The Frozen Chosen: Inspired Folk Children

We have reached the half-way mark for the 2012 Platinum Vinyl Awards. When you start in October, this is six months in. This was a good quarter for Modern Worship, Alternative and Rock, not so good for Children's Music or Dance.

Children's Music

• Yancy - Little Praise Party: Happy Day Every Day

Folk/Folk Rock Music

• All Sons and Daughters - Season One

This one needs a brief explanation. If you know anything about the duo, you are already saying "what about Reason to Sing, Vol 2". Yes, I know. I dropped it from contention. Before you go about whining, let me explain. Since Brokenness Aside, Volume 1 and Reason to Sing Volume 2 are part of Season One (a Combined New Release), it makes little sense to have them both. The Full Release is therefore the only one being considered.

Inspirational Music

• Calvin Jones and Teresa Scanlon - Dueling Pianos: White Water Chopped Sticks - City of Peace
• Parachute Band: Matins Vespers
• Phillips, Craig and Dean - Breathe In
• Michael W. Smith - Decades of Worship
• Various Artists - Seasons of Hope
• Various Artists - Seasons of Joy
• Various Artists - Seasons of Reflection

That gets things started. Please feel free to comment. Good choices, you think I missed one, or someone was snubbed. All comments are welcome. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Music Video Monday: Poison and Wine

Welcome to the latest installment of Music Video Monday. We have come to the end of the first part of this column as we are approaching the end of the videos which are associated with the nominated songs, albums and artists in the 2011 Platinum Vinyl Awards. This week we are doing the Song of The Year Videos, and that will wrap it up. Next week we will move on to some newer videos.

We begin our video tour with the modern worship anthem As for Me and My House by John Waller.

We Continue with Third Day and Children of God

They say nothing in life is free, but Hyland begs to differ. They say This Love Is Free.

We return to a video that was shared earlier in the series, The City Harmonic and Manifesto.

A Rousing Gospel Song follows, Window by Canton Jones.

We move from Gospel to Dance, although this is more of a slow dance song. The next three are audio only. Sorry about that. This is Are You Ready by Beckah Shae


Another Audio only. This one is from the multi-artist masterpiece Music Inspired by The Story. This is Mark Hall and Megan Garrett from Casting Crowns as Abraham and Sarah in Who But You. .

Another orchestra laden ballad from some otherwise very Hard Rockers. This is Red and the Hymn for the Missing, one of the most haunting songs out there this year.


And we finish, as always, with the song teased in the title. This duo has grown on me since I first heard them for the first time last winter. This is The Civil Wars, and Poison and Wine..

I may have let my love for Strings overwhelm my choices, but such is the way of this blog. If you are into great ballads, then I think you will agree that all of these songs are great Song of The Year Candidates.

That completes this edition of Music Video Monday. I will return Next Monday with more great videos. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

MVM: Resurrection Sunday Edition

It's Resurrection Sunday, or to the rest of the people, Easter. I hope all of you in Night Beat land are enjoying a wonderful day. And to my Jewish readers, Happy Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread. It actually sorta coincides this time. And it should. The Last Supper was a Passover Meal.

I thought I would do a special Music Video Monday on a Sunday. The regular Music Video Monday will come as scheduled. This is a bonus edition.

I will begin with The Easter Song, written by Annie Herring and the 2nd Chapter of Acts, and covered by Flashback Friday subject Keith Green.

Next We Go to Don Francisco and He's Alive.

And We conclude with Rise Again, by Dallas Holm.

Have A Wonderful Easter. He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed.

Lawdy, Lawdy, That's a fine looking Vespa

Actually its Vesper. Unlike the Italian scooter, The Vespers are a Folk/Bluegrass/Americana group from Tennessee. Now your intrepid blogger is not opposed to Folk, just country, and to some that is a very fine line, but I walk it.

