Rock Band

UPDATE: MARCH 23, 2010 - The link for Let the Kingdom Come (White Heart) and Clean (Petra) is good.

I am sure that you have probably heard of the video game Rock Band....As I was thinking about what songs to share with you this week, every song that came to mind was from a band...so I figured why not borrow the title of the video game to use in my title for this post and play list.  I will keep my comments short on this post so that you can get to the music that much faster, don't want you losing interest.

 The first song comes from a really amazing Christian Rock Band, and even though I will use that word amazing to describe a few other bands, trust me when I say that there has been a few that are not so great.    But anyway, back to this particular band, White Heart is a band that is on my Top 5 list for Christian Rock bands, this particular album (Freedom) from where this song appeared was released in 1989, a solid Album, all of the songs on this album are amazing, musically and lyrically.  There are some really rockin' songs, some nice soft ballads and some nice pop rock in it.  I could probably go on talking about this album, but as I stated earlier I will keep my comments short.  This song I am sharing with you is titled Let The Kingdom Come.  This song starts out with a really catchy bass melody, it starts off slow and then out of now where it explodes!!! As you are listening to the music and its progression, pay close attention to the lyrics, it feels like the lyrics just get even stronger and more meaningful as the tempo gets faster.  If you have let God come into your heart, then I have no doubt that you will find yourself chanting along with White Heart, "Lord, Let Your Kingdom Come"!!!!  Let the Kingdom Come

The next song comes from a group called DeGarmo & Key the name comes from the bands frontmen, Eddie DeGarmo and Dana Key.  The album The Pledge came out in 1989, and even though I wouldn't place them on my list of the top 5 Christian Rock Band they still had good songs and good albums.  Their sound varies from 70's rock to 80's Pop.  This song titled If God Is For Us (Who Can Be Against Us) is not a very fast paced song, and its not a ballad either, its more of a pop song and it did get a lot of play on Christian Radio stations of the time.  I like this song because of the lyrics, we all have times where we may feel like hanging up our gloves, quitting the race, but we should never forget that He who created Heaven & Earth and all that is in it renews our strength so we can go on.  To quote from the song, "If God is for us who can be against us we can live in victory today"!!

To end this post and music play list I will leave you with a song from the group Petra, if you have been a Christian for a while then I am sure you have heard of the band.  Petra was formed in 1972 and they made great music until their retirement in 2006.  They always lived up to the meaning of their name (Rock), I had a chance to see this band perform in concert in Puerto Rico, and I was blown away by the power of their music and ministry.  There are so many songs that I could and probably will share with you from this band.  This particular song Clean comes from the album Beat the System released in 1984.  This was the first album keyboardist John Lawry did with the band and the last album that Greg X. Volz (Lead Vocals) recorded with them.  Ok, ok I can hear you out there reminding me to keep it short so I will.  Clean is my sister's favorite Petra song, and I can understand why, it is a very catchy song with great lyrics.  We have been washed with the Redeeming Blood of Christ, remember you are Clean.  We are not perfect and we will stumble, but as the lyrics on this song say: "I've done nothing that His blood can't wash away, when I take it to the Cross and start to pray".  God Bless and enjoy the song by clicking on the link: Clean

Starting With 3

UPDATE (MARCH 23, 2010) - Due to the Website that I was using to post music not working anymore, I am trying to update all the songs using YouTube...this will take some time..but hang in there...I was able to upload one song from this post "I'm Forgiven" click on the link in the post and it will take you to the song....thanks.

So I finally found a way to share great Classic Christian Music with you (who ever you are). It's an app. that some of the bloggers on this website turned me to, so thank you to them. I now have the ability to upload music and create playlists so that I can start sharing with you great Christian Classics. I am not sure right now how many songs I will share with you from post to post but for today let's start off with 3 great songs. You will actually have to read this week's post in its entirety before you get to the songs (unless you cheat and scroll to the end of this post).

