For years folks have been asking for recordings of the stories I tell along with the songs I sing. I have always been reticent to do this sort of project but Dave Z. finally convinced me it would be a good thing. So last year, with the generous support of a friend, we purchased some mobile recording gear and started recording concerts. Then, Dave sat down and listened to the dozens of concerts trying to find performances worth remembering - poor guy.

I have to admit, I can’t think of a more tedious job than doing sound for the same artist for years on end. Dave has probably sat through close to a thousand concerts of mine, and then to think he had to wade through some 60 concerts to cull and compile one CD is beyond my comprehension.

Anyway - it’s odd to me that I’ve come to be known as a storyteller. I played for years in nightclubs and hardly spoke a word. Then one night I found myself on an outdoor stage performing solo for a public church event. For some seemingly random reason, I opened my mouth and started telling stories -

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This project was a labour of love. I have been a fan of, and inspired by the music of Bruce Cockburn ever since a friend introduced me to his music in 1976 with the album Circles in the Stream. Circles is a live concert recording containing songs like Lord of the Starfields, All the Diamonds,Dialogue With the Devil and God Bless the Children. It is, to this day, probably the single most influencial recording of my life.

It’s hard to know what has most caught and kept my attention all these years. Initially of course I was enthralled by Bruce’s guitar playing. I had never heard fingerstyle like that before. Cockburn’s unique combination of rootsy, bluesy Canadiana absolutely enthralled me.

Bruce’s social conciousness perplexed and energized me as well. My father was a prison chaplain, so already I would have been somewhat attenuated to those sorts of issues, but I had never heard them in song, and certainly not in "christian" song which (in those years) usually celebrated an individual connection to God through Christ rather than a re-connection to all things in Christ.

I was also facinated by the obscurity of the poetic lyric. Obscurity is not something we Evangelicals easily appreciate. We tend to want to bring all things into the plain light and in doing so, lose the linguistic capacity for mystery.

Finally, I absolutely came to love the angular beauty of Bruce’s melodies. Bruce is a great and unique melody maker and I guess I’ve loved this music because it doesn’t sound like everyone else’s. This music has an oddly dark beauty that rings true for me.

Anyway… for these and other reasons I’ve paid close attention to Bruce’s music over the years and several of his songs have attatched themselves permanently to my story, as songs tend to do. Recently, after a particularily sad and disorienting year, I found myself retreating to old albums, like one returns to old familiar haunts in order to re-anchor. Suddenly, I wanted to record an album of several of these songs. I picked the ones I felt I could make "my own" and proceeded to record "My Dinner With Bruce."

This was a fun project - moreso than usual I think because they weren’t my songs so I didn’t have the usual stress about wondering if the material was any good - I was confident in the material. Also, finding my own interpretations of the music was an energising process. Initially I was a bit tentative about doing so, but I had a chance to meet briefly with Bruce during the project and he encouraged me to "bring something knew to the table."

I spent several days in Toronto recording Kevin Breit (Holly Cole, Norah Jones) whose musicality and skill is outrageous. I also got spend a day in Los Angeles recording lengendary percussionist Alex Acuna (Weather Report/ Leo Kottke). And, of course, Mike Janzen’s creative input in the early stages helped drive the arrangements to places I would not have gone on my own.

Another highlight for me during this project was working rather intensely with my son Jesse who engineered much of my guitar work and vocals. Jesse was an invaluable ear and coach - he has great intuition.

Finally, I must say that I was intensly proud of the mixes Dave Z. pulled off. There is a warmth and presence to this recording that is rare these days. I’m a blessed man to have such talent interested in my work.

In the end, I will admit that I’ve never had dinner with Bruce and don’t expect to. I suspect his life is full and is not looking for a new best friend. My relationship to Bruce has been through music. We have met several times and he is always extremely gracious and encouraging. After the CD came out, someone in the press asked him what he thought of this album. He said something quite complimentary and then said he felt I had honoured his songs without being a slave to his interpretations. I was very happy for those particular words.

reviewed by Bill Moller

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The Solace Project began when an friend, who was then dying of cancer, sent us an email to say that he had compiled several of my songs on a CD and was using it for pain management and comfort. He wrote in his diary,

I want to see a ’sustaining’ CD from Steve Bell, a compilation that would help those who are dying and those who love them.

