#291 LET THE MUSIC START by Chris Christian (1984)

LET THE MUSIC START by Chris Christian (1984)
Myrrh Records - SPCN 7-01-679906-9

Producer: Chris Christian

File Under: Worship/CCM

Time Capsule-Worthy Track:

Clap Your Hands

Chris Christian always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

He was born Lon Christian Smith in 1951 in Abilene, Texas. After attending Abilene Christian College, he headed for Nashville with $100 in his pocket. He started performing at the Opryland amusement park, met a few notables in the music industry, and ended up writing a song that would be recorded by none other than Elvis Presley. Stories like that were possible back in those days. From there, he became part of the group Cotton, Lloyd and Christian, then an artist in his own right, as well as a sought-after producer. He not only discovered Amy Grant, he also practically invented the soft-rock CCM sound that became so pervasive in the late 70s and beyond. In the Seventies, Christian was instrumental in either launching or helping to sustain the careers of many artists, including B.J. Thomas, The Imperials, Dogwood, Fireworks, Dan Peek, and many others. His songs were recorded by many secular performers as well. 

Fast-forward to the Eighties. Christian was still very busy writing songs and producing albums for the likes of Mark Heard, White Heart, Steve Archer, Olivia Newton-John, Hall and Oates, Natalie Cole, The Pointer Sisters, The Carpenters, Dionne Warwick, Donnie Osmond, and many more. His musical instincts were always right in line with what was popular on Top 40 radio in any given year. But in '84 there was a new sound brewing...a fresh wind of the Spirit blowing. 

First, let's back up just a bit.

Before the 1970s, our idea of "praise and worship" consisted almost exclusively of congregants singing in churches from hymnals. Slowly, that began to change. First, Maranatha! Music released a string of "praise" albums in the 70s and early 80s. Then Keith Green's Songs For The Shepherd and Phil Driscoll's Sound the Trumpet were widely regarded as "praise" albums in 1982. 

By 1984, the trickle of praise became a flowing river of worship.

Dricoll's I Exalt Thee and Kelly Willard's Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs moved decidedly toward reverence and awe. But a "recovering" CCM artist by the name of Terry Clark can truly be credited (although he would want no credit) with devising a new way for the body of Christ to worship God. His Living Worship and Let's Worship albums, in '84 and '86 respectively, allowed us to first eavesdrop on, and then participate in a musical conversation with Jesus...which led to authentic spiritual intimacy and transparency before the Lord. These were deeper waters.  

And then, there was Let The Music Start, also recorded in 1984 by Chris Christian, a member of the "CCM establishment" if there ever was one. He was certainly not known as a worship artist, but in '84 Chris Christian joined Clark, Willard and Driscoll in predicting a trend, not following one. After all, these "worship" albums were released long before "worship" became a genre...long before worship music dominated the airwaves of Christian radio stations...and well before a modern worship revival swept through America and the U.K.

"It was quite a unique kind of album at the time of release," agreed songwriter Dwight Liles, who penned several songs on the record. "The thing that made Let The Music Start even more unique was that the production values were almost totally synth-pop. There was simply no worship music being done in that up-to-the-minute, radio-friendly style at the time other than Michael W. Smith's hit, Great Is The Lord and some of Twila Paris' early worship songs." 

Indeed, Chris Christian brought the same soothing, radio-friendly production values to this "vintage" praise album that he did to all of his other records. Keyboards were dominating most soft rock and pop music of that era; they were capably handled here by Keith Thomas, Mark Gersmehl and Christian himself. Gary Lunn and Jimmie Lee Sloas (later of The Imperials) supplied the bottom end along with drummers David Huff and Dennis Holt. David's brother Dann played guitar, as did Jon Goin. The talented Jack Joseph Puig engineered the album with help from Jeff Balding.

The record kicks off with Clap Your Hands. If you were a Christian in your teens or twenties in 1984, you probably saw the memorable video for this track on TBN's Real Videos. From a video production standpoint, it's Eighties all the way, complete with shots of Chris Christian "playing" a keyboard scarf on the beach and inserting a cassette of his own album in his car's tape player. If you were a stickler for realism, you were probably bothered by the fact that Christian was playing a Kawai acoustic grand piano over what should have obviously been a synthesizer during the "recording studio" scene. But hey...creative license, right?

Musically, Clap Your Hands would've felt right at home on a Sandi Patty or Larnelle Harris album. It's also somewhat reminiscent of the aforementioned Great Is The Lord by Michael W. Smith. Lyrically, it set the tone for what was to follow.

Some "wonderfully 80s" keyboard parts get us into Lift Up His Name, a song that prescribes praise as the key to discovering true love, lasting peace and joy.

