The singing Ladies(?) of The Way is a poor imitation of the Women of Faith Conferences sponsored by Integrity Music(similar to Men's Promise Keepers). The later has better vocalists and quality music, plus they really move and dance. Something that LOTW seem timid for Fear of breaking their geriatic legs. Did I say fear? OMG!
Way productions is Pressed Down, Good Seed, Joyful Noise, Takit, and I'll be charitable and include Branded and the Victors. I's also include Selah, Lisa Lockridge, anda few others from the 70's.
There are others more qualified to speak about Way productions downfall-but the singing Ladies would have been a joke in 'my time'
maybe the defining line should be pre or post Ted Ferrell
Well it wasn't that long after the music challenge they had in the mid 80's. I recall a few bands that were desent, but what do I know I was a kid that liked Bon Jovi shiver. Paul Stanley was pretty good at the time. I think it must have been a combo of the POP exodus and control coming out of the closet.
I'm with GT, stop singing.
Although, Fr@nk St*ts used to do the best Micheal Jackson dancing I have ever seen. They should let that boy dance some more. I don't know if it would stop sucking but it would be much more entertaining.
There was a very small amount of truly great talent in Way Productions (no offence socks, ted, or anyone else who was involved, including me!).
It was what it was. The pool of musicians, singers, songwriters was a mere puddle compared to what was out "in the world". I can think of only a few performers who actually had jobs in the music business before their TWI involvement. Most of us, myself included, were teenagers who could play a few chords and sing a few notes. It was a hobby, a past-time, it was "cool". I wrote my first TWI song when I was 16, believing that I was inspired by Gawd. Frankly, it was awful. BUT - VP thought it was great so I got to play it again and again and again in front of a few thousand folks at the ROA. All that attention and adulation led me to believe that I was actually quite good, when the reality was that I was mediocre. And I wasn't the only one. Many, many Salieris performed on TWI's stages. There were one or two Mozarts - kinda.
I'm not trying to criticize someone's heartfelt emotions when they wrote or sang their songs - I'm just talking about the end product.
Oh, there were some who were better writers, better guitar players, better singers... but better than who? Not better than Joni Mitchell or James Taylor or CSN. (I know I'm dating myself, but that's who everyone was trying to emulate at the time). I can think of only two or three people who could have written songs that were recordable and marketable enough to reach an audience outside of TWI. Maybe.
And that was TWI 1. TWI 2 Way Prod was so bad it was scary. Talk about plastic Jesus! And everyone had to sit through it and smile and applaud and act like Stepford people while inside they were secretly barfing.
Case in point --- I went to the Advanced Class in Rome City in 1995. Worst 10 days of my life - but that's another story. Upon entering and leaving every meeting and meal the Stinkin' Ladies of Oy Vay were playing in the background. After a few days, I made a comment to someone about how I wished there was more variety in Way Prod like there used to be in the past, and the ladies were getting a bit monotonous and boring. Well, some Corps Nazi came up to me later that evening and told me to keep my opinions to myself - that the old TWI music was an "old wine skin" and who was I to criticize them anyway? I again stated that I wasn't saying they were bad (which they were), I was only saying I wish there was more to choose from. She mumbled something about not being a stumblingblock to others in the household and we left it at that. I kept my mouth shut and cringed through every song and laughed at how insane it was that people actually made believe that it was good. More of the Emperor's clothes...
They were pretty good back in the mid 70s IMO. Even original to some extent. Of course, I may be influenced by spending so much time around Good Seed, and I don't know that they were really considered WayProd.
Our 8th corps group, new Beginning, never went too far I guess, but I always thought VR (Whom I met once in chat a few years ago) had decent talent. I remember hearing, not from him, that he had some kind of professional background.
I agree with Hope... there were only a very few folks in Way Prod that were ever true musicians. Most of us were musical duffers (and yes, I was one of them... a precurser to the singing ladies... sorry)
The interesting thing to me is that this was true from the beginning on. But we all loved the early music!! Why? Because it wasn't about perfection, or even musicality, it was about joy and genuine praise and the love of God and the desire to share your enthusiasm with others. All that heart smoothed over the rough spots. But once you take all that away, you are left with nothing but the mediocrity.
