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radioThe full Tony Cummings nterview with Pastor David Daniel.
Continued from page 5
Tony: What year was that?
David: My goodness! We did it to raise money for our new building which we knocked down, in I think 1993.
Tony: Was that a vinyl EP?
David: No, cassette. So we made this cassette, it was a very good learning experience. I learnt a lot about the importance of having the best singers with mikes louder than everyone else! But it was a great experience! My sister Sharon and myself, we kind of like had the choir at that particular time and we wrote some songs and had it produced.
Tony: I have actually produced a couple of gospel albums. It was years ago and getting the right mikes and the right voices in the right places is a head bang isn't it! It's quite a job.
David: We actually blamed the mikes!
Tony: Well, it's the law of averages somebody is going to be singing flat and Murphy's Law kicks in that somehow that one flat voice - everyone hears that!
David: But you know what I must say Tony, this is the thing that makes me so proud is that after our live recording of this present album we have right now, when I listened to the play-back, it sounded fantastic! Believe me, it brought a tear to my eye! It was that good! I realised when I listened to the actual dry recording re-run afterwards, I thought - this choir really can sing!
Tony: When was "Praise Comes First" planned. What year did you decide to start working on a recording?
David: We really were planning this from the Millenium, from 2000. Again, we were trying to raise some funds again for the church and also at the same time we, you know, wanted to plant a seed also into peoples lives and into ministry as well.
Tony: Great title - "Praise Comes First". Is that your title?
David: No - one of the choir members. We try to share things around, to recognize people's abilities and gifts and one of the choir members said "Praise Comes First".
Tony: Having made that decision did you sit down and write all the material especially for it or was it material which was evolving within the choir anyway. How did it come about?
David: What we planned to do was to get brand new material. I called all my friends who could write songs, all of the people in the ministry who had songs out there and I was asking people for songs, and I was asking people for contributions and they were slow in coming forward. I only had a few mini discs and tapes to choose from. I realized everyone was very busy etc, etc and maybe people thought he was just asking for songs, he's not really that serious. But I was serious, but then as time went by, little ideas came to myself and I started to write a few songs and I just presented them to the choir and said let's just see how this goes, let's just sing this and they were really loving it. Everyone liked it and so we started to lean towards writing more of the songs for the recording, so I initially tried to get other people to write for us, but wrote maybe 5 or 6 of the songs. We had Ruth Lynch who is in our choir, she wrote a couple of songs as well, Sheila Robinson and Erika wrote one and then we got a song from Graham Kendrick, and we had to get one from Graham and then I had to get my good friend Steve Thompson.
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Gospel music digs deeper than any other music throughout the world today. And those who make it so, and those who have made it so in the past, form an uncompromising band of Christian saints men and women, who have spent decades in contention with all manner of difficult circumstances.
Few performers have had it quite so tough as gospel singers and it shows in the way they commit themselves within a song: The Christian vision of deliverance from spiritual and social shackles has always held out the greatest hope to those with least to lose and the gospel song is essentially a song of deliverance. The real, breathtaking power of gospel singing cannot be understood as anything less than the ecstatic victory shout of a soul set free at last. There is no music quite like that of gospel music, no drama like the drama of Christians rejoicing, the sinners moaning and repenting, the tambourines shaking, and all those voices coming together in unity, crying holy unto, the LORD. I have never seen anything during my Ministerial life as an Evangelist, to equal the fire and excitement that gospel music carries, without warning can fill a church with the awesome power of God's glory.
Nothing that has happened to me since, can equal the majestic power and the glory that I sometimes feel when, in the middle of a worship song, I knew that I was somehow, by some miracle, really carrying, really singing, as they say, the WORD, when the church and I are singing and dancing, in anguish and rejoicing at the foot of the altar. So let your heart exult wordlessly into joyous song by breaking down all barriers in the immeasurable fullness of your countenance by the words of your songs, whether at the harvest table, in the vineyards, or elsewhere. For true, really, true gospel singers, groups or bands they will always worship God in Spirit and in Truth, and recognise that He and He alone gets all the glory, AMEN