Jeff Ling

I’m so grateful for that handful of places that provide resources for worship so generously to the church. Paul Baloche’s website, LeadWorship.com is one and if you haven’t visited, you need to. The song chart area is laid out well and all of it freely available for download.  Today, I have been enjoying the U.K. site ResoundWorship.org. What a gift to the church! The “About” section contains the following:

“RESOUNDworship.org is an exciting free resource for churches worldwide, providing fresh worship songs containing strong, Biblical lyrics supported by singable, contemporary music. You might like to register with the site - it only takes a few seconds and gives you free access to download all the mp3s, chord charts and lead sheets on the site.”

And do they ever deliver. I listened to several of the original Christmas songs offered and I am impressed by their biblical faithfulness, creative imagery and sing-ability. The  site makes it so easy to preview and acquire the music. Look at the image below:

The links worked flawlessly and all the charts are well produced PDFs.  They also offer an mp3 of the song and even a backing track! Wait… they also want to give you a free video of the song. Who does that? They do!

Miracle Child from Sam Hargreaves on Vimeo.

The song above, Miracle Child, is one we’ll be using for Christmas Eve. Check it out along with On Christmas Day, which contains this imaginative lyric:

The hands that once split night from day
now feebly clutch a blade of hay,
this is Immanuel.
Majestic king, now small and weak,
the Word of God must learn to speak,
this is Immanuel.

Thank you ResoundWorship. You’re generosity and high quality are appreciated!

So… I was taking a stab at writing an Advent verse for the hymn, O Come All Ye Faithful. The first verse is what I came up with and the second was contributed by my friend Mark Weaver.

What would you add?

O Come Holy Savior
Ruler of all nations
Set free this groaning earth
From sin’s dark domain

Conquering Jesus!
Come and reign victorious

O come again in glory
O come again in glory
O come again in glory
Christ the Lord

O Come, King Of Glory
Robed in righteous splendor
Take up Your throne within
My heart now and reign.

Govern me fully.
Help me yield my all to You.

O come and rule within me.
O come and rule within me.
O come and rule within me!
Christ the Lord!

Back before the costumes, the glasses and the notoriety, Reginald Kenneth Dwight (aka Elton John) released one the best recordings of a brilliant live performance ever, 11-17-70.  I will confess quickly that Elton lost me somewhere between Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Caribou. It was obvious that he had turned his talents in different directions and the culture that was “Elton John” was taking over. Still, his early works remain some of my favorites and 11-17-70 stands front and center.

In 1970, Elton had released two albums in the US; the self-titled debut with the hit “Your Song” and Tumbleweed Connection which included the outstanding “Burn Down the Mission.”  The film score for the movie “Friends” was also floating around though it’s official release wouldn’t be until ’71. On November 17th of 1970, Elton with bassist  Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson entered the recording studio of A&R in New York, for a live radio broadcast. There was a small, but very enthusiastic audience on hand for the 13 song performance.  It was never intended to be released as a LP but the circulation of poor quality bootlegs prompted an official release. Unfortunately, the entire concert didn’t make it onto vinyl. Of the 13 songs, only 6 would be released with a seventh, Amoreena, added to a ’96 reissue.
 

Elton himself has said that this is his best recorded live performance. I agree. It’s also the best opportunity to hear the amazing talents of  Murray and Olsson who just shine. This is also the only live recorded performance of the band as a three piece. A year later Davey Johnstone would join the band as a guitarist.

There are three covers on the LP, a full version of  Honky Tonk Women by the Stones and a nod to Get Back (Lennon-McCartney) and My Baby Left Me (Arthur Crudup) which appear as a medley in the extended (18:20) Burn Down the Mission.  The rest of the tracks are Elton and collaborator Bernie Taupin’s works: Take Me To the Pilot, Sixty Years On, Can I Put You On, Bad Side of the Moon and Burn Down the Mission.

