This is an interesting project that I don’t really understand. Apparently Peter Jacobs wanted to “feature more pop-influenced covers of popular songs sung in churches during the 1980s and 1990s”. Quite frankly I don’t know that any of these tracks were being sung in any church anywhere. Maybe they were but I kind if doubt it. Anyway he was able to assemble a great collection of multiple labels artists to perform these “traditional” tracks along with some new content. As much as I’m confused by the project I can not deny how good it is. This is a great bunch of pop tracks and even a few rock tracks. There are a few tracks that are not covers but are brand new tracks and the production on them sounds a little rushed. I would assume they didn’t get a lot of rehearsal before recording. All that aside this album is really a display of some great vocalists and it spawned 2 more in the series so it deserves much credit for that.
Tracklist
1 – Crystal Lewis – Shine, Jesus, Shine
2 – Rick Florian – Let All The Earth
3 – Various – Praise The Name Of Jesus
4 – Rick Florian, Christi Jacobs – Our Mighty God Will Come
5 – Lisa Bevill – More Precious Than Silver
6 – Al Denson – A Heart Of Compassion
7 – Lisa Bevill, John Schlitt – The Battle Belongs To The Lord
8 – Julie Bonney – The Strength Of My Life
9 – Christi Jacobs, Carlos Martin – In Your Name
10 – Julie Bonney, Jon Randall – No More Compromise
11 – John Schlitt – We Believe
12 – Various – Blessed Be The Lord God Almighty
Companies, etc.
Record Company – Frontline Music Group
Distributed By – FMG Distribution
I was about 10 years old when this came out. I definitely remember singing “Shine Jesus Shine” and “More Precious Than Silver” in church or at least youth group. “The Battle Belongs to the Lord” was fairly popular at the time as well.
The real question I have is who are all the people singing the great a capella version of “Praise the Name of Jesus”. I can’t find any information on any of them.
Carlos Martin, Jon Randall, Moses Toth, Russell Williams, Jaime Zavala. No idea who they were and they haven’t done much more than this.