I said that I would try to get in one more midweek music break before the A - Z challenge starts next month. This is not what I thought I'd be writing about but I'll have to get to those after the challenge.
Today I started my last regular sub-assignment for the school year. The reason why is that I begin a long term assignment the Monday I get back from Spring Break that goes through the end of the year. I popped into Amy's first school in the district today for a 2 day music teacher position. Music classes on our elementary level are part of specials and the student gets 2 30 minute music classes each week. Today I am teach 10 1/2 hour classes and tomorrow I teach 9. At leaast 1/2 of each class the students were given a choice board. which means that on the class smart board are 10-12 choices of short music videos. Each class so far that has had a choice board has chosen this song as one of their selections:
All the grades K-5 love this song. I absolutely love this song but had forgotten all about it. Once I heard it I knew what the Mid Week Music Break would be. I have more students coming in in ten minutes so I should probably go.
My Daughter Lucy formerly known on this blog as both Puppy and Wolfina is now a 19 year old adult in her first year at college at the University of Illinois. She is a double major in Creative Writing and English. She continues to sing in a choir and is rehearsing for her 3rd and 4th plays of the school year. Same old busy dynamo. Lucy is one of those students who seem to excel in everything she does. When she was applying at colleges this made it difficult for her to choose a major on her applications. I think she had a different major chosen for each school got applied at. At heart though she's a theatre/music/writer/artist type of person.
I'm sorry, this post is not supposed to be about Lucy, but about Dan Fogelberg. Earlier this week a new Fogelberg song was released posthumously. Fogelberg died at the age of 56 in 1997. The song, I know a Thief, was released on streaming services like Spotify as part of the celebration surrounding the 50th anniversary reissuing of Souvenirs.
So, what does that have to do with Lucy you ask, Is she a thief? Well she did steal my heart, but that's not quite what the connection is. Fogelberg matriculaed at the University of Illinois and while there studied Theatre and Art as well as writing, performing and beginning to record his future hits.
I visited Lucy quite a bit during her first semester at school. I went so often mainly to watch football games but we hung out as well. (Mostly kidding I hope.). Speaking of football games, If you didn't understand the title of this post, (and let's face it who did?), it is an allusion to the cheer they make at home football games for every first down, touch down , field goal and extra point U of I makes. The announcer says ILL and The crowd responds INI. Still don't get it? Now you know how my family feels.
On my way around campus especially on game days I've passed by a place called the Red Herring Cafe. I've always been interested to know a little of it's history. Well that turns out to be precisely where Dan Fogelberg performed and recorded many of his early works.
My two favorite all time songs frim Fogelberg are Same Auld Lang Syne and Leader of the Band. The latter was also my only attempt at solo karaoke. I found out today through an article in the Champaign Urbana News Gazette written shortly after Fogelberg's death that both songs have U of I roots, The meeting of the old girlfriend on New Years Eve in Same Old Lang Syne was a Champaign girl friend, the grocery store was on the corner of Green and Neil in Champaign, and at the end of the song when he talks about feeling like he was back at school he was referring to being on campus.
Fogelberg did not graduate from the U of I, he ended up dropping out to pursue his music. His Dad reluctantly agreed saying "to take a year of and see how it went". That is where the line "Thank you for the freedom when it came my time to go" in Leader of the Band comes from, which precede the lines I bawled at during my karaoke rendition -
"I thank you for the kindness and the times when you got tough
And papa, I don't think I said I love you near enough"
That about it does it for my midweek music break talking about Peoria Native Dan Fogelberg, his posthumous release, and his time at the University of Illinois at the Red Herring.
Speaking of red herrings, people stopping by from my link at Weekly Writer's Workshop must feel like I attached the wrong link. The truth is, I have had such fun researching and writing this post I absolutely wanted to force it into the workshop and so I have.
This weeks prompt's were
Write a post based on the word positivity.
Write a post in exactly 9 lines (sentences).
Got any big plans for spring (Easter) vacation? Tell us about them!
