{"id":171,"date":"2014-05-08T12:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-05-08T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/?p=171"},"modified":"2014-05-09T10:38:15","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T10:38:15","slug":"blog-may-8th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/?p=171","title":{"rendered":"Blog May 8th I Look Up To The Heavens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"I<\/p>\n

Mustard Seed Songs First CD ” I Look Up To The Heavens” featuring Lucy Stimpson – recorded and produced by John Hodgkinson.<\/p>\n

“Father Let Your Spirit Fall Upon Me”\u00a0 featuring Lucy Stimpson from CD ”\u00a0I Look Up To The Heavens”<\/p>\n

So after a couple of weeks of reminiscing over the fantastic Easter Sunday Risen! Concert let me return to the story behind the music of Risen! together with \u00a0that of other Mustard Seed concerts and CDs.<\/p>\n

When sometime in late 1997 I read in the Holy Rood Church notice sheet that there was a Worship Seminar to be held in Winchester, led by Brian Doerksen, \u00a0I had that \u201cfeeling\u201d inside again that made me know that this was something I was meant to attend.\u00a0 One of the many songs that Brian had written was \u201cMore than Oxygen\u201d which had been \u00a0played at the Service in which I was baptised ( see blog April 17th<\/sup>) \u00a0Brian is from Canada so I knew the opportunities to attend one of his Seminars would be few and far between.<\/p>\n

So I went on my own to Winchester – which of course I knew pretty well having been to Teaching Training College there- to a church (now Winchester Family Church) housed in what had been a Cinema.\u00a0 I have to say I was not entirely comfortable with all the hand raising and that is about all I can remember from the evening apart from the important fact that I thought – \u201cI wonder if my pop songs could become Christian songs – perhaps that is why it was intended that I came to this Worship Seminar? \u201c<\/p>\n

So I went home and started \u201cconverting\u201d the lyrics of my pop songs to Christian lyrics. For some songs this was relatively easy – only needing for example to change \u201cBaby\u201d to \u201cLord!\u201d For others it was not so simple, for example \u201cDon\u2019t Lose Sight Of My Shore\u201d became \u201cFather Help Me Acknowledge You\u201d taken from Psalm 139.<\/p>\n

So I went to see John Hodgkinson and told him that I wanted to do some recording again. He was fine about that – however I now had to tell him that the songs to be recorded were no longer straight pop songs, with a view to making us money, but Christian songs. \u00a0\u00a0For some reason I was embarrassed about this and so mumbled \u201cJohn, the words have changed.\u201d \u00a0John replied \u201cWhy, the words are fine.\u201d \u00a0\u201cYes John but now they are Chris\u2026\u2026\u2026. words\u201d I did not actually say the word Christian as I had my hand over my mouth so just a muffled \u201cChris \u2026\u201d came out.\u00a0 About three times this happened before John could hear the word \u201cChristian.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s fine\u201d he reassured me – so there had been no need\u00a0 for me to be embarrassed at all.<\/p>\n

Next thing was to find a singer. I am sure Louise Redknapp (spelt correctly this time) and Cole (see blog March 20th<\/sup>) would have sung it but I had just heard Lucy Stimpson sing at the School Prom Karaoke (see blog March 13th) and knew that \u201cshe was the one.\u201d So next day I ventured over to the Music Department armed with my cassette of \u201cDon\u2019t Lose Sight Of My Shore.\u201d\u00a0 After hearing it Lucy said that she would love to record it but why as the previous recording was great. \u201cAh yes Lucy\u201d I hesitantly explained \u201cBut the words have changed.\u201d \u00a0\u201cWhy, they are great words\u201d insisted Lucy. \u00a0\u201cThanks, but they are now \u201cChris\u2026\u2026. words\u201d I burbled with hand over mouth. \u00a0After the regulation three \u201cChris\u2019s \u2026..\u201d the word Christian came out to which Lucy replied \u201cThat\u2019s great I am a Christian.\u201d What no way -this was going too well – what about all the micky taking I was expecting?<\/p>\n

I also found out that Lucy not only had a beautiful voice but also played piano brilliantly. Also \u00a0that she could play either by reading music \u00a0or by ear – and as there was no way that I could ever produce written music Lucy being able to play by ear was just perfect!<\/p>\n

So the first CD was born- \u201c I Look Up To The Heavens.\u201d\u00a0 The majority of songs being converted pop songs all recorded in John Hodge\u2019s studio in his house. \u00a0\u00a0I remember\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cIf Love Had Never Died\u201d became \u201cJesus Is The Alphabet,\u201d \u201cNo More Sad Songs\u201d became \u201cLet Us All Stand Up And Be Glad\u201d and \u201cTake My Look, Take My Touch, Take My Whisper\u201d\u00a0 which I had made up to sing to my son Chris at bedtime \u00a0became \u201cFather Let Your Spirit Fall Upon Me.\u201d \u201cI had not made that song up when James, my other son was of an age to be sung to at bedtime – he had to put up with a version of James Taylor\u2019s \u201cSweet Baby James.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remember giving my colleague in the PE Department, Neale Gordon, a cassette with some PE stuff on it not realising it also had a recording of \u201cFather Help Me to Acknowledge You.\u201d I remember Neale saying \u201cWhat\u2019s all this Father stuff I heard on that cassette you gave me?\u201d I thought \u201cOh no here comes the micky taking big time\u201d but no, Neale simply said \u201cWell I liked it – anything I can do to help let me know.\u201d And so Neale designed the artwork for our first three CDs and our Mustard Seed logo, created the first Mustard Seed Songs website and was I\/C sound for many of our concerts.<\/p>\n

When the recording of \u201cI Look Up To The Heavens\u201d was completed in 1999 Lucy, John, Neale and myself went to London to Hiltongrove Studios to have the CD mastered. We made a day of it picking up a West End Show- great times!<\/p>\n

James, my son (who I have to say is now really supportive and gives good advice) said to me when we had 1000 CDs of \u201c I Look Up To The Heavens\u201d reproduced -\u201cOnce all the aunties have bought a copy you won\u2019t sell any more – I reckon 50 of \u00a0those 1000 CDs will go at best. \u201c<\/p>\n

Well for once he was wrong- very wrong – next week I will tell you how many copies of \u00a0\u201cI Look Up To The Heavens have been \u00a0sold and also how Mustard Seed Songs became a registered charity – and that really \u00a0is an amazing story!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mustard Seed Songs First CD ” I Look Up To The Heavens” featuring Lucy Stimpson – recorded and produced by John Hodgkinson. “Father Let Your Spirit Fall Upon Me”\u00a0 featuring Lucy Stimpson from CD ”\u00a0I Look Up To The Heavens” So after a couple of weeks of reminiscing over the fantastic Easter Sunday Risen! Concert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ken-shearsmiths-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}