Music Day

Last Sunday, a man from our church sang this song.

Now I've got to set this up a little. He's a soft-spoken, quiet Filipino guy. I don't know him well, but he seems quite reserved. Pleasant, but reserved.

But when that guy takes the microphone and starts to sing -- holy smokes. I would put him in my top five favourite vocalists of all time -- you know, the same list that Rick Florian would top.

I always look forward to hearing him sing. Not only does he have a singing voice that demands you sit up and pay attention, a voice that leads you with authority and gentleness and passion into a completely different world, he always picks the best songs to sing. While everybody else gets up and sings 10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord) for the umpteenth time, this dude is pulling stuff from as far back as the early '90s and backroads you'll-never-see-this-in-the-Christian-bookstore CCM that nobody knew about and those who did know about it have long since forgotten it existed.

But this man didn't. And he brings them to life in no uncertain form.

Honestly, I liked that guy's vocal take on this song better than the original artist's (though his is good too -- anybody who used to be with White Heart is indisputably talented). But since that one's not available on iTunes (or anywhere else for that matter) we'll have to settle for the original.

Oh, but even that is utterly amazing.

Title: In Brokenness You Shine
Artist: Steve Green
Album: Somewhere Between
Year: 2005
Label: Sparrow Records
iTunes here; YouTube here.

I love, love, love the orchestration on this. This kind of care in the arrangement, and this kind of beautiful dynamic is what's missing in music today (you know, in addition to good songwriting and synthscapes and textured, nuanced mixing and creativity in general...).