The first song you will find on the play list is Trust in God a song from the Allies album Long Way From Paradise. I could have picked almost any song from this Album because to me they are all great (in future posts I will share some of their other songs from this Album). This was Allies fourth album which was released back in 89. Bob Carlisle who is better known for his song Butterfly Kisses is doing the vocals, he definitely had the voice that made this Christian Rock group stand out. Anyway, this song Trust in God was not only relevant during the early 90's but it is still relevant today. Trusting in God is the basic element of our Faith, if we can't Trust in God then how can we receive and or accept His forgiveness, His love and His blessings. We are to Trust in God in the morning, and in the evening, we are to Trust in God through the easy times and the difficult times. As Christians if we don't Trust in God how can we expect those who are not saved to Trust in Him. Ok enough "preaching" this particular song is more of a fast ballad than it is a fast paced rock song, I wanted to start you off nice and easy before we go full throttle!!

The second song comes from one of my all time favorite solo Christian singers, Bryan Duncan. He (Duncan) came onto the Christian Music scene as the lead singer for what I consider to be the best Christian Band of all time: Sweet Comfort Band, after the SCB disbanding Bryan went on to have (to this day) a great Solo career, he has received many Christian Music awards and even a Grammy. I will definitely be sharing with you many of his songs. The song I will share with you today is off his Holly Rollin' Album, if you were to buy this Album today you would have to pay a hefty price because this particular album is considered to be a collector's item. All of the songs in this album could've been #1's and no I won't be saying that about all songs I share with you. But, truly this is a phenomenal Album, lyrically and musically! This album came out in '86 and I really believe that if this album was to be re-released to the market today, it would top Christian Music charts!! Ok, so about the song, the song is titled: Remember Me and it is written from the perspective of the 2nd thieve that was crucified next to our Lord Jesus on Calvary. Listening to this song now a days has a much bigger significance to me than what it did back in the '80s as I was still very new in the faith. We had a preacher come to our Church last month that preached a Sermon on the 3 men who died in the Orchard of Calvary he preached that on that day one man died a Sinner, one man died a Saviour and because He did one man died a Saint, one man died in Sin, one man died for Sin and because He did one man died to Sin! Wow!! As I listen to this song I cant help but to think that we all have choices in our lives, some choose to die as sinners, and yet some of us choose to die to sin. Have you ever really taking the time to think about what our Lord did for us? How can we not be in awe of the great love that He has for us. Part of the lyrics of this song goes: "You're the King of a Nation, You're the Chosen One and You're hanging here with me to die" Our Savior, God's only Son, perfect in every way, who was without Sin took upon His shoulders the weight of the world's sin and died so that we can make that choice to die in sin or die to sin! Remember Me is a song that will make you reflect on the price our Lord payed for our sins.

Ok, on to the 3rd and last song for this blog. This last song comes from the group The Imperials, this band released their first album way back in 1964 and their last recorded album was released in 2006, the band had many a great talents that went on to have good solo careers to name two: Russ Taff and Paul Smith of which I will definitely be sharing some of their songs with you in the future. This group has so many albums that I would had never been able to acquire the entire collection, as it is to this date I have none of their albums but have been lucky enough to gather a few of their songs for my collection. This particular song has Russ Taff as lead vocals. It's a very catchy tune. Listen to this song and try not to move your feet or not move to the rhythm of it...you wont be able to, especially if you take a good listen to the lyrics! The title of this song is I'm Forgiven, and we most certainly have been forgiven, as part of the lyrics say: "I'm Forgiven, now I have a reason for living" Enjoy the salvation you have in Christ because He forgave your sins!! I hope you enjoy these songs as much as I do, until next time! Click on the Link: I'm Forgiven

Motherload!

