Description
Jesus Stand Among Us, sub-titled Twelve songs of ministry, praise and worship, is an album by the British singer and songwriter Graham Kendrick (credited “Graham Kendrick and friends” – Sheila Walsh, Elizabeth Davidson and John Daniels), released on Dove Records in 1979. The album was recorded by Les Moir at ICC Studios in Eastbourne, England; with John Pantry producing. String and brass arrangements by Dave Anfield.
A praise/worship release featuring Kendrick on vocals, together with friends Sheila Walsh, Elizabeth Davidson and John Daniels. Very mellow, orchestrated with strings, woodwinds and brass – like a British version of the early Maranatha Praise series. Described as “twelve songs of ministry, praise and worship” , all but one written by Kendrick. Very different from his other albums. [Ken Scott, The Archivist, 4th edition]
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Jesus Stand Among Us”
A2. “O God My Creator”
A3. “23rd Psalm”
A4. “I’d Never Known A Peace So Sweet”
A5. “Abba, We Are Your Children”
A6. “Peace I Give To You”
Side Two
B1. “Do Not Strive”
B2. “Where The Spirit Of The Lord Is”
B3. “In Your Way”
B4. “Why Do You Weep”
B5. “Jesus Is King”
B6. “Imannuel”
Les Moir: The Chronicler of Britain’s modern worship movement.
When I left school, I went to work in a recording studio in London. After three years there I moved to Eastbourne to work at a recording studio called ICC Studios. ICC Studios was a Christian studio really. All the staff were Christians but the standard of productions, recording and attitude was very professional. I arrived there and within a month of starting a guy called Graham Kendrick arrived. He recorded his first album of contemporary worship songs. I recorded that album, it was called ‘Jesus Stand Among Us’. Little did I realise that I was walking into the start of a – you could say explosion – of worship, of new songs in the UK Church. What happened was some of the artists who were folk singers and musicians started to lend their craft to writing new worship songs for the Church instead of writing just folk songs or just contemporary pop songs. Before, the worship was so formal, there wasn’t much freedom and if you were a musician worship in a church was cringy. But these guys really upped the standard. All these new songs came that were really relevant and I used to lead them on acoustic guitar rather than the organ. All these things changed and so I became part of that. We have this phrase, “We care about your praise.”
I was commissioned by a guy called Geoff Shearn to develop the recording of praise and worship albums in the UK and so we found a way to mix live albums, a live experience in the studio. It was amazing. I worked with a lot of the key guys, with Graham Kendrick, with Noel Richards, a guy called Chris Bowater, Dave Fellingham, Dave Bilbrough, Ian White, all these guys that were really making a lot of progress at that point. And then I became a record producer, producing their albums and then I moved from producing into A&R, helping see the artist develop. I was working for a company called Kingsway which was also in Eastbourne and then within a couple of years working there I started to see that God was doing an amazing thing with young people. It was like this fresh wave of creativity was coming and again more new songs and different expression. I went to the head of Kingsway (a guy called John Pac [of Parchment fame]) and he allowed me to start a record label called Survivor Records and that helped bring through – I was gonna say this next sound track of worship for the next 15 years. I had the privilege of working very closely with Soul Survivor festival and a young man called Matt Redman and another young man called Tim Hughes and bands like Yfriday and One Hundred Hours. Again it was another explosion of creativity and gatherings. So that has been a delight. Also, a church called Holy Trinity Brompton birthed something that became a movement called Worship Central and again that just pushed the boundaries in terms of worship. I just loved being part of finding diverse and new ways to declare the praises of God.
[ Excerpt from an interview with the British A&R manager, record producer and session bassist Les Moir – entitled “Les Moir: The Chronicler of Britain’s modern worship movement”. Interview conducted by Tony Cummings and published at crossrhythms.co.uk, 17th August 2017 ]
CREDITS. Produced by John Pantry. Recorded at ICC Studios, Eastbourne, England. Engineered by Les Moir. String and Brass Arrangements by Dave Anfield. Sleeve Design by Chris Bourne.
Musicians: Graham Kendrick (Vocals, Acoustic Guitar), Sheila Walsh (Vocals), Elizabeth Davidson (Vocals), John Daniels (Vocals, Piano, Fender Rhodes), Gerry Page (Mandolin), Simon Dennis (Bass), Mike Wade (Drums). Backing Vocals: John Pantry.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.