The latest part of the ongoing series chronicling, in no particular order, the greatest 1001 recordings made by Christian artists

Paul Jones and Fiona Hendley

833. PAUL JONES & FIONA HENDLEY - WHEN LOVE CALLS YOU HOME, 1996. From the album 'Personal', ICC.
Back in 1996, Paul Jones of Manfred Mann, Blues Band and Radio 2 fame and his wife and former West End actress Fiona Hendley released a collection of easy listening tracks that reflected their Christian faith. Amidst the wealth of lushly-produced tracks on the couple's only album to date nestled a refreshingly stripped back cover of the Commissioned song "When Love Calls You Home", written by Fred Hammond, Ty Lacy and Britain Lenox. It's a gem of a song ("Out there on the edge dangling somewhere in the darkness/Doubting if anybody really cares") but in contrast to the original, the Jones' version contains little more than an acoustic guitar, some gentle piano and a touch of light percussion to allow the pair's accomplished vocals and the message of God's redemptive love to take centre stage. A characteristically memorable harmonica solo from Jones is the icing on the cake. Having being a fan of Jones' Radio 2 blues show during my teenage years, this particular track is of special significance to me due to the fact that it featured on a Cross Rhythms sampler cassette shortly after the album's release and served to introduce to me a publication that I have had the honour of contributing to since 1997.
Lins Honeyman

834. JOSH TURNER - LONG BLACK TRAIN, 2003. From the album 'Long Black Train', MCA.
South Carolina native Josh burst onto the US country scene in 2003 with "Long Black Train", a song that one reviewer suggested sounded like "a country gospel song of the 1940s." It was in fact penned by Josh and skilfully rolls death, temptation and redemption into a metaphor of a funeral train. Josh's rich, deep baritone perfectly conjures the song's funeral mood and it became a huge country radio hit, the 'Long Black Train' album becoming the only debut release of 2003 to win a gold album. It deserved all of its success and the reminder in the lyric that there's "victory in the Lord" is a salient reminder to all country music fans.
Tony Cummings

835. HILLSONG UNITED - OCEANS (WHERE FEET MAY FAIL, 2013. From the album 'Zion', Hillsong Music.
Down the decades America's Gospel Music Association (GMA) have handed out their Song Of The Year award to what have been, to my ears, some pretty lame choices. But then, as the Grammy Awards and many other award ceremonies have demonstrated, allowing intense radio exposure/big sales as the main criterion in winning glittering prizes is bound to produce some odd winners particularly when US Christian radio is as narrowly blinkered as it seems currently. Of course, popular music gets its very name from being popular so it can seem extremely opinionated to insist, as I do, that whether a recording sells five or five million has really nothing much to do with whether it's any good or not. But that's what I believe. However, in the case of "Oceans (Where Feel May Fail)" I believe Joe Public and, at their 2014 bash, the Dove Award gatekeepers got it right in their Song Of The Year choice. As a band Australia's Hillsong United have improved tremendously down the years. Where once they often sounded like a band trying to sound like SonicFlood trying to sound like Delirious? today no such criticism can be made. "Oceans" and indeed the whole 'Zion' album is a creative tour-de-force with this song, penned by Matt Crocker, Salomon Ligthelm and the band's frontman Joel Houston, the jewel in the crown. With its orchestral intro and new keyboard player Benjamin Tennikoff bringing some angular synth lines to the powerhouse rock guitars, it's a great radio friendly track. But, of course, with worship music it is the song rather than the performance which is of primary importance and "Oceans" is as melodically memorable as all great pop music needs to be while the lyrics will surely stir any worshipper to follow where our Lord would lead.
Tony Cummings

836. NORMAN & NANCY BLAKE - I'D RATHER BE AN OLD TIME CHRISTIAN, 2002. From the album 'Just Gimme Somethin' I'm Used To', Shanachie.
One of the leading figures of the bluegrass revival of the 1970s, Norman has recorded with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and Ralph Stanley and has been called "a national treasure" for his decades-long commitment to traditional American music. In 2002 he recorded this song, sometimes attributed to Albert Brumley, with his wife and long-time musical compatriot Nancy at Pyramid Studios in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. It's a deft rendition of a timeless gem. "In this world I've tried most everything/I'm happy now to say/There's nothing like religion/In the good old fashioned way/I'm walking in the old time way/And I want the world to know/That I'd rather be an old time Christian/Than anything I know."
Tony Cummings

