Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

The most famous evangelist of the 20th Century is undoubtedly Billy Graham.  But ask the man in the street who sings during a Billy Graham Crusade and, unless he guesses at Cliff Richard, we won’t get an answer.  Indeed, ask the same question in many British congregations and we still won’t be any the wiser.  So it is good to report that Word have released an album to commemorate “A Lifetime Of Gospel Song”.  To quote from the liner notes: “This volume is brim full of celebrated tributes to George Beverly Shea, ranging from Sir Cliff Richard to Amy Grant to Bill Gaither to Pat Boone and many others”.  But here lies the problem.  What could have been a very good compilation album (deserving a nine or 10 square rating) is constantly interrupted by people saying nice things about Bev Shea.  I do not wish to sound churlish here.  Bev Shea deserves this tribute.  But who is going to listen to this more than once?  Why oh why were the spoken tributes not tracked separately so that we could program them out on our CD players?  Or perhaps they should have been included in a booklet.  I was impressed by the tributes paid to Bev Shea, who seems to be a remarkable man and I enjoyed listening to this album.  Once.  But unless one has very strong feelings towards Bev Shea and Billy Graham Missions I could not recommend spending money on this.

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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