Media
One Voice
Four years in the making, with a cast of over two hundred pulling together many different nations, and the most anticipated album of the year is finally ready for release. Yet One Voice isn’t just another collection of various artists or collaboration of exotic personnel. One Voice is more than all that. One Voice is, well, something extra.
What would you expect from an album that features the leading lights of gospel, Christian and a whole load of other scenes? From Erica Campbell (Mary Mary) to Darlene Zschech, Martin Smith to Smokie Norful, Tim Hughes, Israel Houghton, a specially reformed Nu Colours, Kierra Kiki Sheard, Brenton Brown, Warryn Campbell, Tommy Sims, Muyiwa, Matt Redman, Rance Allen, Bishop John Francis, Noel Robinson – One Voice has pulled everyone together – and not just to lay down a quick vocal take in the studio, either. The unity and buy-in from these artists is matched only by the passion and urgency of the songs themselves.
But how did it get here in the first place? Let’s start with the backstory. It’s just past Christmas 2004 and London Community Gospel Choir co-founder Lawrence Johnson is watching in horror as the devastation from the Boxing Day tsunami reveals itself.
“For the first time I felt challenged: what was I – and what were other Christians – going to do about it?” explains Lawrence.
The answer was not slow in coming. Before long he was on the phone to Les Moir (Survivor Records) wondering out loud if it might just be possible to get a few people from the gospel and Christian music scenes together to explore the idea of making a charity record.
“An hour later Les called me back. He had been given the use of Abbey Road studio 1. It all kicked off from there.”
That day in Abbey Road turned out to be even more significant than anyone could have guessed, as Les Moir explains:
“There was one moment on that day when all 150 artists were in the same room and we realised that we had touched something. There was this sense of these two tribes really coming together. Lawrence and I were looking at each other, and we knew that we needed to carry it on.”
Jointly written by Mark Beswick and Tim Hughes, the single came out – with the title ‘One Voice, One Heart’. Through sales the track generated £30,000 which helped rebuild the fishing village of Thantri, South India. And back at home the story was far from over too. Regular One Voice days in London drew these tribes together; black, white, urban and suburban, Pentecostal, Evangelical… the net was cast wide, all with the sole purpose of bringing together communities that had for too long kept to themselves.
Three years on and those exercises in strengthening the ties between diverse communities have become something remarkable. One Voice is an album unlike any other. Where do you rack it? How do you define it? The questions don’t come with easy answers, as Lawrence knows well:
“People ask me what slot this fits into, but I really don’t have a clue. People ask me and I just ask them to have a listen and then tell me where they think it fits. But I do know this: I hope that it will strengthen the community and connect the cultures not reinforce our ideas about how different we are.”
And that’s the heart of all this – an album that reaches across some divides that really ought to have no place within the church. A collection of songs that aims to draw together people from every tribe, tongue and nation. As Lawrence explains, ‘this is the music of our people; this is a glimpse of heaven.’
|