837. BEN OKAFOR - SANCTIFY MY SOUL, 1992. From the album 'Generation', Plankton.
It took me a long time to really enjoy Ben Okafor. When I first heard him outside a small tent at Greenbelt a couple of years before he made his first record I rather dismissed him as a Bob Marley copyist. Being, before my conversion, a black music purist (a strange affectation for a white boy) I believed that only black Americans could sing "real" soul music and only black Jamaicans could perform "real" reggae. The Spirit had some work to do before my cultural prejudices could be completely demolished. So in my early years as a music critic and journalist for Buzz magazine I theorised that Ben's growing popularity at Greenbelt was due to the fact that for years Ben was the ONLY exponent of gospel reggae in Britain and with many young British churchgoers keen to hear something that at least got close to "Exodus" or "No Women No Cry" the Nigerian-born Ben filled the need. It wasn't until the remastered version of the 'Generation' album was released that I had to
radically revise my opinion of Mr Okafor. He still offered some of those insidious lopsided riddems of JA but he'd found his own creative focus. Propulsive Afro-beat, raw Ritchie Havens-style acoustic rock and worldbeat reggae were all evident on the album to make something completely his own. Ben's vocal stylings may still have owed much to Marley but now on this joyful number, they were heard over jangly guitars, a finely recorded bassline, some delicious congas and a drummer who showed on the chorus an on-the-fours drive which unexpectedly, and probably unwittingly, replicated the driving rhythm of Northern soul. Seldom has a track so successfully woven together such an eclectic musical potpourri and with its celebratory chorus "Sanctify my soul/I love you more than gold" it's easy to understand how this song would get any crowd on their feet and dancing.
Tony Cummings

Noel Paul Stookey

838. NOEL PAUL STOOKEY - THE WEDDING SONG (THERE IS LOVE), 1971. From the album 'Paul And.', Warner Bros.
Known to millions as the Paul in Peter, Paul & Mary, the folk music popularisers who in the '60s toured the world and sold millions of records, Noel Paul went on to become the Jesus Movement's most famous "celebrity convert." This lovely song reached number 24 in the US pop charts in 1971 and has since become heard in hundreds of thousands of wedding ceremonies around the world. "The Wedding Song" was written for the wedding of his friend and one-time bandmate Peter Yarrow, at which Noel Paul served as best man. Despite its success Stookey refused to accept any royalties for the song, insisting that it had come to him by divine inspiration and that, being a conduit, he deserved little credit. This position is reflected in the lyrics. "He is now to be among you, at the calling of your hearts/Rest assured this troubadour is acting on his part/The union of your spirits here has caused him to remain/For wherever two or more of you are gathered in his name/There is love."
Tony Cummings

839. SISTER O M TERRELL - LORD I WANT YOU TO LEAD ME, 1953.
From the various artists album 'The Guitar Evangelists Vol 2', JSP.
Refreshingly, the gospel blues genre has always been populated by its fair share of female acts - certainly more so than the secular blues scene - with the likes of Atlanta-born singer/guitarist Sister Ola Mae Terrell being one of the best. And though she never achieved anything but a fraction of the fame and fortune handed out to another guitar-toting singer of gospel truth, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Sister Terrell was, on the evidence of the 78s she recorded for Columbia Records, every bit Tharpe's equal. In the exemplary "Lord I Want You To Lead Me", she plays what sounds like a National steel guitar and that, together with her passionate, raspy vocal is electrifying as she delivers this plea for the Lord's guidance. Some gospel blues fans suggest that the direct emotional current conveyed by her voice and instrument suggests something in common with both the Reverend Gary Davis and - for skilful guitar work and sheer devotional intensity - Blind Willie Johnson. But, as this song demonstrates, Sister Terrell deserves her own place in the annals of blues and gospel history.
Lins Honeyman

840. RIVERS & ROBOTS - FOUNTAINS, 2013. From the album 'Take Everything', Independent.
Reviewers have already had a go at identifying the Salford-based band's various influences - Elbow and David Gray being suggested on the musical front and Song Of Solomon for their approach to lyric writing. They may be right, but I also hear a great deal of pristine originality emanating from singer, songwriter and producer Jonathan Ogden and with their sinuous bass lines and intricate rhythms Rivers & Robots have captured a sound which is hauntingly worshipful but stands apart from most modern worship music.
Tony Cummings

841. THE CRABB FAMILY - THE WALK, 2003. From the album 'The Walk', Daywind.
Like The Imperials before them, The Crabb Family made their reputation as Southern Gospel harmonisers and have been blessed with a soulful lead singer. Not that Jason Crabb, who as a solo has gone on to win a coveted Male Singer Of The Year Dove Award, sounds anything like Russ Taff. Jason's voice is higher and lighter-textured but, over a tight country-style accompaniment complete with bluesy guitar licks, is equally able to deliver a vocal with plenty of black gospel fervour. "The Walk" has a clever lyric penned by Gerald Crabb. "I found myself seated in the line of fire/That old preacher man sure had the holy power/With the Bible he read my life like he knew it well/The more I put up my defence, the more conviction fell." That's followed by the memorable chorus of the convicted sinner walking down to the altar. "What they were singing slips my memory/There's a lot I can't recall/But I won't forget the mercy/And I won't forget the walk."
Tony Cummings

