After Marks graduated from Messiah College in Philadelphia in 1971 he began to perform with Billy Graham’s Afterglow Concert Series and actually did so for almost 10 years. In 1981 he participated in a project/album called “Premiere Performance” by Myrrh Records. The album was actually a fan vote project where fans would vote for their favourite artist and that artist would get an album deal. Kenny won that competition with the song “You Don’t Have To Try To Be Somebody”. That song appears on this album and I actually don’t find it to one of the stronger tracks on the album but it was 1981 and I was listening to Resurrection band at the time so my taste wasn’t exactly aimed at Kenny’s music. Kenny apparently wrote the whole album and while the writing was good it was not the strong writing that he had on later albums. The album had all the best CCM studio musicians of the time but the one odd inclusion was Dan Huff who was at the same time working on the introductory WhiteHeart album. I find it kind of surprising that there wasn’t a CCM charting song on this album. Given that it was 1982 there are several tracks that could have comfortably sat on the charts.
Tracklist
1 – Lean On Him – 3:37
2 – Lovin’ Me For Myself – 2:55
3 – You Need Love – 3:06
4 – You Don’t Have To Try And Be Somebody – 3:13
5 – In The Middle Of The Night – 3:34
6 – He’ll Finish What He Started – 3:11
7 – Follow Him – 3:23
8 – I Give It All To You – 4:35
9 – Ringin’ The Bells – 2:52
10 – When I Least Expect It – 3:10
Credits
Arranged By – Don Hart
Backing Vocals – Diana DeWitt Hanna, Doana Cooper, Keith Thomas, Pamela Marks, Patti Leatherwood
Bass – Jimmie Lee Sloas, Mike Brignardello
Drums – Bob Gelotte, Mark Hammond, Tommy Wells
Executive-Producer – Neal Joseph
Guitar – Brent Rowan, Dann Huff, Jon Goin
Harp – Cindy Reynolds
Keyboards – Keith Thomas
Percussion – Mark Hammond, Terry McMillan
Piano – Bobby Ogdin
Producer, Keyboards – Keith Thomas
Saxophone – Dennis Solee
Vocals – Kenny Marks
Written-By – Kenny Marks
Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright (p) – Word, Inc.
Copyright (c) – Word, Inc.