Now some would say that I have already stumbled into country with my appreciation for The Civil Wars, but they call themselves folk and I accept it. On the other hand, the girls of Point of Grace now trigger my gag reflex, as they are full on y'all country (Christmas Music excepted for some reason). Of Course Folk Rock is always a staple of mine (Thank You J Knapp). Talent can always overcome my bias, of course. A case in point would be Dennis Agajanian. Technically he could be Country, but you've got to admire a person who can pick a guitar as fast as he can. That kind of talent transcends genre.

The Fourth Wall is the second album by the Brother-Sister Folk act. Actually two brothers Bruno and Taylor Jones, and two sisters, Callie and Phoebe Cryar (I wonder if they are related to Morgan Cryar). Oh, they write all their own songs (only Grinnin In Your Face isn't written by them).

They first single released was Better Now, which was based on the Man Born Blind. I knew right then that this was something special. Last year I locked on to The Civil Wars as a genre defining release in the Folk Category. This time I think it definitely is The Vespers. If you like Banjo Pickin, try Will You Love Me, Rock out to Got No Friends and Close My Eyes. There is something for everyone here. Even a simple piano tune like Winter. Don't take my word for it. I would like to thank Soundcloud for the opportunity to provide the music to listen to before you buy. This marks a new Era in Night Beat History.


If you have decided that you enjoy the music of The Vespers as much as I do, I would ask that you click on the links and help support The Night Beat while you do. I am giving The Fourth Wall an excellent 4.75 Emerald rating, making it the one to beat this year in Folk. Lawdy what an album. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Flashback Friday: Would You Like Fries with your Mannaburger?

We're still stuck in the Seventies here at The Night Beat, though we have finished with the Jungle Music skit. The Eighties may have been CCM's Golden Age, but it's birth came in the Seventies, give or take a few years.

Part of the fun of the early CCM era came because a few of the top acts were somewhat certifiable, or at least came with a very twisted sense of humor. Now in the eighties Steve Taylor pretty much ran away with the title of Clown Prince (or is it Clone Prince), but at the start there were two, and as good fortune would have it they are united in a group of three which we will discuss in our next series of Flashback Friday posts.

Our trio happens to be CCM Legends Keith Green, Randy Stonehill, and Phil Keaggy. They all came together through one song, Love Broke Through. The song was written by Stonehill and Green, along with another person, Todd Fishkind, and was famously recorded by Keaggy. Just to make things certain, Stonehill and Green were the demented ones, and that made them all the more loved.

We are going to start with Keith Green, if only because he is the only one of the three which is no longer with us.

Keith Green (October 21, 1953 - July 28, 1982) was a musical prodigy. According to his bio on Wikipedia he had learned the Ukulele by age 3, the guitar by 5 and the piano by 7. Don't get depressed. By the age of 11 he had already written 40 Songs and was on the verge of being signed by DECCA as a teen idol. Of Jewish Heritage and raised in a Christian Science background, Green became a Christian in 1972 and he and his wife Melody soon started a music ministry soon afterward.

Keith released Seven studio albums in his brief career. Actually, only four were released when he was alive For Him Who Has Ears To Hear (1977), No Compromise (1978), So You Wanna Go Back To Egypt (1980) and Songs For The Shepherd (1982). His wife Melody released another three albums posthumously, though these were originals and not best of's. I Only Want to See You There (1983), The Prodigal Son (1983) and Jesus Commands Us To Go (1984) rounded out the list.

I am going to give you three video treats to introduce you to this great musician, who was taken from us tragically way before his time, in a plane crash in 1982, at the tender age of 29. It's hard to believe he would only be 59 this fall. I will start with the song that united Keaggy, Stonehill and Green, Love Broke Through.

We will go next to He'll Take Care of the Rest, which shows why Keith was often compared to Elton John in style.

And finally, to confirm what I said about slightly certifiable, this is So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt.

