[Fletcher]

A "God song" here and there is one thing... like the Stones "Shine a Light" or Hank Williams "I Saw The Light", or the Elton John mentions... or even a well veiled "God group" [like "Kansas"... total "Christian band" with the God references well placed for wide spread/secular consumption]... but a steady diet gets tedious.

One of my favorite albums ever made was "Temple of the Dog"... which may not be an overt attempt at a gospel record... but a lot of the feels and harmonies are straight from the book "gospel".

Most blues, and soul music has direct roots to the church... like Aretha Franklin for example.

We don't have a culture that's built around the emotion of music these days... we have a culture that's built around a kick ass video with lots of bling and lots of ass... with some overcompressed, grid accurate, grainy sounding, no build, minor emotion crap being marketed as the "next big thing".

To be unfortunately honest... a lot of this is OUR fault. While some of us do records for a living... I dare say the majority of us do demos. I know most of my work these days is demos [occasional product, but mostly demos]. We get them while they're young and impressionable but have we really taken the time to make the impression we can make if we felt like expending the effort?

In our work as "producers" [or in our work as engineers working with younger producers] it might be in the best interest of the artist [or producer] to break down some of the influences that have been ignored in the production of "modern" music.

I'm talking about sitting back with an "up and coming" producer and showing him [her] some of the stuff we have found inventive and inspiring over the years. I'm talking about sitting back with the main songwriter of a band and turning him onto some "history" they may not have ever heard nor experienced.

My oldest kid and my wife reminded me why I got into this shit in the first place.

I always want to hear what's in my kid's CD player... she gets in the car and the CD goes into the car system. Last fall she surprised the shit out of me... out came "Who's Next". I hadn't heard that album in probably 20 years. I was floored. The writing, the arranging the audio[!!!!!]... perfect. What a great album.

Then my wife got me an iPod "Nano" as a holiday present along with a bunch of the Sun Records catalog [like 60 songs!!]. My youngest kid had an iPod shuffle so I was already on iTunes buying her shit like "Sly and the Family Stone" and "Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five" [moron kid thinks she wants to be a drummer when she grows up... I keep telling her that she can't do both but she keeps on practicing no matter what I say].

From there I've been going back and discovering all this shit I hadn't listened to in years. This renewed excitment in why I got into this shit in the first place has been nothing short of entirely inspirational. The people with whom I work in the little room with no window and big speakers are all getting a dose of history whether they want it or not.

There has been a definite focus on the magic of the secular employment of gospel techniques in my stuff since the beginning... but now it's getting a little more upfront. I'm not talking about the "God" part... but the emotional expression within the music [of good gospel music... a lot of the "Contemporary Christian" bullshit is just middle of the road horseshit with nausiating God references at every turn... I'm talking about "black church/A.M.E. gospel!!].

Sorry for the diatribe [this thread hit on something that's been in the front of my existance for the last few months... so putting some of the thoughts into words has been mildly theraputic]

'may the good lord shine a light on you... make every song, your favorite tune'...

Peace.