Yep, I was a musician. In Nashvegas, I can't say I AM a musician, because great musicians are all around us here. If you live here long enough you will run into more than a few famous people in this town, and what I love about this town is that people leave 'em alone. Hey, this is their home, let 'em live their life, is our way of viewing things.
Yep, I played professionally and also had a fairly highfalutin' title in the music biz as a managerial type. So I am very opinionated musically. My mom always nagged me about being so critical (I would say "picky") about music. Funny thing was, later on in my life, I used that ability to analyze and make value judgements about music in my professional life. As kiddo would say, "so, HA!!!!" Often, however, it has made me jaded to the process and highly particular perhaps in a less than good way.
All that having been said, there are a few worship leaders that stand out from the crowd for me.
'Had the opportunity to hear Matt Redman a few years ago at a private dress rehearsal for some big gig they were cooking up. The cool thing was that I didn't think "wow, Matt is great" afterwards. I thought "wow, God is a lot more, and deeper, and more satisfying than I have realized in a long while". Matt is a first class songwriter and usually works with some interesting producers. Yeah, he has some "chestnuts" that are WAY oversung now in the local church, but that's what happens to the "warhorses" and that is by no means his fault.
Tommy Walker is a guy that I wish got more exposure than he does...I know his songwriting is strong and well recognized but his records have been cool too. The C.A. stuff is quite good and has a stellar lineup with folks like Alex Acuna. Surfing over to his website http://www.tommywalker.net/ lets me know that I'm sadly behind on collecting his discography and hopefully I can remedy that.
I think Rita Springer is an unbelievable worshiper--she doesn't have a range to speak of vocally, but it is all out there, rough hewn, so believable. Once you hear her sing "I Can Only Imagine," you will probably never want to hear the poseurs sing the original...mercy me, I don't care if it went platinum. ;-) And ya gotta love a single white chick who adopted a little african american kid and named him Justice.
And there's plenty o' worshippin' to be done with Bruce Cockburn, Switchfoot, or dare I say U2? There, I said it.
Okay, I'll get off the music rant because it isn't really what this blog is about, but it's a friendly nod to my past. Got me an office, gold records on the wall, well, not anymore really. ;-)
All that having been said, there are a few worship leaders that stand out from the crowd for me.
'Had the opportunity to hear Matt Redman a few years ago at a private dress rehearsal for some big gig they were cooking up. The cool thing was that I didn't think "wow, Matt is great" afterwards. I thought "wow, God is a lot more, and deeper, and more satisfying than I have realized in a long while". Matt is a first class songwriter and usually works with some interesting producers. Yeah, he has some "chestnuts" that are WAY oversung now in the local church, but that's what happens to the "warhorses" and that is by no means his fault.
Tommy Walker is a guy that I wish got more exposure than he does...I know his songwriting is strong and well recognized but his records have been cool too. The C.A. stuff is quite good and has a stellar lineup with folks like Alex Acuna. Surfing over to his website http://www.tommywalker.net/ lets me know that I'm sadly behind on collecting his discography and hopefully I can remedy that.
I think Rita Springer is an unbelievable worshiper--she doesn't have a range to speak of vocally, but it is all out there, rough hewn, so believable. Once you hear her sing "I Can Only Imagine," you will probably never want to hear the poseurs sing the original...mercy me, I don't care if it went platinum. ;-) And ya gotta love a single white chick who adopted a little african american kid and named him Justice.
And there's plenty o' worshippin' to be done with Bruce Cockburn, Switchfoot, or dare I say U2? There, I said it.
Okay, I'll get off the music rant because it isn't really what this blog is about, but it's a friendly nod to my past. Got me an office, gold records on the wall, well, not anymore really. ;-)
2 comments:
GREAT music rant!! One of my first worship cd's was by Rita Springer, tho I don't hear her on the radio up here.
Yeah, ya gotta pretty much just know who she is, you're not going to hear her on the radio. My guess is that this is because she is too "real" for Christian radio. I think her next project is download only, which probably will be a good move for her. Her covers IMHO are usually WAY better than the originals. She's pretty cool...nice to know someone else has actually heard of her! :-)
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