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

881. GUVNA B - WE WANT MORE (FTG REMIDEE), 2014. From the album 'Scrapbook II', Independent.
The fact that 'Scrapbook II', a blistering 15-track compilation of hip-hop, grime and afro beat was offered as a free mixtape says much about the premier British gospel rapper's high creative standards. Where lesser emcees bang out mixtapes with minimum attention to production standards or the originality of their flows, the Guvna nimbly avoided the pitfall with his 'Scrapbook II' release. "We Want More" is, in the words of the Cross Rhythms reviewer, "an utterly infectious piece of rip-roaring rap/pop fusion over a drum 'n' bass break featuring Remidee of LZ7." An urban gem.
Tony Cummings

882. REND COLLECTIVE - IMMEASURABLY MORE, 2014. From the album 'The Art Of Celebration', Integrity.
First it was those trio of folk rock delights "Joy", "Burn Like A Star" and "My Lighthouse" which caught and held our attention. But now it's this wonderful worship anthem which has circled the globe as it is added to the worshipping church's armoury. With co-writer Chris Tomlin adding his songwriting skills "Immeasurably More" is a song which works in whatever style it is sung while its lyrical summation of God's all-encompassing greatness has seldom been bettered: "More than all we ask/Than all we seek/All our hopes and dreams/You are immeasurably more/Than we can know/Than we can pray/All our words can say/You are immeasurably more."
Tony Cummings

Delirious?

883. CUTTING EDGE - DID YOU FEEL THE MOUNTAINS TREMBLE?, 1995. From the EP 'Red Tape 3', Independent.
As countless churchgoers now know before they were called Delirious? these musos from the sleepy seaside town of Littlehampton were Cutting Edge. It was Martin Smith's conversation with author Craig Borlase that best documented the monthly youth events, Cutting Edge, and the humble cassette releases that grew out of the event. Smith remembered, "Those four hours each month were so potent and powerful that they left their fingerprints on the days and weeks that fell in between. Every month I'd be working on a new song for the event and they'd nearly always come out of conversations [with the band]. 'Wouldn't it be great to hear people singing in the streets?' . . . 'We need some joyful songs, maybe something happy!' It felt as though we walked through a land that was more alive than any we had ever experienced. Not only did the songs come with purpose, but the event grew, tapping into a hunger and thirst for something new. More than any song from the events, 'Mountains' put into words and music the feelings we all shared. As we sang it over and over it eventually dawned on us - it wasn't just a song that a few people in a church were singing; this was an anthem that was being taken up by a movement.

"I wrote the song in my flat a day after we'd been leading worship at an event where someone called me out and said, 'Young man, I want to pray for you.' When he prayed, this man said that he saw me going to poorer nations, in particular to India. He went on to say that when I played in those places, the mountains would tremble. I love what he said - apart from that bit about India, which didn't make that much sense at the time. I wrote down the words 'mountains tremble' in my journal, and the next morning the song just came. I remember vividly the first time we sang 'Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble?' We played it towards the beginning of the evening and 45 minutes later we were still going. Waves and waves of God's power and Spirit were washing over us all. It was extraordinary and I think it was the first time that we'd found a song with a chorus that didn't just make a statement about who God was or how we felt about him. Instead it was a weird mix of prophecy, proclamation and some kind of spiritual warfare. When we sang 'open up the doors and let the music play,' we never felt the need to add the word 'please' on the end."
Tony Cummings

884. THE McCRARY SISTERS - HUM AND MOAN, 2013. From the album 'All The Way', Independent.
As backing singers extraordinaire the Nashville-based McCrary's made a name for themselves adding their delicious gospel harmonies to many of the biggest names in pop and rock. In 2013 they took time out to record an album of their own and "Hum And Moan" is a song which thrillingly recreates the sound and power of Regina McCrary's childhood memories. She recalled, "When I wrote that I was thinking about the Fairfield Four and I was thinking about the church we grew up in, St Mark's Baptist Church. It's over in Germantown. The deacons and the mothers used to do an old thing called 'Dr Watts'. It was an old hymn. It was kinda like back in the slavery days when they wanted to get messages to each other and not let the master know what they were talking about. There was this woman - she's dead now - Sister Roper. She would start out doing old 'Dr Watts' and everybody was listening. At that time, I was so young I thought it was funny, because I was like, 'What are they sayin'?' Turned out when I got older and life started dealin' what life deals to you that 'Dr Watts' came [closer] to reality."
Tony Cummings