The women's quartet I sang in was NOT great. It was okay. But it was fun and it was emotional, and people seemed to like it. We were genuine and that came through.
One gal that was in that quartet is now in the Singing Ladies. It makes me cringe. She looks completely plastic now... forced smile, forced hand motions, forced footwork, BLAH!!!!!!!
Someone mentioned the music contest. That event marks the turning point for me. There was a gal from Emporia who was a GREAT performer, but she'd had some run-ins with the leadership. And there were some groups from the field that had some really decent presentations but they didn't even get a sniff. They made a BIG deal about HOW a group should present themselves on stage, etc, etc. And who won? The HQ-hand-picked perfectly polished corps gal, of course. To me, this event marked the difference between trying to help folks with stage presence and trying to mold everyone into the same little way prod robot.
here was a gal from Emporia who was a GREAT performer, but she'd had some run-ins with the leadership. And there were some groups from the field that had some really decent presentations but they didn't even get a sniff.
Great point -
There were several people who had amazing talent who were never "permitted" to perform for one reason or another. There was a woman in the 7th Corps who had a fabulous voice, could play piano and write but never really made it to the Way Prod front line. Years later, I wondered who she wouldn't fu<k. Sh*rry - if you're out there - you deserved better.
IMO - that music challenge was one of the worst Way Production events ever (next to High Country Caravan - sorry again Ted).
Geez - I shouldn't have got started on this one...
Way ProSUCtions. Does that include the Vesper Chimes Hour? Vesper Youth Chimes. Isn't a Vesper an Italian sports car?
Hope, no offense taken. To be honest, performing with good hearted people like yourself was always a pleasure for me, but it certainly didn't advance my skills. Why did I do it? Because I loved working with people who gave a damn.
To be really honest, with few exceptions it's always been easier to work with musicians who have some reasonable committment to their instrument and it's craft. In the absence of that, I enjoyed working with many of the Way peeps, regardless of how "good" they were, or who good they thought I was, if they were willing to put in the time, and many were. Way Prod was always a grab bag, a "familial" effort. The notion that it was the "greatest" was relative to the time and the people. I'm proud of what I do, then as now. Today after 45 years at it, I don't have to take a back seat to anybody, and of course I'm still not the best, the fastest, the greatest. But I'm pretty dammed good at what I do. Believe me, it's easy being humble.
Way Prod - rewind to 1969-70 and there was a "Music Ministry". The winter of '71, a Youth Advance and "Rock of Ages" concert/dance/doo. That summer the followup, the first ROA, with music from all over the country. Shortly after, a "Music Ministry" meeting at the New Knoxille High gym. Lots of talk about who was doing what and what might be done in the future. Long hair, short hair. Lots of guitarists, singers, etc. etc.
If you remember that and any of the people, now go watch one of the videos on the Way site.
Oh what a long strange trip it's been. It didn't get that way overnight. The current Way Prod is what happens when cousins marry, over and over. Musical incest. What's that - like the Dead Sea, reversed. No inlet, no outlet, just a stagnant pond burbling under it's own thick layer of pond goo. Watching those videos, I can't really muster a true coherent response to this thread topic, but I couldn't resist posting anyway.
Back in 76 (or 77), Dean E. was our twig leader in Bloomington, Indiana. He played a lot at the coffee houses at the university there during that year. At first we (I) went to hear him cause he was Dean -- but later went just to hear him pick. He did stuff that wasn't *word oriented* in his sets, along with twi songs as well.
I always liked his shows. He was always professional during those performances,
and had a great rapport with the audience -- students, believers, and coffee junkies in general. :)
The thing I remember so vividly about music of the late sixties and early seventies is what a vast diversity of styles and genres managed to coexist. Consider Woodstock. Country Joe shared the same stage with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Richie Havens. Widely differing yet tied together with a common thread. The same was true of "Way" music. Good Seed, Pressed Down, Shakin' Mama, Hope, Lakeview Telecasters, Tom Lepinski , and on and on. The common thread? Excitement about GOD and his word. Varied styles yet they coexisted much like music did in the secular realm. What happened to Way musicians is not too unlike what happened to musicians in general;The bottom line became more important than the music itself. I still have a great respect for the early "pioneers" of TWI music . They did the best they knew how while still trying to satisfy the "suits" and "bean-counters". My recommendation for someone who has never heard these recordings is to somehow find them and give a listen. SELAH.
