Gospel Journeyman is an album of original songs written over the past six years with some, I truly believe, inspired by the Holy Spirit. When melody, chords, and lyrics just spontaneously pour out of you, it's a revelation about how God can use one's talent, whatever that may be, to reach the lost and invite them into His Kingdom. For me, it's a refreshing change from my previous attempts at writing calculated commercial secular songs. I don't plan to ever go back.
the SONGS
1. More Like Jesus - I wrote this in 2019 and immediately heard the vocal arrangement in my head. As a bass player I've always enjoyed hearing and playing the relaxed infectious groove of reggae music from Jamaica. One of my favorite Christian groups is Christifari with singer David Fohe. My friend Angie Brown and I did all of the harmony vocal tracks with the multi-talented Michael Rudder doing the scat vocal on the fade as well as adding steel drums.
2. The Encounter - Tells the story of a man's supernatural encounter with our Savior after he has all but given up hope. I believe that even when we're seeking the truth we are often in denial about our mortality and the eternal existence beyond. Because God gave us free will it's our nature to resist giving up control when it's actually the most freeing thing we can do. Fortunately, amidst the noise of our everyday living Jesus never gives up on us and is always calling on us to accept His gift of salvation and eternal life.
3. King of Kings - My first attempt at writing a praise and worship song with lyrics that could be easily remembered and sung. I had the melody and chord changes for a few years and had tried writing various secular lyrics but the Lord had a better plan and pointed me to John 14:6. The Nashville studio cats nailed the track in two takes.
4. Praises to the King - This was another spontaneous composition that came out of my memories of growing up in Texas and western Oklahoma listening to the Chuck Wagon Gang, the Blackwood Brothers, the Speer Family, and the Statesmen Quartet on the radio and in person. I also heard my Dad sing bass in a local quartet on a weekly radio show in Floydada, Texas where we lived. Country churches still had monthly 'singings', brush arbors, and hand fans with funeral home ads on the back when the weather was too hot to stay inside. That's me singing lead, tenor, baritone, and bass trying to sound like my Southern Gospel heroes.
5. Who Am I? - Another co-write with the Holy Spirit. After all our Savior has done for us during our earthly life and after what He has promised us for our life in eternity, we often have lingering doubts and questions authored by Satan who continuously tries to test us and pull us away from our belief. The good news is God knows us better than we know ourselves. He's our solid rock and, like a good shepherd, He'll find us when we stray.
6. Let It Go - I was led to write this song after I met my dear friend Cathianna Rosenthal who's a missionary, teacher, and Christian counsellor. It was about nine years after an acrimonious divorce from my ex-wife, for whom I still held resentment. It was through prayer with Cathi's guidance that I came to forgive, in Jesus's name, my ex-wife, myself, and God for letting it happen. It set me free from a heavy burden. I've since learned to forgive others for the everyday mundane things like getting cut off in traffic. I've learned to forgive myself and to ask the Lord to forgive me for the stupid things I do and say. No, I'm far from perfect, but I know I'm forgiven. By the way, that's the pride of Huntsville, Alabama, Stephen Soto, playing electric slide guitar and burning it up on the fade. Sometimes you just gotta let 'em play!
7. Saved - This is my personal testimony. Although I grew up in a Christian church-going household and had no doubt there was a God, I didn't turn my life over to Him until I was twenty years old on my knees in a hotel room in Washington, D.C. It was the first time I could recall him speaking directly to me. Within a few years I fell under the worldly influence of the Sixties and drifted off into new age mysticism and Eastern philosophy. My pursuit of a career in the music business offered even more distractions from the truth I had been raised to know. It took some setbacks in my life for Jesus to get my attention and draw me back to the shelter of His love where I should have been all along. I'm so grateful that He kept me alive and reasonably healthy during those years I was lost in the wilderness, and thankful that He has allowed me to use my talent for His Kingdom.
8. Thank You Mom - After having two daughters, seeing their ultra-sounds, and witnessing the birth of one of them I became convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that life not only begins at conception but that God knows our soul even prior to that. I wrote this song with the help of my friend Linda McKenzie from the point of view of a person who narrowly escapes being aborted after his sixteen year-old mom turns to the Lord in prayer asking for direction. That's Nashville's Dane Bryant playing the beautiful piano coda on the fade.
9. Whisper in the Wind - After the prophet Elijah survived the storms and earthquakes described in 1st Kings, chapter 19; he hears the Lord calling him "with a gentle whisper" in verse 12. God doesn't always use pyrotechnics to get our attention. It's often just a gentle whisper in the wind. And the scripture says that if we're still, we'll know.
10. Forgiveness and Redemption - This is a western frontier ballad that was expeditiously delivered to me one night when an ice storm knocked out the power and froze the water pipes in my home. I wrote it by candlelight in front of a gas stove with my guitar and the dog and cat at my feet. The isolation made me think of the western Oklahoma prairie where I grew up. The last note heard on the track is played by the circa 1880's bell at Wartrace Baptist Church, my home church.