Ben, had gone as far as to list which songs he thought would be best and had even thought through possible packaging scenarios for a CD.

It occurred to us at Signpost that this could be a meaningful project and so we went ahead an put SOLACE together.

Some of the songs from earlier albums were sounding rather dated up next to the more recent, so my son Jesse and I went into the studio to re-record several songs including, Wings of and Eagle, Hear our Prayer - among others (see * in list above).

It also occurred to us that such a project would be enhanced by including a second disc containing the content of an audio magazine I hosted several years ago called Can God Be Trusted. This disk contains a collection of interviews, songs and book reviews all revolving around the place of God, and indeed the trustworthiness of God given situations of suffering and loss.

We’ve also set up a way to accept donations toward the project so that we can simply give it away to hospital chaplains, hospice workers, pastors, lay care-givers and others who accompany those who are suffering. To date (spring 06) we’ve raised enough money to give away over 5000 copies.

If you would like to contribute, please visit www.solaceproject.com for more information and details.

Someone left this marvelous quote on the Solace website:

It is a great sadness when sufferers seek relief by sparing God his sovereignty over pain. The sadness is that this undercuts the very hope it aims to create…pain and loss are bitter providences. Who has lived long in this world of woe without weeping, sometimes until the head throbs and there are no more tears…? But oh the folly of trying to lighten the ship of suffering by throwing God’s governance overboard. The very thing the tilting ship needs in the storm is the ballast of God’s good sovereignty, not the unburdening of deep and precious truth. What makes the crush of calamity sufferable is not that God shares our shock, but that His bitter providences are laden with the bounty of love.

-John Piper

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This is quite possibly my favorite recording so far. Right around Sarah’s (my daughter’s) 18th birthday we decided to do an album together. Sarah sang a song on the Simple Songs album a couple of years before, and people responded quite enthusiastically to her voice. I just wanted to hear her sing some more and have the chance to do something meaningful with her before she flew the coop.

We recorded in the early fall of 2003 and toured together with Mike Janzen (piano) and Gilles Fournier (bass) across Canada over the next year. Jacob Moon joined us for the first part of the tour and I will always remember it as the best of times. Mike, Gilles and Jacob are terribly funny and the three of them together on the road kept Sarah and I laughing hard most of the waking hours.

The album itself was named Sons and Daughters (not Fathers and Daughters) because it signified (to me anyway) that we were now peers. Although I’ll always be her dad, we were now relating together as adults.

Reviewed by Steve Best / Cross Rhythms UK / December 1, 2004

This collection features daughter Sarah and continues the extremely high quality we have come to expect from a man described - quite rightly in my opinion - by Billboard magazine’s Larry LeBlanc as "…a Canadian musical treasure." All selections here are beautifully performed and arranged, particularly the jazzy treatment given to the traditional "I’ll Fly Away". Carolyn Arends has contributed "Getting Ready For Glory", written about Steve’s grandparents who were missionaries to China, while "Subtle Shiver" comes from a 17 year old babysitter, showing remarkable maturity. Steve’s superb guitar playing is to the fore throughout, but is really given a chance to shine on the fabulous "Air Jam" instrumental. Things come to an all-too-soon close with a perky reading of Paul Simon’s "59th Street Bridge Song", which features Steve’s sons Micah and Jesse on guitar, bass and lead vocals, while a final hidden track features a four year old Sarah singing a snippet of a hymn. This really is a superbly crafted and performed album, perfect late night music, and truly inspired.

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Reviewed by Steve Best / Cross Rhythms UK / December 1, 2004

From three years ago comes this absolute gem from the awesomely talented guitarist cum singer/songwriter. Things get off to a spectacular start with the fabulous acapella "Eventide" (reprised at the album’s end on acoustic guitar) - a truly breathtaking opener. Steve’s acoustic guitar talents are never far from the surface, and he is joined by a fine array of support musicians including Chapman stick expert and label mate Fergus Marsh, along with Phil Keaggy who contributes some delicious electric guitar parts on a couple of selections - most notably on "Jesus My Glory". Steve draws on a range of lyrical inspirations, including ancient prayers and psalms, and throughout this is supported by wonderful arrangements and fine sensitive performances. In all, utterly wonderful.