I liked them too.. (Keep that between us, there are too many people here who will cut your B____s off if you dson't think the way they do and like the same things they do. also if you don't dislike absolutely everything the TWI ever did your of the devil)
Correction----------Shakin' Mama should have been "Cookin' Mama" with Glenda Sue Maxwell. ----------Norm .-----No, you are not the only one. My dad used to buy two of every album so he could listen to side a and side b without flipping the record. This concept probably seems pretty amusing in this day of I-Pods and MP-3's. Lots and lots of heartfelt sentiment in that early stuff.
I liked a lot of it. One of my favorite TWI bands that doesn't get much mention was Glad Tidings. During the ministry year 77/78 Joyful Noise went on the road and GT was the "house band" at TWI. I loved hearing them every week on SNS tapes. Dan Moran is a terrific songwriter. There was a lot of talent in that band.
Oddly enough, the last time they played was during the pre teaching time one night at ROA '81. They were all dressed in black. Branded was formed in fall of '81. They were good, but the forming of that group effectively ended the existance of both Glad Tidings and Joyful Noise.
Recently I bought SNS tape #1061 from Catcup. It was done on Burn the Ballast day of 1981. VP was back at HQ for the first time in 2 months so they had a special way prod night. Heike Pekkarinan (sp) and the children's choir from Rome City did 3 songs, Ted Ferrell did "Attic of your mind", and then Joyful Noise plus Joe Fair did "One by one" and "Don't stop speaking". No other version I've heard of either of those songs is as good IMO. The girls harmonized on the chorus of 'One by one' plus a super lead solo by Socks plus Brian getting the low tones of his piano to reverberate on the words 'reach', 'touch', and 'help' ...I swear, every time I listen to that tape I get chills. I think it's kind of petty to criticize way prod just because they didn't have lucrative contracts with major recording labels.
However, I will concede that later that year began the downward spiral that led to the stiffness that is now way prod. Branded, as I say, ended Glad tidings and joyful Noise and began a trend where every song and every lyric was micro managed along with everything else. Art of any kind is tainted if it has to be filtered through a controlling agenda. That's what eventually happened in TWI; people no longer wrote songs inspired by God. It had to be double checked by leadership. Eeewwww. For example the smear job Stevie Kay's 'Witness of the stars' got in the name of spiritual purity. Boop! Out went the button.
didn't dan have a nasal touch to his beautiful voice like this guy ?
in case you don't know the story
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day.
Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution."
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."
"Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks."
That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?"
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."
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They would have to change everything that's wrong with TWI to have good Way Prod.
Then they would have to let the musicians write their own stuff and stay out of it.
Good music is written by inspiration and TWI leaves no room it because they have to control everybody,
including musicians. (if there are any left, seems like all they've got now is robotic singing ladies.)
You can't force music to be written. And there has to be something to write about. Which there isn't.
Unless you write something like:
I'm so glad to be a robot for The Way.
They tell me how to live each day.
They tell me what to read and teach.
They tell me how to brush my teeth.
They tell me where to eat and sleep.
They treat me like a little sheep.
Oh I'm so glad to be a robot for The Way.
There's nothing left for me to say.
La dee da dee da......
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Thomas Loy Bumgarner
The singing Ladies(?) of The Way is a poor imitation of the Women of Faith Conferences sponsored by Integrity Music(similar to Men's Promise Keepers). The later has better vocalists and quality music, plus they really move and dance. Something that LOTW seem timid for Fear of breaking their geriatic legs. Did I say fear? OMG!
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hiway29
do the singing Ladies even qualify ?
Way productions is Pressed Down, Good Seed, Joyful Noise, Takit, and I'll be charitable and include Branded and the Victors. I's also include Selah, Lisa Lockridge, anda few others from the 70's.
