n 1980 I was attending Baptist Bible College. As a music major, I tended to hang out in the music building most of the time—perhaps a bit too much. I managed to find a way into a locked archive room where I found some amazing treasures. There was sheet music, instruments, old 78-rpm glass records—a wealth of interesting items. And there were records of contemporary Christian rock and jazz bands. This was music we were not allowed to listen to at the school. And I took full advantage of my find.
Among the wealth of music I found a record from the Sweet Comfort Band, a Christian jazz-fusion group that just knocked my socks off. They were phenomenal musicians and they had a great message in their songs. I wished so much that I could share this music with my friends at the time, but since this style of music was outlawed at the college and because I had found it by breaking into a locked archive closet, I thought it best to keep it to myself.
Today I ran across a video of one of the songs from that album. You may recognize the lead singer as Bryan Duncan, who is still producing outstanding Christian music today.
Sweet Comfort – Get Ready
Years later, Sweet Comfort’s lead singer, Bryan Duncan, is still producing quality music with a fantastic message. This performance from 2007 encourages those who have not yet trusted in Christ to make that move NOW! And his message has not changed at all from what he was saying in People Get Ready.
Bryan Duncan - Step By Step
This last one is an appeal to those who didn’t know that they needed to get ready and they didn’t know that they needed to keep moving forward in the Lord step-by-step. This is the appeal given to those folks from Jesus:
I Loved You With My Life
Thirty years later, I still love this group. And I pray that God is using their message to reveal himself to those who need to find him. And I pray that he is pulling them into his family through Bryan’s music.
We listened to those last night and enjoyed them, but when we were done, Bethel said, "I'm all 70's-ed out now, Mom." :-)
ReplyDeleteTim and I were conjecturing about where the music in that locked closet might have come from, and I guessed it was confiscated from students as contraband. If so, they should have let them take it home on break!
I hate to say it - not to ruin anyone's reputation or anything, but that Sweet Comfort Band album had a name written on the top right corner - that name was Donald P. Ellsworth. You may have heard of him.
ReplyDeleteOh - and the last two videos were from just a couple years ago, although the last song was written in the 90s.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I realized that. It's so odd, because the _sound_ is such a 70's sound. Or that was what B. and I thought, anyway. But we noticed that he said that about the one song being 12 years old, which would put it in the 90's.
ReplyDeleteI have to go tell Tim about Ellsworth's name on the album. From Tim's perspective, it is a far, far worse thing to steal music from students than to own "disallowed" music oneself. He has a strong sense of property rights and was ready to believe the worst about the authorities. :-)
I think the funk bass gives it a 70s kind of feel. Of course, jazz-fusion has not been main stream music since the 70s either, so perhaps that is what gives it a 70s feel.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Tim. I actually developed a great deal of respect for some of the faculty there at BBC when I found out that they didn't blindly follow the rules of the college. Dr. Carter once told me that the rules of the college had to be set in place to preserve order, not because they were necessarily biblical rules on their own. That made sense to me and made me realize that it wasn't a violation of the school rules for the professors to have albums like Sweet Comfort. After all, they weren't students.