Tell us about the most disastrous date you’ve ever been on.
List some (1-5) podcasts you listen to.
Daylight Saving Time — love it or hate it?
There are several I could do and I may come back and do a few more but today, I will focus on #4 as their is a Champaign/Urbana U of I connection.
Tell us about the most disastrous date you've ever been on?
It was November 1st 1985. I was in a long distance relationship with a girl who lived near Springfield IL. We at met at a college conference in 1984 when I was in a long term relationship with my high school sweet heart, The girl from the conference and I maintained a correspondence and talked on the phone occasionally. After a mutual break up with my high school girlfriend that lasted 2 years after graduation, we went on a few dates together, This girl was way out of my league but she did not know it. We bonded over our love for CCM Contemporary Christian Music and humor. I was working my first full time job and taking some time off college that year, I was still living at home so the full time job gave me funds for travelling back and forth between Chicago and Springfield.
As I recall, I was kind of playing the field for the first and only time in my life that summer and had gone out on dates with 2 or three other girls since the spring. Those dates were mainly platonic and similar to what we would have done as friends. Somewhere along the line things were getting more serious with the girl from Springfield, at least for me, and I stopped going on other dates.
She and I were both huge Amy Grant fans and we decided to go to Champaign and see Amy play at what was then called Alumni Hall on the U of I Campus. The concert was on a Friday and I think I spent Halloween visiting with friends at Eastern Illinois University.
I think we spent most of Friday together and at some point she told me she just wanted to be friends again. Most of our relationship before and during our dating period was via correspondence. She had decided that I was not the guy for her. I was at the point where I was thinking maybe I was. She seemed to think that we could just enjoy the concert as friends because of course I had 4-8 hours to process it. When I was a young man going to a concert with a girlfriend was all about holding hands during the love songs, and Amy Grant is all about the love songs.
The opening act was Bob Bennett who did a great set. He wasn't then but he now is one of my five favorite musical artists. His brand of adult contemporary kind of Fogelbergesque CCM does not give you too much to worry about on the love song angle. Amy Grant was her Unguarded self. She brought the dancing, the cuteness, and the love songs. We supplied the awkward. What was supposed to be a night to remember was quickly becoming one to forget.
This is a ticket from the concert I went to but not my ticket.
This is what big named Christian Concerts cost back in the 80's.
After the concert, we went our separate ways (although later we did resume our friendship by correspondence). I drove back to EIU and some of the awkward continued, because one of the girls I had gone on a few dates with earlier that year was the ex-girlfriend of the friend I was staying with. He seemed to think that I did it behind his back, which I don't know which way his back was pointed when we went out, but I never told him about it. He had found out that summer, and this was the first time we had spent any time together since. So it was kind of a bad night all around.
For a short time Champaign and Assembly Hall and even Amy Grant were all reminders of that horrible date. Long before Lucy got accepted there the place came to mean much more than failed romance.
I went to two mission conferences at U of I in 1987 and 1990. Both of these conferences were pivotal on the road God was leading me to missions work in my first few years after college. At the 2nd of those mission conferences I went with a group form my college and in that group was a young woman who was quickly becoming my best friend and rather slowly (7 1/2) years becoming my wife. Her name is Amy and I try to take her for Granted. (Sorry had to work it in, I'm contractually obligated to make a certain number of groaner puns). Also at that 2nd conference Amy and I and the other 20,000 delegates were treated to a conference ending year ending concert at Assembly Hall by another one of my top 5 performers of all time Randy Stonehill. (Yes, it would be a better ending to my post if it was Dan Fogelberg singing Same Auld Lang syne at the Assembly hall as he did twice in his career, especially singing it on New Years Eve.) Even the date of the Amy Grant concert, if it ever lived in infamy, has been redeemed as one of our 3 precious children was born on Nov 1st.
Thus ends my story about the influences of Champaign. I'll try to do one more midweek music break before the A to Z challenge begins next month, To at long last get back to The Weekly Writer's Workshop hosted by John Holton at the Sound of One Hand Clapping click here.