842. PHIL WICKHAM - YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL, 2007. From the album 'Cannons', Fair Trade Services.
When I first heard worship led by Phil Wickham at the West Country's annual Creation Fest he was an independent artist known only to Californian church-goers. I was hugely impressed with his rich, vibrato-loaded voice and his winning way with Scripture-filled compositions. With the telling proviso of "if he gets signed" I predicted that one of his songs would connect with the international worshipping community. As it turned out, both things happened, Fair Trade Services signing Phil and his songs like "This Is Amazing Grace" making waves in many churches. But it's this beautiful celebration of God's creation which is, I believe, Phil's best so far ("I see your face in every sunrise/The colours of the morning are inside your eyes/The world awakens to the light of the day/I look up to the sky and say/You're beautiful.")
Tony Cummings

Dixie Nightingales

843. DIXIE NIGHTINGALES - THE ASSASSINATION, 1964. From the single, Chalice.
The Dixie Nightingales were among the best known of the semi-professional Memphis gospel groups though someway short of the fame of the quartets the Dixie Hummingbirds and the Sensational Nightingales whose names they had partially borrowed. For Nashville's Nashboro Records they recorded a pile of sides but when label boss Ernie Young refused to record and release "The Assassination", written by the Dixie Nightingales' lead singer Ollie Hoskins, insisting it was not a gospel song, the group moved to the home of Memphis soul Stax Records, who were hitting big with Otis Redding, Sam & Dave et al and who had started a gospel subsidiary, Chalice. In the company's fabled 926 E McLemore studio they recorded "The Assassination". As Young asserted, the song was not gospel, rather in the long tradition of folk and blues music, it was a song that depicted big news events of the day, in this case the awful shooting of President John F Kennedy. "The Assassination" was a truly haunting lament, Ollie's pining lead given solemn accompaniment by his fellow Nightingales and with a backing reportedly featuring the soon-to-become-superstar Isaac Hayes on organ and, definitely, Carl Cunningham on drums (Carl later finding success as a member of the Stax funksters the Bar-Kays). Even the simple rhythmic demands of this dead slow song showed Cunningham's invention as he added to the musical drama by inserting loud cracks each time the word "shot" was sung on the chorus. The drummer got the particular effect by placing a high-hat cymbal on top of his snare. The Dixie Nightingales were within a year to become Ollie & The Nightingales who recorded mainstream soul music with Stax. "The Assassination" though was their finest musical moment.
Tony Cummings

844. CHRIS AUGUST - WANT TO BE REAL, 2010. From the album 'No Far Away', Fervent.
A perfectly formed piece of Nashville pop from one of the brightest new talents in CCM. A rolling piano figure, a melodically flowing chorus and a delayed drums and guitar all do their bit in the deftly arranged Ed Cash production as Chris pleads for spiritual reality. "So I'm throwing out words I don't fully understand/I could be talking to myself but I don't think I am/'Cause you're always there through the fight/Saving my heart from the doubt inside."
Tony Cummings

845. GENESIS GOSPEL SINGERS - MOMMA MO AKOMA NTUTU, 1983. From the single, Africagram.
Ghanaian high life music was one of the styles which finally awoke the international record market to the riches of music which didn't originate in the West. High life's thrilling blend of multiple guitar rhythms and lots of densely textured percussion brought an enthusiastic response from music buffs intrigued by the countless styles and approaches marketed as "world music". High life gospel music emerged in the '70s and the Genesis Gospel Singers were, according to a BBC News Channel report, "the most popular band of the decade." "Momma Mo Akoma Ntutu" was the GGS's biggest hit and a delight it is too, the nasal high voices and the plodding deep voices producing a sound like no American or European choir could ever replicate. The English translation for "Momma Mo Akoma Ntutu" is "Let My Heart Be Cool".
Tony Cummings

846. IAN YATES - CHRIST IN ME, 2014. From the album 'DNA', 7Core Music.
Since prolific Liverpool worship leader Ian Yates teamed up with producer and label owner Trevor Michael the recordings have poured forth. Mr Yates has written many excellent congregational songs and, in truth, it's only the fact that he doesn't have a connection with a Soul Survivor, Passion or mega-church which has stopped his songs being more widely known. His albums too have been top rate. On 'DNA' he moved somewhat from guitar fuelled rock to a more electro-tinged approach and on this perfectly formed pop worship concoction he and Michael reached a creative pinnacle. The bit where the chorus of male voices intone "Every step, every breath, every moment" to be answered by Ian singing the hook is a sublime pop moment which is some arranging/production feat when recording a song intended for congregations to sing.
Tony Cummings