Music
- Psalm 90
- Comfort My People
- Amen, Listen To Our Prayer
- Jenny
- You Are To Be Holy
- Ride On, King Jesus
- Shepherd of Life
- The Lord Has Done Great Things
- You Are Near
- The Lord’s Prayer
Early in 1998, after spending about ten years playing in various bands in the nightclub scene in Winnipeg, I had an experience of the presence of God. These things are hard to describe - it was just a presence. And in the presence was a voice that said: this time of your life is over. There is something else for you to do. Shortly after, an old family friend and mentor, Fr. Bob MacDougal (100 Huntley St.) called me up and suggested I do a “Gospel” album. I had neither the money or the songs for an album. But Fr. Bob encouraged me to find the music and committed to fund the project.
Within a very short time, songs started pouring out of me. Myself and two friends, Larry Campell and Byron O’Donnell rented a small appartment, christined it “The Hit Pit” and started meeting there regularily to write songs. Within a few months I wrote most of the music for the next several albums. I recorded Comfort My People over the winter and debuted it at Winnipeg’s first Habitat for Humanity work camp in July 89.
Initially I made 300 cassettes (pre-CD) and gave 100 to Fr. MacDougal and hoped to eventually sell the rest. At the time it had not yet occurred to me that this was what I would be doing with my life.
- Wings of an Eagle
- Why Do We HWhunger For Beauty
- Hear our Prayer
- Faith’s Song
- Cashe Island
- Fashion for Me
- Deep Calls to Deep
- What a Longing
- Marie
- Blessed are the Poor
- The Wellspring
- Holy Lord
A couple years after Comfort my People was released I recieved a letter from a Gordon Matties. Gordon had taught a course on the Old Testament that I audited a few years prior. But at this time he was writting me from Israel where he was taking a study sabbatical.
Gordon’s letter explained that he had been listening to my first album quite a bit while in Isreal and he felt it was important that I did a second one. He and his wife Lori had just recieved a significant inheritance and wanted to lend it to me intrest free in order to record. Gordon also suggested that when he got home he could help me raise what-ever funds that I might need over and above what they had.
Needless to say, I was stunned. I had enormous respect for Gordon and his practical vote of confidence was huge for me. I had just returned myself from India where I had experienced severe poverty for the first time and I was still pretty raw from the experience, but I had several songs burning a hole in my pocket and wanted to get them on tape so I welcomed the support.
I started the process of recording but quickly realized I didn’t have a whole lot of creative energy to produce with - the India trip had really taken a knock out of me. So I hired Paul O’Neil to produce Deep Calls To Deep, and it remains to this day, the only album of mine that I didn’t have a major role in the production. You’ll notice it has a significantly different sound than my other projects.
When Deep first came out, the response was very negative. It sounded so different than Comfort My People and folks had (and shared) very strong reactions. Several stores refused to carry it - one, in particular, called me up and insisted I come and take them away from the store because it wasn’t “anointed.” I was devestated. I felt I had failed, and wasted good people’s money and trust. For several months I couldn’t sleep. How would I ever pay back a debt on an album that everyone hated?
One particular restless night Nanci rolled over in bed and chewed me out for worrying so much. She was more convinced than I that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing, and thought it rather sinful that I was stressing.
It was what I needed. Nanci has been such an amazing support. A few months later people started warming to the album and it has since become one of my better selling recordings.
Go figure.
- Dakota Hymn
- As Long as the Sun
- Psalm 40
- Never Mind
- How Long
- House of Peace
- Song for the Life
- So Long
- She’s in Love With Me
- I Will Not Be Shaken
- Burning Ember
- Psalm 32
- Even So Lord Jesus Come
The Burning Ember project really marks the beginning of Signpost Music. I had registered the name and was hobbling along as a small business/ministry but the whole thing was not going to last with me at the helm.
I still owed money from Deep recording, and was barely making enough from concerts to support my family, but once again, I had a handful of songs that I felt deserved to be recorded.
Dave Zeglinski, of Mid-Ocean Recording Studios in Winnipeg, was an old friend of mine and had engineered my first two albums at his studio. I loved his unique ability to record acoustic instruments and I admired his pioneering spirit. Late one night I was lamenting my poor business skills and what seemed like an insurmountable lack of funds for recording a new project. At that time in his life, Dave was weary of the commercial recording business and suggested that he could finance the recording and we could be partners in the project. I jumped at the offer and we recorded Burning Ember.
Shortly after Burning Ember came out, Dave started showing up to concerts to do sound, manage the sales and all the other details I never seemed to get around to. His attention to detail immediately proved to increase revenues until he finnaly suggested to me that we go in together on the whole business of my music. He would bring his resources to the table and I mine. It took me a little while to get used to the idea of loosening my grip on my music, but it was clearly a gift of God that someone of his calibre and unique set of skills would be passionate about my music enough to risk his own carreer. We soon became business partners in Signpost Music and the rest is history.
Aside - mixing the song Never Mind (on Burning Ember) is still my favorite studio memory. It was the first time I really felt we had done something great.
- Ready My Heart
- May It Be Done
- Magnificat
- The Angel Gabriel
- Come Thou Long Expected Jesus
- Instrumental
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / Angels We Have Heard on High / Silent Night
- The Coventry Carol
- O Holy Night
- I Heard The Bells
- Every Stone Shall Cry
- Old Sage
- The Coventry Carol (reprise)
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.