I know a lot about contemporary Christian music (CCM) and a pretty good amount about the history of CCM/ Jesus Music. Bob Ayala was a CCM Pioneer. While these first two sentences are correct, I just heard about Ayala today.
I am in a number of FB CCM groups and someone mentioned his 1976 debut album Joy By Surprise. Spotify is my go to for finding music like this but they only had one Bob Ayala album or Bob Ayalbum if you will, and it wasn't Joy By Surprise. I was able to find it on You Tube and have shared it below. My plan is to listen to it now and give you a quick as I'm hearing it review.
The album is about 33 minutes long and has 10 songs. Joy By Surprise begins with Stephanie, With Love which is a nice consoling song about a girl who loved and lost.
The next song Do You Know Him? starts with a description of God "He is a poet in the wind a sculptor of the sky line. "
Nice guitar work and some good front ground la la las which are very typical of this time frame.
Try And Keep The Pace
Opening lyrics: You were always haunted by the girl you hated standing in your mirror. The little I read about Ayala stated a couple Keith Greenesque qualities. These qualities are on full display in this song. This song also reminds me of more positive less satire look at the issues Randy Stonehill explored in cosmetic fixation and Barbie nation.
To The Ancient of Days seems to be the most famous song from this album according to notes on the FB page and the You Tube comments. One commenter stated he could not listen to it with out thinking of Narnia, this is not too difficult for an album whose cover art is the singer encountering Aslan. These songs are quick but they have good production value and I can imagine listening to them again and again,
Peace is the next song and starts with the sounds of the outdoors at night. The lyrics continue that theme with a nice guitar accompaniment. The person who shared this album on You Tube stated "that the music drifts further to the middle of the road than one would like". Speaking for myself, this one likes the middle of the road just fine.
1/2 way through the album as we pause to turn the record over I'll say that so far I like it. The songs are quick but they have good production value and I can imagine listening to them again and again.
I enjoyed Silent Witness, which seems to be a love song from an unbelieving husband to his believing wife. There was a really good lyric in the beginning that I couldn't write down quick enough. I look forward to hearing it again on a subsequent listen.
Joy By Surprise, the title track has a Don Francisco country twang to it which I quite enjoyed. The lyrics also reminded me of C.S. Lewis a) because Lewis's autobiography is called Surprised by Joy and b) since some of the lyrics talk about scales being removed which is so very Eustace Clarence Scrubb.
The Song of Joseph is next and while there are many Joseph's in the Bible, This one is definitely about Mary's husband. I found it the most uneven of the songs I've heard so far. Of course this is just one listen in, and often songs have a way of surprising me after multiple hearings.
Lord is the penultimate song on this collection. Where Joseph's song is an Advent song, Lord, is a Good Friday song. The music is slow and sad and helps you imagine Jesus carrying his cross on the way to Calvary. If it wasn't obvious before that this was a1970's album this song brings that idea home with an sledge hammer masquerading as an exclamation point.
To end an album with a song called New Beginnings is kind of different. It's a good song and is very Michael Cardish with the vocals and the orchestration.
A couple of final vinyl thoughts that I'd like to spin. I recognized the names of a couple musicians on the album. First there is Billy Batstone who wears lots of hats, singer, songwriter, worship leader, bassist, guitarist and of course becomes Captain Marvel when he say Shazam. Then I read about the drummer Al McDougal and I was thinking that name sounds very familiar. Then I realized it was probably Alex MacDougal who used to drum for Daniel Amos. Sure enough he has is credited in Discogs for his work on this album.
I like this album and kind of want to finish this review quickly so I can listen to it again. One of the blogs I read mentioned him in early 2020 as still being alive. Apparently in the Fall of that year he passed away while visiting his sister perhaps due to some vertigo issues he had been experiencing. It was kind of strangely sad discovering he died nearly 5 years prior to my discovery of him. In a sense I wish I discovered his music earlier, but in another way it's kind of nice to discover old music that's new to you.
