http:\/\/www.risen.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/16-Heart-And-Soul.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n“Heart and Soul” from album “Heart and Soul” featuring Mike Backhouse and the Mustard Seed Soul Band<\/p>\n
I would visit Mr Milliken (Mr Mill\u2019s dad) pretty regularly at his sheltered accommodation in Titchfield. We would pray together and I would sing him the latest song I had made up- he was always really encouraging but also always really honest (see blog April 17th<\/sup> \u201cBaptism.\u201d)\u00a0\u00a0 I am not sure whose idea it was but on October 27th<\/sup> 1998, Mr Milliken\u2019s 90th<\/sup> birthday, we held a special concert for him in Drama Room One of Crofton School. Lucy Stimpson sang and played piano – the audience was not the largest ever consisting\u00a0 of just five people- Mr Milliken, Mr Mill, Mr Mill\u2019s sister Joy and me.\u00a0 It was a wonderful occasion with Lucy singing songs from our CD \u201cI Look Up to the Heavens\u201d plus some that had not yet been recorded.\u00a0 It was the first of many concerts and musicals that Mustard Seeds have produced at places including Holy Rood Church, Stubbington- St Edmunds Church, Stubbington- \u00a0St Mary\u2019s Church, Porchester- \u00a0Oasis \u00a0Church, Portsmouth-Hereford Cathedral, Hereford- Central Hall, Westminster- \u00a0Assembly Halls, Chichester- Ferneham Hall, Fareham -Theatre Royal, Portsmouth and King Theatre, Southsea.<\/p>\nSometimes we would hold a concert to support a particular person, for example my good friend Roberta Cousins who is a missionary in Uganda. On other occasions it would be to promote a new CD such as \u201cLove is the Way\u201d or \u201cUplifted.\u201d\u00a0 The concerts were always headed by Lucy Stimpson, who by now had married David Maynard, and so had become Lucy Maynard- but for Mustard Seed Songs -Lucy Stimpson- Maynard.\u00a0 We gradually added more musicians – Ross Gill, who later produced many of our albums, played acoustic guitar, Neil Elliott, Gaz Matthews and Andy Hertbertson,\u00a0 bass, Ben Kennedy and Darren Lewis,\u00a0 drums and later Matt Goffee, \u00a0trumpet. At one concert Matthew Sergeant played trombone (see blog Feb 13th\u201cEncouragement\u201d) The concerts also featured the Mustard Seed Girls Choir, who had been formed from the Crofton School\u00a0 Choir taught by Lucy.<\/p>\n
By this time Mustard Seed Songs was supporting young people who had taken time off from their studies to work voluntarily in the Third World.\u00a0 Catherine Knight had been the first we had supported (see blog May 15th<\/sup>) but now there were others such as her brother Tim working in Chile for Latin Link and Jez Field and Clare Townend working for Tearfund in Kenya (A future blog will tell the story of how James Townend, Clare\u2019s brother, who had only just left Crofton, sang at this concert – he now sings the part of Thomas absolutely brilliantly in our musical Risen!)<\/p>\nI remember one Crofton girl asking if we could support her missionary work – the trouble was Lucy was pregnant with her first baby, Emily Rose, and so could not be part of a concert. By this time some of the girls from the Mustard Seed Girls Choir were in their late teens and were singing semi- professionally – Fiona and Nicola Poustie and Katherine Hands.\u00a0 For the CD \u201cUplifted\u201d\u00a0 I had started to write some more upbeat songs influenced by the soul music I grew up loving and hearing at the Birdcage club (see blog Feb 6th)\u00a0 So the time was now right to try a slightly new direction and Ross Gill produced, without Lucy, \u00a0our forth CD \u201cHeart and Soul.\u201d\u00a0 On vocals were Nicola, Fiona, Kat and another ex- member of the Mustard Seed Girls\u2019 Choir who was singing professionally – Katie Summer. Ross Gill was on guitar, Darren Lewis, drums, Chris Backhouse, keys and \u00a0Andy Herbertson, \u00a0bass. We also had guest vocalists Jassica Castillo- Burley and Mike Backhouse, Chris\u2019 brother. Mike sang the title song \u201cHeart and Soul\u201d and, as he married Becky last weekend, I thought it would be nice to feature his song and of course wish them every \u00a0happiness together.<\/p>\n
The \u201cHeart and Soul\u201d CD was first promoted at a Mustard Seed concert at The Oasis Centre in Arundel Street, Portsmouth.\u00a0 We supported the charity founded by my great friend Mick Mellows – \u201cFaith and Football.\u201d \u00a0www.faithandfootball<\/strong>.org.uk\/<\/a>Fellow Faith and Football Director Pompey legend Linvoy Primas was seen dancing at the back and the compere was ex- Crofton student Jez Field, who we had supported when he worked for Tearfund in Kenya.\u00a0 I thought Jez was a natural and sometime later asked him to play the role of John in our first musical \u201cHis Story.\u201d\u00a0 Although he\u2019d had no acting training he was brilliant – but more of that later.<\/p>\nFocusing on concerts I have rushed ahead somewhat in my story and have omitted to say what happened when I ran out of pop songs to convert to Christian ones – however next week all will be revealed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First concert\u00a0heart and soul concert\u00a0Hereford concert\u00a0HR 2 concert\u00a0LIW concert\u00a0roberta concert\u00a0soteria concert\u00a0St Marys concert\u00a0You are rock concert The First Ever Mustard Seed Concert celebrating the 90th Birthday of Mr Milliken – Mr Mill’s dad “Heart and Soul” from album “Heart and Soul” featuring Mike Backhouse and the Mustard Seed Soul Band I would visit Mr Milliken […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231","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\/231","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=231"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231\/revisions\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/risen.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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