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Ready My Heart Comfort My People Burning Ember Hear Our Prayer The Wellspring/ Holy Lord Wings of an Eagle I Feel the Winds of God Today Drumheller Circle (story and song) Shepherd of Life (Psalm 23) Here by the Water Call Home Deep Calls to Deep

This live recording is culled from several concerts recorded across Canada in 1999. I had the immense priviledge of touring with Fergus Marsh (bass and chapman stick/ Bruce Cockburn, Mark Heard), Hugh Marsh (violin/ Bruce Cockburn, Loreena McKinnett) and Greg Black on drums.

In the mid-90s I signed a deal with Rhythm House Records for distribution of my music in the United States. Rhythm House first compiled several of my songs on a CD called Beyond a Shadow and released it in the States as my premier release. Then they took my live CD, renamed and repackaged it as Each Rare Moment and released it in the U.S. as my sophomore project. After my deal with Rhythm House came to an end, we inherited several thousand copies with this cover and so if you purchase this album, you may get either cover. The content is the same.

Each Rare Moment - U.S. version of Steve Bell Band in Concert

Reviewed by Mike Rimmer / Cross Rhythms UK / June 1, 2000

Steve Bell has been much heralded in these pages and on UCB radio simply because he is an anointed songwriter and all round good egg! It was a shrewd move for Steve to steal Bruce Cockburn’s backing band and even shrewder that he recorded this live set with them! Bell’s gentle folk songs take on a new life when he has the Chapman stick-playing Fergus Marsh adding some rhythmic fluidity to the proceedings. Of course adding into the mix Greg Black’s sensitive drumming and the wonderful violin of Steve Marsh and this live album is cooking! The whole setting is a perfect vehicle for a run through Steve Bell’s most popular songs and some examples of his dry sense of humour. It’s worth buying this just to hear him tell how prisoners in a Canadian jail taught him to play guitar! Steve’s trademark understated approach is well executed here with the band never crowding in too much on the gentler material. But then hearing the band in full flow on "Comfort My People" or "Hear Our Prayer" is just sheer joy but they really let loose on the encore "Deep Calls To Deep". If you haven’t yet discovered Steve’s integrity-filled inspiring songs, this intimate and creative setting takes them to another level.

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Beyond a Shadow is my first release into the United States. I signed a deal back in 1998 with now defunked Rhythm House Records who were then a young upstart record label out of San Antonio New Mexico.  I had just released Romantics and Mystics in Canada but we were warned that the conservative nature of the Christian Bookstores in the US would react negatively and unsupportively to a word like ‘mystics’ in an album title. Rhythm House suggested we compile the best of my first four albums into one, releasing it as a premier album in the US and as a "best of" album in Canada - and Beyond a Shadow was born.

The album did ok in the US considering that Rhythm House was new and I was unknown. Wings of an Eagle became a bit of a hit on Inspirational Radio as did Here by the Water and Psalm 40. But it soon became evident that to succeed in the market place in the States required commitment to a whole set of values and sacrifices I was simply resitent to. I think Rhythm House found me frustrating - they really were a great bunch.  But Dave and I soon learned just how ‘Canadian’ we were - and that was a bit of a liability if we expected the kind of success that a Label recording should strive for. I think  we eventually realized we had no business in that  millieu unless we were able to more fully embrace and support the whole Christian Music machinery. 

We released one more recording with Rhythm House a year later. In Canada it was a live album called Steve Bell Band in Concert.   Rhythm House re-named and re-packaged it in the States as Each Rare Moment which performed relatively poorly in the US. Our relationship with Rhythm House lost energy and we eventually (and aimably) pulled away. 

Since that time, Dave and I have fully settled into the idea of remaining more of a small, independent, grass-roots company. There is a certain level of success that is probably unnatainable this way - but it suites us.  We are both very happy for the experience and loved the folks we met.