That's what my father-in-law would say when our family would come to visit. My father-in-law and my father, as I mentioned in my last post, were both the oldest of 7 children and were both raised Catholic. I was thinking of my F-I-L today . There is a student in my school with his exact first and last name, and I was subbing in that student’s first period class today. Their first name is Donnell so it's not exactly an every day name.
My wife's Dad was not only raised Catholic, but he also was a Benedictine Brother living in a monastery before he gave up his vows and married my mother-in-law. So when he called us Protestants, this was a little more than the average layman's opinion.
This opinion was true. We were in fact, Protestants. We never referred to each other as such. While it was true that both Amy and I had grown own of our Catholic beliefs and were attending a Bible church when we married, we simply referred to our selves as Christians.
It was on this day in 1517 that a professor of moral theology at the University of Wittenberg by the name of Martin Luther is credited for changing the course of religious history and making a distinction between Protestants and Catholics.
What's A Catholic?
The first use of Catholic dates back to 110 A.D. It basically means universal. Saying the Catholic Church in it's original meaning was talking about all Christians. In AD. 380 Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire. In essence the Roman Catholic church just means the Christian church operating in Rome.
What's a Protestant?
A Protestant is called this because historically they protested against the teachings of the Catholic church. These protests led to the Protestant reformation. The reformation was meant to reform the Catholic church not to necessary split from it,
Martin Luther was one of the original reformers. He nailed 95 theses on the wall of the Wittenberg Door. These theses were protesting Catholic practices like indulgences.
What's an indulgence?
In the medieval church, a system developed of how to earn your way out of purgatory into heaven. It began as a series of "good works" like fighting in the crusades and then devolved into a practice of purchasing indulgences from the church in order to get sins forgiven. Lost in all these practices were the biblical teachings of Grace, Faith and Redemption. One of the myriad reasons for this is that the truth of the Bible was not accessible at time to the masses. The Protestant reformation that followed changed
Christianity back to its Biblical roots.
What Separates Protestantism And Catholicism?
The Reformation highlighted 5 core beliefs that distinguished it from the Catholic church. These are often referred to as the 5 Solas (Latin for Alone).
Sola Gratia - Faith Alone
Salvation is in no way deserved, cannot be earned and is entirely from God.
Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone
The Bible is God's authority on how we are to live.
Sola Christus - Christ Alone
The Bible teaches that salvation comes from Jesus Christ.
Sola Fide - Faith Alone
Faith (not works) in Jesus Christ is the only way to Salvation
Soli Deo Gloria - Only God receives the glory
There is nothing special in us that allows us to be saved.
My Father In Law would often use the phrase Sola Scriptura but not in a positive sense. He disagreed that scripture in itself was enough. This is not only a typically Catholic belief but it is also present in all of us. It is in our nature to think more of ourselves and our traditions than actually exist. The truth is that we as individuals and institution are always in need of Bible based reformation. I hope today on Reformation Day and every day you endeavor to let God reform you into his image. The image of God who created, lived for, died for , and redeemed you. It sometimes may seem tricky but it really is a treat.
In the world of Contemporary Music their are few bigger names than Keith Green and Rich Mullins. Admittedly, there are literally bigger names as the aforementioned take up only 5 combined syllables and fit comfortably on the 1/3 of the first line of this text. Their actual names may be small but their impact on the lives of believers has been great indeed,
Keith Green share many of the same attributes including the same birthday, today, October 21st (Keith in 1953, and Rich in 1955). They were both gifted musicians and lyricists. They both were outspoken in their faith and counter cultural in their approach to ministry. They also died very young in vehicular accidents.
Due to a plane crash in 1982, Keith Green did not live to see his 30th birthday and Mullins who covered a Green song on the 1992 tribute album No Compromise died in a car crash in 1997, just over a month before his 42nd birthday.
Green before his conversion to Christianity was headed to a career as a rock and roll teen sensation. The below footage is from a guest appearance on the panel show I've got a Secret when he was 11 years old. After revealing his secret The youngster performs one of the songs he composed.
