Book reviews - Reading of Redemption

Encyclopaedia of Contemporary Christian Music - Mark Allan Powell

This is a remarkable work. It is utterly breath taking in it’s breadth of artists included, the depth of the study of those artists and the heights in which it reaches in the writing and even in the theological content socio-musical commentary. It is fascinating at every sitting, turning up another artist to investigate and evaluate, nearly always bringing another gem of knowledge or insight. Mark Allen Powell is a New Testament Professor. You can tell. What may not look to be of advantage to a book on music quickly becomes one as we enjoy the thoroughness of research, the adroit theological perspective, cultural and artistic insight and the contextualisation of bands, albums and themes and the academic yet accessible tone of the entire work.

And everybody who has a Christian faith and loves music should have this on their shelf. There are many Christians who avoid the ghetto that is Contemporary Christian Music; this book is about a much bigger vision. Alongside every artist ever to record an album or do a gig in that particular sub cultural ghetto apart from the only omissions that I have yet to find, Beki Hemingway and Belfast’s Brian Houston, there are those artists who have taken their faith with them into the “real” world. Bob Dylan, U2, T-Bone Burnette and Daniel Lanois are among the least expected.

Artists who perhaps were a thorn in the CCM industries side get their deserved dignity and respect; see Larry Norman, the 77s and Leslie/Sam Phliiips. If only Powell was the buying public, justice would have prevailed in the Charts! Mark Heard gets six pages of lyrical analysis. With Sarah Masen he takes time to get inside the very mindset of the artist and her approach to the industry pinpointing her philosophy on “a wry smile”; surely this detail unexpected, unnecessary and gloriously unequalled!

Where other rock encyclopaedias have a tendency to skip and skim to be economical with the number of pages, Powell has time and room for the most in depth look at the artists who deserve it. Entries for Larry Norman, Steve Taylor and the 77s are literally the best biographies written with facts and statistics never getting in the way of a thorough look at the content of the songs.

Errors? Of course, but they are being put right with every new printing. For the record English poet and broadcaster Stewart Henderson who co writes with Welsh singer songwriter Martyn Joseph is mistaken for Jack Henderson an Englishman who joined Over The Rhine for a period. Am I picking hairs? Most definitely!

I did say everyone should have one. Let me say it one more time. Everyone should have one. Simply immense!

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