That concludes this edition of Flashback Friday. We will return next Friday with the second artist of the triad, Randy Stonehill. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Oh, by the way. To answer the question posed in the title. For forty years the answer would have been "what else is there? It would have been the manna burger with manna fries and a manna shake. Possibly out of the great mercy of God, nobody was allowed to super-size.

The Best Played Plans

It isn't exactly Robert Burns (Steinbeck just used a line for his novel) or even the magnitude of Ezekiel's Wheels within Wheels but Plans Within Plans, the latest release by Bremerton, Washington Punk Rockers MxPx (The name was supposed to be Magnified Plaid, but someone thought the periods on the small poster were an x So MxPx it became. Seriously, would you listen to a band named Magnified Plaid) is equally momentous. The album marks the bands return to the recording studio for an original album in five years (a Covers album On The Cover II came out in 2009).

I'm not a big punk rock fan, though I am a fan of several punk acts, most notably Bleach. Of course bleach was known for longer songs. Actually that's the biggest gripe I have with this album. It goes bye too fast. I could call it speed punk. I know that it isn't true, because the album is around 35 minutes long, but it goes by fast. Of the thirteen songs on the album, nine of them clock in at under three minutes in length and one of them, Screw Loose, clocks in at just over one minute in length.

The album opens with one of my favorite songs on the album, Playing Aces, and the line "You may have to bluff sometimes". Considering that my novel in progress has my heroine (at least one of them) as a lady gambler in the old west, I think this would be her song.

The album is a speed rush. If you are looking for a slow ballad breather, there isn't one. If you're an adrenaline junkie, this is your album.  Actually, The Times would probably be considered an MxPx slow song, but to nobody else.

The album grows on you, and the songs will get quickly stuck in your head. In a good way. The album is a memorable one in that it marks the bands Twenty Year mark. Not many CCM bands these days last twenty years, much less put out such good music after all that time. The norm is to start mailing it in and living on ones reputation. Not these guys.

I would be doing a disservice to my readers if I did not give you the opportunity to experience a bit of the band. I close my review with a live performance of Far Away, the ninth cut on the album.

I am going to give Plans Within Plans a final rating of 4.75 Emeralds this album is Pure Platinum Punk, though not Perfectly Pure, if only because it is so short. I want more MxPx. We shall see a lot more from this band as the Third Platinum Vinyl Awards takes shape. Check it out, let me know what your opinion of the band is. If you choose to buy, please do so at the link and help support The Night Beat. Until next time, I am Awaiting Your Reply.

Music Video Monday: Beautiful Ashes

Welcome to Music Video Monday, where we share the best Christian Music Videos on the web. Since we started this segment we have mainly centered on music which made the nominations of this years edition of the Platinum Vinyl Awards. That is slowly coming to an end, but we still have a few more posts to go.

Todays edition is a continuation of last weeks. Rock was a very big category this year and we split off the Hard Rock and Metal, but we still have a full slate for this week.

We're going to start off with a bit of Southern Rock. A little bit of Rock, A little bit spiritual, and all Third Day. It's hard to get more southern than Georgia. This is Lift up Your Voice from Move.

New Artist nominee Icon For Hire exhorts us all to get up and Make A Move. This Ariel is not your typical Disney Princess, not by a long shot.

We move on to the Ammunition Ministry and its band Worth Dying For and their post-apocalyptic concept video for Destroy from Love Riot. Personally, I consider this opening song and the next, entitled Savior, to be a single unit, thematically speaking.

We move on to Switchfoot, one of the hottest acts out there today, with a video from their latest release Vice Verses. This is Dark Horses.

And finally, if a good Christian rocker doesn't listen to Evanescence, at least they aren't forbidden from hearing her nearest imitation. This is the band named after its lead singer, Rebecca Denee Krueger. Doesn't ring a bell? I left out one part of her name. Lord of The Rings readers know it. Eowyn. This is Beautiful Ashes.

Wow, what a way to go out. I still have one more PVA related post, that of Song of The Year, and we shall see how things go with that. Until next time, as always, I am Awaiting Your Reply.