It is no secret that the music, the vulnerability, and the passion of both Green and Mullins has informed my own journey. It is fitting that they shared the same birthday , the same passion for Christ and the same method of expressing that passion. They also share a place in my heart for how their music and ministry still inspires me to this day.
I lived in Russia between the end of 1992 and the end of 1994. During those 2 years abroad, I missed many things. By missed I don't mean longed for, although I certainly did miss Mountain Dew and Lou Malnatis's pizza by that definition and was glad when my brother brought those along when he visited me. I also don't mean by miss that I wasn't there for it, yet heard about. While I want there for the Bronco chase , Nolan Ryan's pummeling of Robin Ventura, Michael Jordan's retirement announcement , or the birth of my first niece, I was acutely aware of all 4.
No, what I mean by missed is there were some events that I did not hear about until I was back in the states, sometimes for several years. Some of these were deaths of famous people, others were books, movies, or music that came out during that time. It wasn't uncommon to hear someone talk about a movie I had never heard of, only for me to ask if it came out in 1993 or 1994 and quite often it had. Finally, I had to come to grips that due to my decision to leave the U.S. and plant a church in Russia in the early 1990's that there would be indeed certain things that I left behind and missed entirely. I never regretted that decision and certainly experienced many more things that I would have never experienced in the states had I stayed put.
Over the past few years I have realized that I have experienced another gap without leaving the U.S. for more than a fortnight every 10 years or so. I experienced it today when I was playing with my Spotify account in between classes. There was a recommended song by Steve Taylor and some band he was in and I had never heard of the song or the band. Now not to be confusing Steve Taylor uses to front for a band called Some Band. So, I am not referring to them. The name of the band is The Perfect foil, and according to Wikipedia it is an alt. rock supergroup featuring artists from 2 more of my favorite groups (Peter Furler from Newsboys & Jimmy Abegg from (A Ragamuffin Band). What was odd is this super group was formed in 2010, and I was only just hearing about it 11 years later. Not really odd when you think that in 2010 I was homeschooling my 3 children all under the age of 11. Listening to old music on c.d.s is something I did when I had the occasional spare time. Keeping up with music was not something I invested much time in. Again, I would not trade that time in my life for anything but it does explain how a song like Comedian stayed off my radar for so long.
A nice thing about discovering something you missed from long ago is that when you do eventually discover it, you also discover many other things alongside it. In finding out more information in this missing chapter of Steve Taylors musical journey I discovered a blog that writes an awful lot about Christian Music and other topics that interest me. It is a blog by Keith Shields called Thirst and he does an entire post about this song. I encourage you to do what he suggests in his post which is listen to this song (I have put the Spotify link below at the same time you read the lyrics to the song and then read how the song affected him. (The link to his post is here.)
I enjoyed his interpretation of a song from 11 years ago that I only just discovered this morning. Still in all I'm glad I didn't miss it.
Today is my 14th wedding anniversary. Yes 14 years today I woke up as a single man and went to bed as a married man. There has been good and bad in my life since that day. But the truth is that our life really has been a joyful jumble.
I found out that the traditional 14th anniversary gift is Ivory while the modern 14th gift is gold. Both these songs are golden oldies and notice that Barney is tickling the ivories in the video below.
Just a few programming notes for those passing by.
Taking Puppy and company to see the Disney on Ice production, Dare to Dream in Rosemont today. Here's a little I See the Light to get us in the Tangled mood. I'll be back tomorrow with a review.
COH is at Janice Campbell this week. She has a nice Wintery Mix all ready for you. My HSBA page is one of the many articles available.
I have made it clear that my Puppy loves the music of J.J. Heller. I thought I'd give you a chance to find out for yourself how good she is. Here she is with What love really means, the song that Puppy fell in love with.
The HSBA winning blog for Best Group Blog was TOS Homeschool Crew. This blog continues to provide excellent product reviews as this sample post attests.
