Description
The Very Best of Graham Kendrick: Knowing You Jesus is a double disc compilation by the British singer and songwriter Graham Kendrick, released on Kingsway Music in May 2010.
“More than ever, my heart’s desire is to help lift hearts, minds and voices to glorify God.” Well that’s worked, thanks to God’s obvious anointing on Graham Kendrick over the last few decades. With such a prolific output he could be classed as the Haydn or Mozart of the British church and as with both of those gentlemen, some music stands out head and shoulders above the rest. We have here 30 of Graham’s best-loved songs and what a relief to find that all except three are new arrangements and recordings rather than this being one of Kingsway’s over familiar “from the archives” compilations. Produced by a variety of production teams the arrangements ooze musicality and sensitivity whether in the gentleness of «For This I Have Jesus» or in the energy of «Teach Me To Dance» and each song is given space to breathe, never over-produced. Eight songs are duets, one of these being the absolute standout track for me – «Lord You’ve Been Good To Me» with Martin Smith, taken from the ‘What Grace’ album – the timbres of their two voices blend perfectly. Other highlights are the combination of reflection and victory of «Amazing Love», the beautiful arrangement of the «May The Fragrance» duet with Nicki Rogers, and the poignancy of the closing «Until The Day» duet with Darlene Zschech. Lyrically, the album is suffused with Jesus, evoking memories of past glories and glory to come, and the title is perfectly apt. Graham says “It’s when people say some things like: ‘That song is how I feel. . . that’s what I believe too. . . that’s what we wanted to sing but didn’t have the words. . . that song carried me through tough times. . . that line always moves me to tears’; it’s then that I feel most humbled, privileged and grateful to have been given the gift of song-making, to have been on this journey.” What a journey it has been, and long may it continue! It’s worth mentioning that if you buy it from iTunes you will receive two additional bonus tracks not present on the CD version («We Believe and Your Love», «Your Mercy» feat. Tim Hughes). [Matthew Cordle, Cross Rhythms, July 2010]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-very-best-of-graham-kendrick-knowing-you-jesus/1734636047)
2CD tracklist:
Disc One
1-01. Knowing You Jesus – 4:37
1-02. Shine Jesus Shine – 4:49
1-03. God is Great – 3:57
1-04. The Servant King (feat. Nicki Rogers) – 4:55
1-05. Thank You For the Cross – 3:49
1-06. Is Anyone Thirsty? – 3:50
1-07. For This I Have Jesus – 4:32
1-08. Lord You’ve Been Good To Me (feat. Martin Smith) – 5:19
1-09. Restore O Lord – 3:04
1-10. Jesus Stand Among Us / Here is Bread – 4:28
1-11. Amazing Love – 4:59
1-12. God of the Poor (Beauty for Brokennes) – 5:17
1-13. There Is a Hope So Sure (feat. Darlene Zschech) – 4:16
1-14. All the Glory / And He Shall Reign – 6:24
Disc Two
2-01. Let the Flame Burn Brighter (feat. Psalm Drummers) – 4:11
2-02. Meekness and Majesty – 3:37
2-03. What Can I Do? (feat. Paul Baloche) – 5:06
2-04. O Lord Your Tenderness / Such Love (feat. Nicki Rogers) – 4:48
2-05. Teach Me To Dance – 4:18
2-06. You’re Alive (Led Like a Lamb) – 4:53
2-07. Come and See (feat. Faye Simpson) – 6:11
2-08. May the Fragrance (feat. Nicki Rogers) – 3:16
2-09. To You O Lord (feat. Matt Redman) – 4:39
2-10. O Lord the Clouds Are Gathering – 5:04
2-11. Who Can Sound the Depths – 4:28
2-12. This Is My Beloved Son – 4:25
2-13. Until the Day (feat. Darlene Zschech) – 4:47
How the modern worship movement was born. // Interview with Les Moir on The Profile
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 ]
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