Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

Someone at Kingsway has been scouring through the vaults. Their publishing company, Thankyou Music, is celebrating 25 years of publishing songs by some of the best Christian writers. The cover tells me that Thankyou Music have published music from two Christian music revolutions, the 60s Jesus Movement and the 70s house church movement. The CDs unfold beginning with the newest songs first but I found familiarity breeding contempt and flicked past the familiar dollops of Kendrick and Richards etc to get to more interesting stuff. Needless to say all you need to know is that you get "Servant King", "All Heaven Declares", "There Is Power", "I Am A New Creation" etc etc. Dig deeper and there are some real gems here! Parchment's 1972 hit single "Light Up The Fire" rubs shoulders with Kevin Gould's hyped attempt at a hit "Let's Join Together" (Buzz magazine exhorted us to buy it!). Ok, so it's all a bit cringy now but great fun. For those of you who weren't around in the 70s, these CDs are fun because you can discover what Kendrick did before he became Mr praise'n'worship. (In 1971 he was Cat Stevens and in 1981 he was Dire Straits - I'm not joking, you HAVE to hear "This Is The Fall"!) Other notable inclusions are some early Adrian Snell, John Pantry's "Empty Handed" and a great period piece by Gus Eyre from 1973, "Rock'n'roll Gypsy". For those of us long enough in the tooth, we can remember attempting terrible pseudo Jewish dances to Fred Dunn's "Jubilate" (aaaaargh! The embarrassment!!). With the albums covering 25 years, I'd say there's bound to be something here that you're passionate about. Finally, a message to Kingsway. On these two CDs nearly half the songs are by Graham Kendrick, Noel Richards, Dave Bilbrough or Dave Fellingham. That isn't very adventurous and a wider sample of writers would have been nice! The CD cover bears the legend "Full lyrics included", but they weren't. And worst of all, the sleeves don't even list the performers of the tracks. Now I know the emphasis is on the tunes, but to not even list who is performing them is woefully short sighted. Another example of Kingsway's poor packaging record when it comes to compilations.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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