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Writing Heartsongs

Most of Heartsongs was written in the spring of 2008 whilst I was recovering from getting burned out in full-time Christian ministry.  In the Darkness and Summer Rain were written earlier but came from similar experiences so I included them in the album too.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that songs written from such a difficult place might be a bit depressing but they all retain a sense of hope and trust in the Lord- which was a surprise even to me!

I chose the title because all these songs came from a need to express to God what was in my heart... simple really!

Making Heartsongs

My wonderful, Christian musician friends not only encouraged me to record Heartsongs but gave of their time and talents to enable me to do so- though getting them all in the same place at the same time wasn't easy!

The Daughters of the Holy Spirit in Northampton very kindly lent us their chapel for a whole weekend, in May 2008, to do the recording.  I wanted to record the songs with all the musicians playing together, rather than record an instrument at a time, so that we could be open to being inspired by the Holy Spirit through each other.

Richard Ball turned up with oodles of recording equipment and very patiently directed us and allowed us to do numerous takes of the songs.  We miraculously (!) manged to get all 11 songs recorded in 2 days and barely got grumpy at all!  It was actually really good fun!

Dave Clemo then took what we'd recorded and transformed it into what you hear on the CD.  He contributed the bass guitar and guitar solos.  He also recorded my drumming and Foo's percussion at a later date (good as I am, I can't sing, play guitar and drum at the same time!).