fairly major
releases in early Jesus music that radically departed from the dead status
quo type stuff that preceeded it. Once you've got this one, 1972's 'only
visiting this planet, 1973's 'so long ago the garden' and '75's "'in another
land' along with the finally released in '78 "something new under the sun"
should broaden your perspective quite a bit more. The song you mention
above is on 'planet'.
2) Phil Keaggy- What a Day 1972 Very annointed album from a fairly new
and very talented brother in Christ. Addresses our earthly perspective in
Christ very nicely. Awesome piece.
3) Second Chapter of Acts- anything you can find. Mansion Builder turns up
a lot. Keaggy and they did a dual vinyl thing called 'How the west was
won'.
4) Keith Green "For him who has ears", "So you wanna go back to egypt", "The
prodigal son" and "Songs for the shepherd" in particular I would look for..
Keith came to Christ and continued on Columbia records for a bit before
Sparrow took him. He died of course in a plane crash in '83 as I recall or
was it '82. I always forget. I was real real busy those years. But he had
a huge following and there were a lot of really powerful messages that still
challenge young believers in particular today it seems. However I fear
that's a sign that so many shipwreck. I still find his songs compelling and
inspirational. Clearly the spirit moved in a lot of peoples lives through
this guy's ministry in any case.
5) Steve Taylor "I want to be a clone" 1980 is a landmark album of sorts.
Mixing a humorous satirical approach into some very serious issues.
"Meltdown" has some not so humorous approaches like "Baby Doe" which
literally makes me break down and cry every time I think about it
nevertheless actually hear it or play it.
Michael Cards trilogy in particular 'known by his scars' is a must have.
Don Francisco did a lot of really powerful stuff. Dallas Holm "All that
matters", "I saw the Lord", Petra's albums between 1980 and '90 roughly are
chalked full of powerful stuff. Twila Paris' "Kingdom seekers" is a
classic. David Meece's "7" and "Count the Cost", Leon Patillo "I'll never
stop lovin' you". etc. The Amy Grant stuff I just posted actually represents a huge amount of
the artistic effort that went forth between '78 and '87 ish. A lot of
annointed songs were sung by Amy, being written by a group of emerging
artists like Michael W. Smith (get "Project" and "2" and "I 2 Eye" for sure)
and Gary Champman whose done some great songs on anything you might get of
his. Brown Bannister's "Talk to one another" is great. He produced Amy's
stuff and most of the best albums from groups like White Heart ("Freedom".
Also get "Emergency Broadcast" if you can find it.) Randy Stonehill is
another sort of pioneer in the field who has mixed some interesting
approaches and has done some great productions in association with Larry
Norman in particular. DA, same thing (Daniel Amos) but they went on to have
a huge impact with a lot of people though in perhaps a more nebulous way at
times. Some of my favorite stuff though. The late Mark Heard another one.
Leslie/Sam Phillips is another great artist who has shown a real passion in
communication. On and on the list goes. DC Talk I mentioned earlier and they have
done some of the best work in the last decade in my opinion. Along with
Steve Taylor who cranked out "Squint" in '95; a classic in its own right.
Also he worked with the Newsboys who did some great stuff as well. Overall
my perception is that the market won't tolerate stuff that directly calls
people to repent of their sins and in the '70's there were actually some
very successful artists who did just that like Keith Green. The
indication would seem to be that people are then even further from the Lord.
A lot of us old timers concur that this is exactly the case. Water it down
or you wash out. :-) There are still artists out there. You just have to look for them.
But like I say I strongly recommend getting a perspective on things
historically. You'll be amazed what it will do for you. -Bob
> Donna