The latest part of the ongoing series chronicling the greatest 1001 recordings made by Christian artists

97. PHIL DRISCOLL - A STAR IS BORN, 1987. From the album 'The Spirit Of Christmas', Mighty Horn.
Part Stax Records pastiche, part '80s CCM romp, this is still to these grizzled old ears the best Christmas song ever put onto tape. Odd that it was stuck in the middle of a largely unlistenable selection of MOR-arranged carols and odder still that Phil's soaked-in-brine soul croak of a voice, the gloriously riffing neo-Memphis Horns and the driving rhythm track didn't make it a perennial yuletide favourite.

98. RANCE ALLEN GROUP - GOD IS WONDERFUL, 1974. From the album 'Sanctified', Stax.
When I was a soul music journalist, and years before I was a Christian I was given a chance by the old Pye Records, who were licensing Stax at the time, to compile an album of choice cuts from the first three Ranee Allen albums on Gospel Truth. It was a musical delight. Here was a voice which could leap an octave like a thoroughbred leaping Beechers. Ranee is one of the great gospel singers. Here he takes syllables and fragments them in a dizzying display of intricate improvisation. On the climax giving Ranee the opportunity to go for broke and reach for notes usually only dreamed of by dog whistle manufacturers.

99. JESSY DIXON - WE GIVE YOU GLORY, 1983. From the album 'Sanctuary'. Power Discs.
Such is the nature of worship choruses that they often creep into our consciousness and congregation's repertoire without any idea of their source. When this album first came out in 1983 its 'Inspirational' (read MOR) production values made it seem a waste of a great black gospel voice. But on this undeniably mediocre album was this joyful praise romp (you know the one "Glory to God" ... clap, clap, clap) which despite a muddy mix is still an exhilarating paean of praise with Jessy's voice soulfully giving God the glory and a hot sax player blowing the back off.

100. DENNIS AGAJANIAN - WHERE ARE THE HEROES?, 1983. From the album 'Where Are The Heroes?', Sparrow.
Ecleticism rules! Take a half Native American singer, give him a Steve Camp song and get John Michael Talbot's brother, Terry, to produce him. What do you get? New country of course! Years before country became hip again, this fine singer/guitarist was cutting some hot country-gospel albums for Sparrow and Word before disappearing to custom-album obscurity. This fine cut asks where are the men of God to inspire a nation, over a delicious Nashville-meets-LA mid tempo strum. One to search out.

As published in CR13, 1st February 1993

Degarmo And Key

101. DEGARMO AND KEY - 666, 1992. From the album 'Destined To Win', Forefront.
A disc that caused a huge furore on its release in the States some years back. The criticism came not as you might expect from the Bible Belt bigots aghast that a Christian band had the effrontery to sing a song about the Antichrist but from, of all people, MTV who banned the video for being "too violent". I lie not. But what of the music? A total triumph of AOR expertise from its throbbing one-note bass, wheezing vocals and that insidious little figure on clarinet while that full throttle axe solo on the close is still one of the best Christendom has produced. The duo from Memphis have made many fine sides throughout the '80s but this, by a shade, is their finest.

102. CLIFF RICHARD - THIEF IN 'THE NIGHT, 1982. From the album 'Now You See Me Now You Don't', EMI.
The definitive version of Paul Field's truly classic song. Cliff has mega stardom so I suppose it's only fair he doesn't have street cred as well. In fact, of course, saying you like Cliff in music buff circles would bring you a veritable barrage of Super Nerd looks. But then pop-song craft, particularly when it's coupled with immense popularity is easily scoffed at. Here Cliff surpasses himself, ringing the full dramatic effect from the most dramatic of ballads. The vocal! Cliff's voice at first sad and poignantly reflective then at the climax a harsh near-shriek. The lyrics! "Children of the darkness he will leave behind." How did the EMI execs ever miss the heart-stopping implications of this song? The arrangement! Delicious little stab of fretless, followed by a glorious piece of charging pomp-rock. Yes, a fine, fine track.

103. NEW HORIZON - MAKE US HOLY, 1984. From the album 'Abba Father', Window.
If Cliff lacks street cred, this lacks music cred period - or so first glance at the sleeve would have you suspect. Let's face it, MOR praise albums by slightly wet looking Scottish choirs do not seem a likely resting place for anything vaguely resembling lis-tenable music, let alone undiscovered classics. But there it is a pure, gentle, perfectly produced rendition of a quite lovely Bryn Haworth worship song. Soothing to the spirit and a prayer from the heart.

104. BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON -THE SOUL OF A MAN, 1930. From the various artists album 'Christ Was Born on Christmas Morning', Historical.
Blind Willie Johnson from Texas was the most popular gospel singer on record well into the American Depression, and this track recorded in 1929 shows a unique talent at the height of is prowess. It's all here. That searing guitar, that unexpected turn of eloquence, that harsh, impossibly impassioned voice. On "The Soul Of A Man" he duets with his wife Angeline who was no great shakes as a singer. But somehow she adds to the intense yet transcendent effect.

105. CARMAN - THE CHAMPION, 1985. From the album 'The Champion', Myrrh.
In Cross Rhythms I wrote, "To the sophisticated CCM industry media man, he's the embarrassing clown-prince bringing tent-meeting hokum and unashamed theatrics in an age of crossover compromise and expanding markets." People love or loathe Carman. And certainly this seminal track first showed us what was to become one of the key devices in Carman's formidable creative armoury - the dramatic monologue set in other realms where we eavesdrop on the heavenly beings and where the key events of the ages come alive in Super Hero audio animation. My little boy loves this track - he wanted to take it to school and play it to his friends. And with that triumphant instrumental passage at the climax I find, maybe a little to my surprise, that I too am thrilled by this theatric saga of a champion Jesus rising from the cosmic canvas to defeat Satan.

106. DEGARMO AND KEY - CASUAL CHRISTIAN LIFE, 1992. From the album 'Destined To Win', Forefront.
Another gem from the Memphis duo, a wheezingly soulful ballad with a heartfelt plea that the singer will not stumble into spiritual indifference and Christian mediocrity. Amen to that.

107. BILLY PENN'S BROTHER - SONG FOR ANNETTE, 1990. From the album 'Power Blocs/Mustard Seeds', independent.
A song and rendition of such intense, harrowing pain that I seldom listen to it. Yet this is a masterpiece, based on the story of a nine year old whose burnt corpse was found in a ditch. Richard Nicholson sings his own words against the simplest of folk roots accompaniments: "Tell me who upon God's green and pleasant earth/Despised the crystal tears running down your face/... Just a man out there without name." And sometimes I find crystal tears of my own.

108. REZ - WHITE NOISE, 1983. From the album 'DMZ', Sparrow.
I was slow into metal. Being a soul boy in the '60s I'd momentarily gone gaga for Jimi Hendrix when he was a sideman for R&B acts (I still love his solos on old Little Richard and Isley Brothers records) but by the time he, and the manufacturers of guitars and amplifiers developed all that enveloping, belching, thunderous axe noise I was dismissive of Hendrix and the early pioneers of heavy rock and metal that followed. I stayed that way until this album forced on me to review by Buzz put me nose to nose (well actually ear to speaker) in contact with the power and the glory of the cranked-up guitar solo. Rez's cacophonous virtuoso intro still sounds radical even in this age of trash and doom and by the time Wendi Kaiser charges into the song proper the listener has either long retreated to his concrete bunker or has abandoned himself to the sheer, exhilarating thrill of it all.

109. THE WINANS - IT'S TIME, 1990. From the album 'Return', Warner Alliance.
When the video of this soul/hip hop/gospel gem was unveiled for America's Christian music industry at the 1990 Dove Awards, there was a spontaneous burst of applause. I'm still clapping. I can still do a reasonable rendition of that rap intro "well, it's time to make a change, etc" though without the rapper's laconic sense of studied cool. Only Marvin, one of the GREAT voices of either soul or R&B, can lift the dance groove up to the heights.

Susan Ashton

110. SUSAN ASHTON - DOWN ON MY KNEES, 1991. From the album 'Wakened By The Wind', Sparrow.
"Got a witness not too stable/Wouldn't get me very far/Got one hand on the table/One in cookie jar/Got sins that need eviction/From a temple that's a wreck/Got a chain of contradiction/Hanging around my neck." So sings Susan in a tremulous bittersweet vocal of delicious understatement while the acoustic folk-blues arrangement ebbs and flows in surging waves of percussive dynamics. A breathtaking debut.