Reviewed by Mike Rimmer / Cross Rhythms UK / April 1, 1999

After selling a bucket load of albums independently in Canada, it’s about time that Steve Bell received a wider distribution for his inspirational brand of acoustic pop and here it is. A compilation of his finest moments designed to launch him into the American marketplace. For those of us who discovered his music through UCB Europe airplay, some of this stuff is familiar but it’s just great having it all on one CD! From the hit worship song "Psalm 40" through the Paul Simonesque melodies of how "How Long" and the folky vibes of "Drumheller Circle" or the stacked harmony vocals of "Ride On King Jesus", this compilation gives you the story so far from Steve Bell. As you’d expect from this kind of affair, some of the production values waver slightly on the older material but one thing shines out from all of this, Steve Bell has talent and a pure heart to communicate Christ. It’s amazing he’s comes this far without wider coverage and to choose the small but perfectly formed Rhythms House Records is a shrewd move. Just wait for this to introduce him to a new audience and then expect some new material!

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I remember very little about making this album. Odd… it has some of  (I think) my best songs on it. I do remember bringing Johnny Rutledge up from Chicago to arrange and produce the vocals. That was amazing. I remember standing by Johnny in the studio as we were laying down some background vocals and thinking to myself, "oh… that’s what a singer is."

I met Johnny in a bar in Toronto several years earlier. I was awestruck to meet this legendary studio singer. I sheepishly told him I was a singer too and gave him a cassette of my album Deep Calls to Deep. Several years later, while recording Romantics, I decided to call him (now living in Chicago) to see if he would consider working on this album with me. It didn’t even occur to me he might remember who I was- but when I called him he exclaimed, "Steve Bell!! I’m listening to you right now!" and in the background Deep was playing on his stereo.

I think one of the better recordings of my carrer is the song Lament for a Nation on this CD. Johnny does all the back-ground vocals and his performance is brilliant.

I also remember flying all the way down to New Mexico for the photo shoot. My buddy Lou Bruno lives down there. Lou is a high-end designer/marketing type and offered to design the CD cover for me. We thought as the album was called Romantics and Mystics, we would get some great shot remenicent of Spain (much Spanish influence in the architecture down there).  In the first hour of the day of shooting, we blasted off a couple rolls of film in his office in Santa Fe before going out for the day - mostly to get used to the camera and get in the mood.  In the end we used the pictures from his office - could have been anywhere.  Lou had a Heart pounded out of metal hanging on his wall - at one point I grabbed it and held it in front of my face - and that shot made the back of the CD. When my young son Jesse saw the design his face screwed up and he said, Dad why are you holding up a bum?

When I look back on the material I had written and selected for the album, I remember that it was those days I thought a lot about the mystery of fidelity - that somehow in our culture we have lost the ability to  percieve the meaning of things like sexuality. And so adherance to seemingly random moral codes and acceptable behaviours end up being nothing but a test by a capricious, even cruel God. 

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Although this is considered a Steve Bell album, it should probably be a Steve Bell / Jamie Howison album. Jamie is a friend, mentor and also the priest at St. Benedict’s Table - the church Nanci and I worship at.

W hen Jamie heard I was recording a Christmas album he phone me up and begged, "please tell me you are writing something new!"

I wasn’t planning to. Writing Christmas songs is hard work. All the images and metaphors are so overworked that it’s hard to imagine a fresh newness being possible. But Jamie was convinced the story was yet to be exhausted and he and I together wrote May It Be Done, and Old Sage.

We also had long talks about the Christmas season - that it wasn’t actually one season, but a collection - or better yet, a feast of seasons ; advent, nativity, the slaughter of the innocents and epiphany. Jamie also pointed out that divorced from the rest of the Christian calendar, ie. Good Friday / Easter, Christmas easily
degenerates to sentimentality. So he suggested I include Richard Wilbur’s brilliant Every Stone Shall Cry which casts the Christ story cycically from birth, celebration, rejection, death and back to new life. Jamie also wisely suggested I arrange the songs liturgically to flow thematically through advent to epiphany.

In the end, the recording took on a depth that was not my doing. I have been blessed to have wonderful folks speak into my life, and in this instance, that blessing became a fish and loaves event.

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