Blessed Be the Lord sounds like something early White Heart might've recorded, with lyrics that seem to be taken mostly from Scripture. 

Every Good and Perfect Gift is a smooth, pop-oriented repackaging of James 1:17. It's one of the record's more memorable tracks, with a hook that stays with you. 

We Are An Offering, an inspirational ballad written by Dwight Liles, closes out Side One and definitely moves away from praise and toward worship. It has a hymn-like quality and expresses total devotion to the Lord.

"I wrote We Are An Offering and Clap Your Hands on the same day, May 12, 1983," songwriter Dwight Liles revealed. "I had gone over to my parents' house that morning specifically to do some songwriting on my mother's upright piano. I had just finished writing Clap Your Hands and was still feeling creative when I looked through my title list, and decided to work on one of the titles there, We Are An Offering." 

Liles continued: "Once I started playing some chords, the words and melody just seemed to 'fall from heaven,' and I literally came up with the entire song in the time it takes to sing it. I stopped and scribbled down the words as they came to me. It is probably the one song I ever wrote that I can say came to me entirely without effort on my part. It was as if I were taking dictation." 

Songwriter Dwight Liles

Sing With Joy is a celebration of praise, with lyrics that sound very much like they could've been penned by King David himself. It's another song that was written by Dwight Liles. 

"Sing With Joy was co-written with Niles Borop," Liles said. "We didn't write it specifically for this project. Chris Christian was my publisher at the time, and he received worktapes and lyrics of all of my songs, so he selected them because he considered them appropriate for what he was doing. The phrase 'let the music start' is from the first verse of Sing With Joy, so you could say that Sing With Joy is the 'title track' of the album in the sense that the lyric of that song provided Chris with the idea for the album's title." 

Musically, Sing With Joy has a 'Smitty" vibe (as in Michael W.). 

With the Name of Jesus is a bit of a departure -- the only track on the album that isn't technically a praise or worship song. It's a bouncy pop track that serves as an exhortation to fellow believers regarding the power that is found in the name above all names. Like many of the record's other tracks, this song borrows much from the words of Scripture. And that's a good thing.

On Oh Magnify The Lord, Christian takes a praise chorus that was popular in charismatic church circles at that time and transforms it into an 80s pop tune. Like almost every track on Let the Music Start, this one is drenched in synthesizers. No complaints here. 

Early White Heart lineup. Yeah, that's Steve Green, 2nd from the left...

Make A Joyful Noise continues much in the same vein, musically and lyrically, as the rest of the album. This one is definitely reminiscent of early White Heart...probably because the group actually performs with Chris on this track.

In the Scriptures, the word selah occurred frequently at the end of a verse in Psalms and Habakkuk, probably as a musical direction (or so scholars say). A short instrumental by that same name wraps up Let the Music Start. It's about 90 seconds long, and there's an interesting story that goes with it.

"While Chris was recording the project," recalled Dwight Liles, "he let me hear another song of mine and Niles Borop's that he had recorded for the album called Immortal Invisible (not to be confused with the classic hymn of the same title). The track had a very, very long fade. I didn't like what he had done with the song. We'd written it as a mid-tempo hymn, and he'd recorded it as an uptempo synth-pop piece. Of course, I didn't complain to Chris about that. But as it turned out, Chris chose not to include the song on the album. Instead, he clipped off the long fade-out, and that section became Selah. Since he used no lyrical or melodic material from Immortal Invisible, Niles and I were not credited as writers of what became Selah." 

So there you have it...an early entry in the worship catalog from an unlikely artist. One reviewer described this album as "the perfect companion when you are seeking to reflect and meditate on simple Biblical truths and promises."

Chris Christian had a bit of a complicated reputation among Christian artists. He was seen by some as difficult, too self-serving and a little too focused on material gain (let's just say it that way). He and Larry Norman had a similar reputation where business dealings were concerned. But there's no denying his talent and we cannot overlook the oversized role he played in developing and packaging what came to be known as "contemporary Christian music." 

Christian's involvement in the music industry led to four Grammy Award wins and nine nominations as a producer, artist and publisher. He was also nominated for seven GMA Dove Awards, winning five. He's been inducted into the West Texas Music Hall of Fame, as well as the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

Several years into the future, Christian shifted gears and switched from music to media companies and sports; he is an owner of a WNBA team in Texas. 

So it has been quite a ride, a very full and diverse career for the guy with the funny name from Abilene. But he had his finger on the pulse of what God was saying to His church in 1984. And there's a record to prove it.

From the album's liner notes: 

"It is my desire that the melodies and words of these songs will find their way to the worship times of bodies of believers around the world; and that the praises, and ideas that they offer, live far beyond this record. Sing along with joy." 

-Chris Christian