There are others more qualified to speak about Way productions downfall-but the singing Ladies would have been a joke in 'my time'
maybe the defining line should be pre or post Ted Ferrell
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GT
Were they ever at the top of the hill?
Stop singing?
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Kevlar2000
You're hired!
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rascal
They would have to have musicians ad tallent...all of that was run out of twi YEARS ago.
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GT
They'd also have to have something worth singing about.
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lindyhopper
Well it wasn't that long after the music challenge they had in the mid 80's. I recall a few bands that were desent, but what do I know I was a kid that liked Bon Jovi shiver. Paul Stanley was pretty good at the time. I think it must have been a combo of the POP exodus and control coming out of the closet.
I'm with GT, stop singing.
Although, Fr@nk St*ts used to do the best Micheal Jackson dancing I have ever seen. They should let that boy dance some more. I don't know if it would stop sucking but it would be much more entertaining.
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Hope R.
Here goes...
IMO -
There was a very small amount of truly great talent in Way Productions (no offence socks, ted, or anyone else who was involved, including me!).
It was what it was. The pool of musicians, singers, songwriters was a mere puddle compared to what was out "in the world". I can think of only a few performers who actually had jobs in the music business before their TWI involvement. Most of us, myself included, were teenagers who could play a few chords and sing a few notes. It was a hobby, a past-time, it was "cool". I wrote my first TWI song when I was 16, believing that I was inspired by Gawd. Frankly, it was awful. BUT - VP thought it was great so I got to play it again and again and again in front of a few thousand folks at the ROA. All that attention and adulation led me to believe that I was actually quite good, when the reality was that I was mediocre. And I wasn't the only one. Many, many Salieris performed on TWI's stages. There were one or two Mozarts - kinda.
I'm not trying to criticize someone's heartfelt emotions when they wrote or sang their songs - I'm just talking about the end product.
Oh, there were some who were better writers, better guitar players, better singers... but better than who? Not better than Joni Mitchell or James Taylor or CSN. (I know I'm dating myself, but that's who everyone was trying to emulate at the time). I can think of only two or three people who could have written songs that were recordable and marketable enough to reach an audience outside of TWI. Maybe.
And that was TWI 1. TWI 2 Way Prod was so bad it was scary. Talk about plastic Jesus! And everyone had to sit through it and smile and applaud and act like Stepford people while inside they were secretly barfing.
Case in point --- I went to the Advanced Class in Rome City in 1995. Worst 10 days of my life - but that's another story. Upon entering and leaving every meeting and meal the Stinkin' Ladies of Oy Vay were playing in the background. After a few days, I made a comment to someone about how I wished there was more variety in Way Prod like there used to be in the past, and the ladies were getting a bit monotonous and boring. Well, some Corps Nazi came up to me later that evening and told me to keep my opinions to myself - that the old TWI music was an "old wine skin" and who was I to criticize them anyway? I again stated that I wasn't saying they were bad (which they were), I was only saying I wish there was more to choose from. She mumbled something about not being a stumblingblock to others in the household and we left it at that. I kept my mouth shut and cringed through every song and laughed at how insane it was that people actually made believe that it was good. More of the Emperor's clothes...
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Lifted Up
They were pretty good back in the mid 70s IMO. Even original to some extent. Of course, I may be influenced by spending so much time around Good Seed, and I don't know that they were really considered WayProd.
Our 8th corps group, new Beginning, never went too far I guess, but I always thought VR (Whom I met once in chat a few years ago) had decent talent. I remember hearing, not from him, that he had some kind of professional background.
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TheHighWay
I agree with Hope... there were only a very few folks in Way Prod that were ever true musicians. Most of us were musical duffers (and yes, I was one of them... a precurser to the singing ladies... sorry)
The interesting thing to me is that this was true from the beginning on. But we all loved the early music!! Why? Because it wasn't about perfection, or even musicality, it was about joy and genuine praise and the love of God and the desire to share your enthusiasm with others. All that heart smoothed over the rough spots. But once you take all that away, you are left with nothing but the mediocrity.