As I type this posting, I am currently converting a cassette to digital format so that I can upload it to my Itunes (Paul Smith's Back to Who I Am) a great "Album" but more on that on a later post. It is good to know that there are a few people reading this blog. I do appreciate it. I am a person that considers himself very blessed by the Lord. He has blessed me with an Awesome Wife, 2 handsome boys, a great job (one which I will be saying good bye to in a little over a year) the Lord has blessed me in many other things that I wont mention because I am not on here to brag, but to share some topics of great Christian Music of years past. And as I mentioned before I consider myself to be very blessed, in my first post, I talked about how I had lost through out the years most of my great collection of Christian Music that I once owned. I have been trying to build my collection back up again, by looking here there and everywhere. Well that brings me to the title of this post, on Friday my wife and I were riding together in my truck after we dropped her SUV off for some maintenance. It was early enough in the afternoon that we (mostly me) didnt feel like rushing back home, so we decided to just stop in a few stores to browse, the first store we stopped in did not bring about any good finds for me, or wait maybe it did, because my wife did buy a new non-stick frying pan and a Ginormous spatula which she christened by making me a DELICIOUS breakfast on Saturday, but I digress!!! After we finished at that store, we made a few other stops and just before we were to head home, Suzanne (my wife) wanted to stop in and look around in one of those Habitat Thrift Stores so me being the great husband that I am decided to oblige her and we went in...as we are looking around the store going up and down the aisles of stuff they have, I came across an aisle that had Music, well I thought to myself that it wouldnt hurt to look, so I started to sort through the mess of tapes they had and to my great surprise I found Michael W. Smith's The Big Picture cassette, great "Album" with songs like Rocketown, Old Enough to Know and Lamu amongst other great songs. As I stood there with this incredible find in my hands, my interest in the pile of tapes grew strong. I made myself comfortable on the floor right there in that aisle ready to find at least one more great tape. Well, my efforts paid off because instead of finding 1 more tape I actually found 4 other great Christian Artists cassettes, 3 of which I had lost and 1 that I never had before. To me finding these tapes was like finding the Motherload, I am so glad that Suzanne wanted to stopped in that store to browse! What a great blessing this was to me. Just in case you are curious the other 4 tapes I found were: Bryan Duncan's Anonymous Confession of a Lunatic Friend (one of my favorite Bryan Duncan's albums), Sheila Walsh's Shadowlands, Russ Taff -self title album and Mylon LeFevre & Broken Heart's Crack in the Sky. It is my desire to eventually be able to put some of these songs from these albums here on my blog. But what I will do is share this video with you. Thank You Leah for sharing with me how to be able to do this!! This video is from Bryan Duncan's Mercy Album. The lyrics on this song are so powerful!! Every time I listen to this song it really does minister to me. The title of the song is Love Takes Time, and for those of you who are in love, you will probably agree with me that Love does take time, we are not perfect people and in our relationships we have to allow love to take the time it needs to grow. As one who is a believer in God's Love for us I am tankful for how He loves me, and it is that way that I want to Love not only those who love me (because that is very easy) but to love those that don't! Thanks for reading!

A Haven!

Welcome! You have found it!!! A Haven for all those who are like me, stuck in the Era of 80's and 90's Christian Music. I became a Christian at a young age in the beautiful Island of Puerto Rico, I moved there from the greatest City in the world NYC after my mother was sent to live her last days of her life in her homeland which turned out to be 14 plus years. Anyway, by 1985 I was looking for music that I could connect to, and feeling very strongly about not wanting to let go of my knowledge of the english language I turned to American Christian Music. And it all started when one Christmas day my mother gifted me a Techincs Small Stereo System!! I thought I was the Richest kid in my Apartment Complex!!! But that is when it all started for me, because now I had a stereo that had a double Cassette player and recorder but it also could play LPs. Although I really cant remember what was my first Cassette I am pretty much sure that it was Petra with Greg X. Volz at the Lead Vocals.

From that point on, I made sure that whenever I had money (which wasnt often) I would take the Public Bus to the one and only store in my hometown that sold English Christian Music. I have to say I did build up a nice collection by the time I went to Navy Bootcamp in Orlando, but now the majority of my collection is gone, I have been able to save a small part of my Cassette collection, my LP's are all gone no where to be found. Slowly but surely I transferring my remaining tapes to Itunes. And as I have found myself searching the internet trying to buy some of the Old Greats, I thought that maybe there is one other Soul out there that is looking for the same. So I started this blog, not sure how long I will be here posting and not sure even what to post about, but this is a start. My intent is to share my thoughts and maybe even some songs with you all. So if you are in search for Great Christian Music from a few decades ago, then this is your place. I will write about bands like: White Heart, The Choir, Mad at the World, Petra and also about the Solo Artists like: Russ Taff, Paul Smith, Margaret Becker, Randy Stonehill.

Right now I have to learn more about blogging and what I will be able to post and not post until then let me know you were here! God Bless