Our Front Porch: New Sounds of the 70’s

Description

Our Front Porch: New Sounds of the 70’s is an album by the American vocal pop combo Ralph Carmichael and The Young People, released on Light Records in 1970. The album was recorded by Ami Hadani at T.T.G. Studios in Hollywood, California; with Bill Cole producing. Arranged and conducted by Ralph Carmichael who also wrote all the songs except “I’ve Got Confidence” by Andrae Crouch and “Bright New World” by Flo Price.

Starting around 1967, Ralph Carmichael and his “Young People” recording group had created several albums of youth-centered choral music – ‘For Pete’s Sake‘, ‘I Looked For Love‘ and ‘Young‘. The songs included on these LPs were filled with modern and youthful arrangements of many of Ralph’s songs, designed to capture not only the ears but also the hearts of young people. His compositions always spoke from his own heart, usually coming from a personal experience he had faced, and that reality seemed to resonate with the kids. In addition, his arrangements for these choral albums expanded the boundaries of what “church music” sounded like, and kids found music they could relate to – while older adults were often resistant to these new sounds.

‘Our Front Porch’, released on Ralph’s Light Records label around 1972, was the probably the “edgiest” of this series of albums. The songs spoke in more personal ways than ever before and used language that the young people of the “peace and love generation” could easily understand. Campus Life, part of Youth For Christ International, created the hip-reading liner notes that had phrases such as “we’re the ones shoved out to the edge of the action,” and “hammer out justice and love for the people!” As usual, Ralph used the best singers in Hollywood for this recording, including John Bahler, Stan Farber and Gene Morford who were part of the Ron Hicklin Singers, well-known for their work on commercial jingles, TV show themes (e.g., ‘Batman’, ‘Happy Days’, ‘Love, American Style’), and other recording productions with arrangers such as Ray Conniff, Henry Mancini and Percy Faith. And of course Ralph’s daughter, Carol (Kim) Carmichael, was also used and featured on the album as well. The background arrangements relied heavily on electronics, guitars and percussion. Eight of the songs were written by Ralph: «Our Front Porch», «Smiling at Rainstorms», «Trust Me Now», «Reach Out to Jesus», «Dressing Up Jesus», «Memories», «We’re Not Going to Make it Together» and «The Flower Shoppe». Flo Price wrote «Bright New World» and Andrae Crouch composed «I’ve Got Confidence», filling out the collection of ten songs. Ralph’s Young People would also be featured on a couple of Light albums of non-Carmichael songs: ‘Have A Nice Day‘ (songs by Bobby Hammack) and ‘New Vibrations‘ (a youth musical by Tedd Smith).

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Our Front Porch” – 3:59
A2. “Smiling at Rainstorms (Psalm 59)” – 2:57
A3. “Bright New World” – 2:31
A4. “Trust Me Now (Psalm 37)” – 4:39
A5. “Reach Out to Jesus” – 3:08

Side Two
B1. “Dressing up Jesus” – 4:01
B2. “Memories” – 3:45
B3. “We’re Not Going To Make It Together” – 3:01
B4. “The Flower Shoppe” – 3:55
B5. “I’ve Got Confidence” – 3:00