The women's quartet I sang in was NOT great. It was okay. But it was fun and it was emotional, and people seemed to like it. We were genuine and that came through.
One gal that was in that quartet is now in the Singing Ladies. It makes me cringe. She looks completely plastic now... forced smile, forced hand motions, forced footwork, BLAH!!!!!!!
Someone mentioned the music contest. That event marks the turning point for me. There was a gal from Emporia who was a GREAT performer, but she'd had some run-ins with the leadership. And there were some groups from the field that had some really decent presentations but they didn't even get a sniff. They made a BIG deal about HOW a group should present themselves on stage, etc, etc. And who won? The HQ-hand-picked perfectly polished corps gal, of course. To me, this event marked the difference between trying to help folks with stage presence and trying to mold everyone into the same little way prod robot.
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Hope R.
Great point -
There were several people who had amazing talent who were never "permitted" to perform for one reason or another. There was a woman in the 7th Corps who had a fabulous voice, could play piano and write but never really made it to the Way Prod front line. Years later, I wondered who she wouldn't fu<k. Sh*rry - if you're out there - you deserved better.
IMO - that music challenge was one of the worst Way Production events ever (next to High Country Caravan - sorry again Ted).
Geez - I shouldn't have got started on this one...
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socks
Way ProSUCtions. Does that include the Vesper Chimes Hour? Vesper Youth Chimes. Isn't a Vesper an Italian sports car?
Hope, no offense taken. To be honest, performing with good hearted people like yourself was always a pleasure for me, but it certainly didn't advance my skills. Why did I do it? Because I loved working with people who gave a damn.
To be really honest, with few exceptions it's always been easier to work with musicians who have some reasonable committment to their instrument and it's craft. In the absence of that, I enjoyed working with many of the Way peeps, regardless of how "good" they were, or who good they thought I was, if they were willing to put in the time, and many were. Way Prod was always a grab bag, a "familial" effort. The notion that it was the "greatest" was relative to the time and the people. I'm proud of what I do, then as now. Today after 45 years at it, I don't have to take a back seat to anybody, and of course I'm still not the best, the fastest, the greatest. But I'm pretty dammed good at what I do.
Believe me, it's easy being humble.
Way Prod - rewind to 1969-70 and there was a "Music Ministry". The winter of '71, a Youth Advance and "Rock of Ages" concert/dance/doo. That summer the followup, the first ROA, with music from all over the country. Shortly after, a "Music Ministry" meeting at the New Knoxille High gym. Lots of talk about who was doing what and what might be done in the future. Long hair, short hair. Lots of guitarists, singers, etc. etc.
If you remember that and any of the people, now go watch one of the videos on the Way site.
Oh what a long strange trip it's been. It didn't get that way overnight. The current Way Prod is what happens when cousins marry, over and over. Musical incest. What's that - like the Dead Sea, reversed. No inlet, no outlet, just a stagnant pond burbling under it's own thick layer of pond goo. Watching those videos, I can't really muster a true coherent response to this thread topic, but I couldn't resist posting anyway.
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dmiller
Back in 76 (or 77), Dean E. was our twig leader in Bloomington, Indiana. He played a lot at the coffee houses at the university there during that year. At first we (I) went to hear him cause he was Dean -- but later went just to hear him pick. He did stuff that wasn't *word oriented* in his sets, along with twi songs as well.
I always liked his shows. He was always professional during those performances,
and had a great rapport with the audience -- students, believers, and coffee junkies in general. :)
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waysider
The thing I remember so vividly about music of the late sixties and early seventies is what a vast diversity of styles and genres managed to coexist. Consider Woodstock. Country Joe shared the same stage with the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Richie Havens. Widely differing yet tied together with a common thread. The same was true of "Way" music. Good Seed, Pressed Down, Shakin' Mama, Hope, Lakeview Telecasters, Tom Lepinski , and on and on. The common thread? Excitement about GOD and his word. Varied styles yet they coexisted much like music did in the secular realm. What happened to Way musicians is not too unlike what happened to musicians in general;The bottom line became more important than the music itself. I still have a great respect for the early "pioneers" of TWI music . They did the best they knew how while still trying to satisfy the "suits" and "bean-counters". My recommendation for someone who has never heard these recordings is to somehow find them and give a listen. SELAH.