Throughout the show the songs are performed with an energy and an urgency that highlights a band hitting its stride and full of promise. As the story goes, according to announcer Dave Herman who opens and closes the LP, Elton cut his hand at some point in his vigorous playing and by the concert’s end the keyboard was covered with blood. Appropriate. I can’t think of another live recording where the band so completely put all their cards on the table. No overdubs, no strings, no horns, nothing but a grand piano, bass and drums played with more gripping intensity than I have ever heard.

The really great news here is that these services even exist. We all knew that, given the polifieration of smart phones, high speed internet and massive storage operations, that the cloud was going to be a reality and now it is in a big way. On the storage side of things you’ve had services like Carbonite but one of the major drawbacks of services like that is that they refuse to store anything on their servers that is not on your computer’s internal hard drive.  For those with significant collections of music this is entirely unrealistic. As for streaming, forget it.

Enter Google and Amazon. I’ve been using both and I’m excited about the possibilities these services offer. The jury is still out on who has the best service primarily because Google is still in beta stage. Uploads are currently limited although I’m sure that will change and a pricing package similar to Amazon’s will be offered. Both services do an adequate job of delivering your content to your desktop and have standard playlist and shuffle options. What sets them apart from each other? Here is my analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the these cloud storage and streaming sites:

 Google Music (Beta)

Pro:

• The Android app: I have found it to load faster than Amazon’s cloud storage which will be important for impatient listeners.
• Free for now – although that will change soon.
• Ability to edit album and song info after uploading. This is huge! Amazon does not offer this at the moment and it’s a serious omission. If things aren’t tagged correctly then you can edit the info on the spot rather than having to delete, retag and upload. Amazon does a particularly poor job of matching artwork with uploads so, unless you’ve got the right artwork already embedded you can get some really bizarre match-ups. With Google Music you can simply change the graphic inside the system. This feature is the single biggest thing Google Music has going for it. I’ve had to repair and replace too much on Amazon so if you’re going to use their service, get a good tagger program and do the prep work beforehand. Even then you’ll occasionally miss something and then will need to repair and reload.

Con:

• Limited storage- but that will change. If the pricing plans are equivalent to Amazon then that’s a big mark in Google Music’s favor.
• The interface – not as nice looking as Amazons and a tad awkward. Hopefully that’s being re-tooled.
• Upload time- Your mileage may differ but I have found Amazon’s upload times to be much faster than Google’s. Not a real big deal long as you’re willing to start large uploads and walk away for awhile.
• No social media sharing – Really? Surely they are going to fix that. How can I narcissistically inform the world of what I’m listening to?

Amazon Cloud Player

Pro:

• Upload time – Amazon is really fast on the upload/download side. You can upload a ton of music in a relatively short time.
• Pricing and Storage- Amazon is bundling unlimited free music storage with a fee for storing files like pictures and documents. Kinda odd but who can complain about 20 bucks a year for 20 gigs of file storage and unlimited gigs for music storage? You can buy more file storage (up to 1000 gigs) if you need it but again – there is no limit on music regardless. If Google doesn’t match this or do better, then it’s no contest.
• The interface – looks good and easy to get around.
• Social Media Sharing – tell Facebook and Twitter what you’re listening to complete with a preview.

Con:

• The Android app – my experience has been that it’s slow loading and gets hung up easily.
•  No editing after uploading – like I said above, this is HUGE!  You’re limited to only moving files and renaming them. You can’t fix artist, genre, album name, etc.. and you can’t change the artwork. Why is this bad? Because Amazon has a blind monkey somewhere matching up album names with the correct artwork. So, if you don’t have it tagged right before uploading, you’re going to end up with some weird stuff.

For now I’m leaning heavily toward Google Music  because of the editing option. If Google gets the pricing right then its a done deal and hopefully they will get the social media links up and running. On the other hand – if Amazon will just add the editing feature then I think they leap into the lead even if Google matches the pricing. Good look, social media, fast uploads and editing – I’m there. Just fix that Android app.

Let Your Blood Plead For Me, by Sojourn from Sojourn Community Church on Vimeo.