“Uplifted” – Mustard Seed Songs’ third album

Lucy and Maggie recording  “My Beloved King” at Bob Ross Studios, Portsmouth

” Still in Tears” from “Uplifted” album  featuring Lucy Stimpson-Maynard on vocals and piano with  James Oliver on cello.

Mustard Seed Songs’ first concerts featured Lucy Stimpson singing solos and playing piano with the Mustard Seed Girls’ Choir introduced soon after.

I remember after one concert it being suggested that in order to appeal to a wider audience we should consider playing more up-tempo songs. I had grown up on R and B/ Soul music and particularly loved the brass breaks on Wilson Pickett’s “in the Midnight Hour” Sam and Dave’s “You Don’t Know like I Know” and Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher.” The breaks on all three are similar and I have to admit they greatly influenced the brass break I wrote for the song “Uplifted” (not plagiarism I promise -not even sampling – just influenced!)

I had by now written four upbeat songs and a number of musicians I had begun to know were rapidly evolving into The Mustard Seed Soul Band   – Nicola and Fiona Poustie and Kat Hands on vocals, Ross Gill on lead guitar, Jim Rogers on acoustic, Darren Lewis on drums , Gareth Matthews and  Andy Herbertson on bass,  Chris Backhouse on keys and Matt Goffee on trumpet with Robbie Richardson on sax.

So we used the song “Uplifted” as the title track for our third album (artwork again thanks to Neale Gordon) with the Mustard Seed Soul Band also playing on three other up- tempo tracks-“ There’s Going to be a Party,” “Jesus You are  my Lord and my King” and “JE and then SUS”  however to ensure the album really was family friendly we included a song for children “What would Jesus Do” sung by a Crofton schoolgirl -Yvette Page. This was later sung by the Crofton Hammond School Choir for our musical “His Story.”  Of course the album also included solos from Lucy Stimpson (now Lucy Stimpson – Maynard after marrying David) and one which now features in our forthcoming musical “Risen!”  is “My Beloved King.”  In  “Risen!”  this song is sung by Mary Sister of Lazarus and Martha as she anoints the feet of Jesus the night before His “The Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem. In the “Uplifted” version Lucy’s vocals are accompanied by the haunting flute accompaniment of Maggie Horton. Today’s pic show the two of them recording in Bob Ross’s studio, Portsmouth

We used the track “Uplifted” for Mustard Seeds first musical “His Story. ” We also used another track from the “Uplifted” album -“Still in Tears.” Here is the story behind that song. When Lucy left Crofton School to move to Cambridge the school had an end of term “leaving do” in the school grounds. Lucy sang “Somewhere over the Rainbow” and her rendition, together with the fact that she was leaving Crofton, made me really rather emotional. Later that evening the male staff were in Old Portsmouth for a few “end of term beers” and I gave Lucy a ring -she asked me how I was and I replied “I’m still in tears.” The moment I said that I knew that this was the title of a new song. Two days later I took some students to Alton Towers and on the way there made up the song. To begin with the lyrics were secular with something about “there being laughter in the air as another carnival draws near but not for me as I am still in tears.”  However I soon changed them for lyrics based on someone being in tears after the crucifixion of Jesus.

I am still on that hill, pleading “No please no,” as they torture Your flesh and You surrender Your soul. You told us this had to be and that we should all have no fears but even Peter – the rock even he –  is still in tears.

“Still in Tears” is this week’s featured song – the cello part is played by James Oliver who became Head of Music at Crofton after Lucy moved to Cambridge.

So Mustard Seeds now had three albums and were producing concerts on a fairly regular basis, however the songs  were only reaching a limited number of people, but that all changed after a visit to Waverley Abbey House, the Centre for  CWR (Crusade for World Revival) the publishers of “Every Day With Jesus.”  The story of how 80, 000 of Mustard Seed Songs were distributed world -wide by CWR is next weeks story.