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norm
Am I the only one that thought Joyful Noise was alright?
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Out There
I liked them too.. (Keep that between us, there are too many people here who will cut your B____s off if you dson't think the way they do and like the same things they do. also if you don't dislike absolutely everything the TWI ever did your of the devil)
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waysider
Correction----------Shakin' Mama should have been "Cookin' Mama" with Glenda Sue Maxwell. ----------Norm .-----No, you are not the only one. My dad used to buy two of every album so he could listen to side a and side b without flipping the record. This concept probably seems pretty amusing in this day of I-Pods and MP-3's. Lots and lots of heartfelt sentiment in that early stuff.
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dmiller
Hey there Norm -- welcome to the site. :)
Joyful Noise was always alright in my book. ;)
Musicians on stage, doing their best for what they believed in -- yea --
No problem. (I didn't like all their songs -- but so what?)
If I buy a CD today -- and I don't care for some of the tracks on it either,
I don't toss the thing out as worthless -- I keep it regardless.
And if I do like the artist or the CD, I get it -- and enjoy those tracks that I like.
JN falls into the same category. Good musicians, playing righteous music.
Far better than what is offered today, by twi. :(
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johniam
I liked a lot of it. One of my favorite TWI bands that doesn't get much mention was Glad Tidings. During the ministry year 77/78 Joyful Noise went on the road and GT was the "house band" at TWI. I loved hearing them every week on SNS tapes. Dan Moran is a terrific songwriter. There was a lot of talent in that band.
Oddly enough, the last time they played was during the pre teaching time one night at ROA '81. They were all dressed in black. Branded was formed in fall of '81. They were good, but the forming of that group effectively ended the existance of both Glad Tidings and Joyful Noise.
Recently I bought SNS tape #1061 from Catcup. It was done on Burn the Ballast day of 1981. VP was back at HQ for the first time in 2 months so they had a special way prod night. Heike Pekkarinan (sp) and the children's choir from Rome City did 3 songs, Ted Ferrell did "Attic of your mind", and then Joyful Noise plus Joe Fair did "One by one" and "Don't stop speaking". No other version I've heard of either of those songs is as good IMO. The girls harmonized on the chorus of 'One by one' plus a super lead solo by Socks plus Brian getting the low tones of his piano to reverberate on the words 'reach', 'touch', and 'help' ...I swear, every time I listen to that tape I get chills. I think it's kind of petty to criticize way prod just because they didn't have lucrative contracts with major recording labels.
However, I will concede that later that year began the downward spiral that led to the stiffness that is now way prod. Branded, as I say, ended Glad tidings and joyful Noise and began a trend where every song and every lyric was micro managed along with everything else. Art of any kind is tainted if it has to be filtered through a controlling agenda. That's what eventually happened in TWI; people no longer wrote songs inspired by God. It had to be double checked by leadership. Eeewwww. For example the smear job Stevie Kay's 'Witness of the stars' got in the name of spiritual purity. Boop! Out went the button.
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excathedra
as usual, haven't read the thread
i do remember having tears when i heard david bailey and agape singing, "sittin' by the fireside...."
touched my heart, as did many way productions
i remember dan of the 7th corps, oh what the heck was that song i loved ?
dan moran
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jardinero
One of my favorite Glad Tidings songs, Excie, was "Thessolonica"
J.
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excathedra
this video just made me sob, but the SONG also.... one of the few things that has touched my heart in this way in a long time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryCTIigaloQ
will i dance for you jesus ?
will i able to speak at all ?
i can only imagine....
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excathedra
didn't dan have a nasal touch to his beautiful voice like this guy ?
in case you don't know the story
I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.
Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day.
Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?
And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.
This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.
"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. "Put him in an institution."
But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "There's nothing going on in his brain."
"Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.
Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!" And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that."
Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "Then it was me who was handicapped," Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks."
That day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!"
And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.
"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.
Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?"
How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.
Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?
Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.
This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.
"No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century."
And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago."
So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.
Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day.
That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.
"The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."
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