885. CHRIS McCLARNEY - YOUR LOVE NEVER FAILS, 2008. From the album 'Love Never Fails', Integrity.
With some irony an American journalist reported that in 2008 an army of followers of the Jesus Culture youth movement adopted Chris McClarney's "Your Love Never Fails" as its theme song and Chris became "an overnight sensation after leading worship for 15 years." McClarney had spent the last six of those years as worship leader at the Grace Center church in Franklin, Tennessee and spoke about how his worship classic came into being. "I had a friend going through a tough time and I remember I told him about the passage from Romans 8:28 that says 'all things work together for good,' and I realised that I needed to hear those words for myself. I needed to decide if I really believed those words. That's what led to the writing the song 'Your Love Never Fails'. One night at church, I began spontaneously singing this line during worship: 'You make all things work together for my good.' For more than an hour it continued, not so much because I felt God needed to hear it repeated, but because I needed to convince myself that no matter what my circumstances might be right now, however big or small, and no matter how unresponsive he might seem, God is still in control. In fact, he will work everything out for my good. There is something very effective about proclaiming truth out loud until you believe what you're saying. I couldn't escape the lyric, and eventually I thought it prudent enough to craft the myriad of connected internal convictions into an actual song." The worshipping Church is grateful he did.
Tony Cummings

886. NERESA MAYE - STEP'N UP, 2002. From the EP 'Step'n Up', Sledge Entertainment UK.
Years before the UK gospel "supergroup" Divine Divine were winning the Time2Shine talent search in 2011, one of their numbers, Neresa Maye, was already singing BVs for such pop R&B luminaries as Boney M, Imagination and Coolio. Then she and her husband, producer Boomy got saved and this delicious chunk of gospel garage was one of her first ventures as a new creation. It got a lot of Cross Rhythms radio play and should have gone on to break into the mainstream. But then you could say the same about Divine Divine.
Tony Cummings

887. DAVID CROWDER BAND - EVERYTHING GLORIOUS, 2007. From the album 'Remedy', sixsteprecords.
This worship gem penned by the redoubtable Mr Crowder first appeared on the 2006 Passion album but it's the techno-tinged studio version on the 'Remedy' album which works best for me and won a Dove Award in 2008 as Rock/Contemporary Recorded Song Of The Year and was nominated as Worship Song Of The year. It's a warmly melodic anthem and has some eloquent lyrics ("My eyes are small but they have seen/The beauty of enormous things/Which leads me to believe/There's light enough to see"). The best line of all though comes after the thrice repeated chorus line "You make everything glorious" followed by the assertion "And I am yours." Then comes the killer line, "What does that make me?"
Tony Cummings

All Saved Freak Band

888. ALL SAVED FREAK BAND - ODE TO GLENN SHWARTZ, 1976. From the album 'Brainwashed', Independent.
If you're not up on the history of rock guitar greats you may not know that Glenn Schwartz showed during his time with The James Gang and Pacific Gas & Electric that he was a guitar shredding master. And if you're not up on the history of contemporary Christian music you may not know that the All Saved Freak Band emanating from a Jesus people commune in Ohio - and with Schwartz in tow - made some of the most electrifying rock music from the whole Jesus music era. "Ode To Glenn Schwartz" features what writer Ken Scott described as a "lean 'n' mean funky swamp groove" and is timeless rock'n'roll indeed.
Tony Cummings

889. APT.CORE - CREED, 2001. From the album 'Rhythms Of Remembrance', Rocketown.
A version of U2's "40" featuring a vocal from Ginny Owens gave the distinctly left-field act Apt.Core emanating from the fertile mind of producer Will Hunt a minor Christian radio hit Stateside. That small success even persuaded Michael Smith's Rocketown Records to release a second Apt.Core album. But it's "Creed" which is the concept's best moment. Hunt takes three wildly disparate elements - the Apostles' Creed (you know, "I believe in God the Father, almighty maker of Heaven and earth." read with appropriate reverence), a Chemical Brothers-style percussion track and a sitar player who recalls the haunting offerings of Ravi Shankar - and somehow creates a wonky studio concoction which works. . . and ministers.
Tony Cummings

890. MIGHTY SAM McCLAIN - JESUS GOT THE BLUES, 2000. From the album 'Blues For The Soul', Telarc.
As Mighty Sam this singer recorded 11 superlative soul singles in the '60s. But despite a magnificent, emotive voice and great Southern soul accompaniments none of them reached even the lower reaches of the R&B chart. Menial jobs and substance abuse sadly followed until in the '80s Sam recommitted his life to Christ, began to play concerts again, mixing blues and gospel in with his soul ballads and, no doubt to his amazement, found that his old soul singles had brought him a following in Japan. Tours of that nation and a string of albums for AudioQuest Music followed. "Jesus Got The Blues", recorded in 2000, caught the blues gospel man at his very best. Producer Joe Harly assembled a magnificent band featuring guitarist Kevin Betz and piano man Bruce Katz (both teaching at Boston's Berklee College of Music) plus a fine horn section and they were a perfect foil to McClain's rasping, testifying vocals. To my ears, never has blues, soul and gospel been more perfectly woven together than on this seven minutes 45 seconds epic.
Tony Cummings

891. TWENTY ONE PILOTS - TEAR IN MY HEART, 2015. From the album 'Blurryface', Fueled By Ramen.
This radio-friendly gem is about Jenna Black, the wife of Twenty One Pilots' Tyler Joseph and she was the lady who connected the singer/songwriter to his emotional side. It's an arresting lyric. The verse goes, "Sometimes you gotta bleed to know/That you're alive and have a soul/But it takes someone to come around/To show you how," followed by the chorus, "She's the tear in my heart". The rise and rise of the Columbus, Ohio-based duo has rather taken the mainstream pop and rock world by surprise. No doubt there was more than one music industry exec who'd once declared that the Pilots were 'Regional At Best' (the title of the group's 2011 album) who are now eating their words after 'Blurryface' became a number one hit in the US charts. Its dazzling blend of electro-tinged pop rock and wittily subversive lyrics in an absolute joy and this track with its biting guitar riff and knowing vocals shows Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun to be masters of a hard rock/electropop/alternative hip-hop mashup.
Tony Cummings

892. LARRY MILLER - TOOK THE BULLET, 2005. From the album 'Fearless', Big Guitar.
Veering away from his beloved blues, hard-working journeyman Larry adopts a hard rock guise in this tale of Christ's redemptive sacrifice. Kicking off with some driving bass followed shortly by thundering drum work, Miller peels off a Rory Gallagher-like short solo before explaining with directness that he should have trusted his Saviour from the outset and that he's always needed his maker - who ultimately "took the bullet" in his place - to save him from a life of sin. Refreshingly, Miller's approach to life, faith and music is endearingly unsubtle and he rattles off references to Jimi Hendrix (in all but name), his treasured Fender guitar and even "the boys from WWF" in a quest to explain the difference between his old ways and the new life that Jesus has brought through taking the singer's place on the cross before Larry takes the song to the fade in wah wah-festooned fashion, demanding you reach for the repeat button.
Lins Honeyman

Daughters Of Davis

893. DAUGHTERS OF DAVIS - BRITISH SOUL, 2014. From the album 'British Soul', Resound.
It's taken me 47 years to appreciate this track. No, I'm not claiming that "British Soul" was recorded in 1968 (though the cut does have the same kind of delicious, timeless soul-blues groove of the Staple Singers' "Long Walk To DC" classic of that year). And I'm not making an even more preposterous claim that the attractive young sisters, Fern and Adrienne Davis, are actually the same age as this wrinkled old reviewer. What I'm referring to is that it wasn't 'til my Christian conversion in 1980 that my peculiar belief that only African Americans could or should sing blues and soul music finally got laid to rest. And it took another quarter century or so before I finally found a record from a white Britisher where UK references in their lyrics didn't, to my ears, sound stilted and wrong. For me, such is the deep South ambience conveyed by down home slide guitar and churchy swoops and growled vocals that using such elements in songs about Britain and Brits was sure to fail. Then I heard these two travelling troubadours from Winchester on this song. They use clever imagery to pay tribute to the sisters' ever growing legion of supporters who have opened their homes and hearts to the peripatetic duo. So though Fern and Adrienne sing smokily of a frugal bite to eat it isn't about dipping their biscuits in gravy it depicts dipping their digestives in tea. In short, "British Soul" is a classic.
Tony Cummings