Podcasts about All I Have

Send us a textWelcome to Guess the Year! This is an interactive, competitive podcast series where you will be able to play along and compete against your fellow listeners. Here is how the scoring works:10 points: Get the year dead on!7 points: 1-2 years off4 points: 3-5 years off1 point: 6-10 years offGuesses can be emailed to drandrewmay@gmail.com or texted using the link at the top of the show notes (please leave your name).I will read your scores out before the next episode, along with the scores of your fellow listeners! Please email your guesses to Andrew no later than 12pm EST on the day the next episode posts if you want them read out on the episode (e.g., if an episode releases on Monday, then I need your guesses by 12pm EST on Wednesday; if an episode releases on Friday, then I need your guesses by 12 pm EST on Monday). Note: If you don't get your scores in on time, they will still be added to the overall scores I am keeping. So they will count for the final scores - in other words, you can catch up if you get behind, you just won't have your scores read out on the released episode. All I need is your guesses (e.g., Song 1 - 19xx, Song 2 - 20xx, Song 3 - 19xx, etc.). Please be honest with your guesses! Best of luck!!The answers to today's ten songs can be found below. If you are playing along, don't scroll down until you have made your guesses. .....Have you made your guesses yet? If so, you can scroll down and look at the answers......Okay, answers coming. Don't peek if you haven't made your guesses yet!.....Intro song: Leather and Lace by Stevie Nicks and Don Henley (1981)Song 1: Never Tear Us Apart by Astrobandit (2024)Song 2: All I Have to Do is Dream by The Everly Brothers (1958)Song 3: Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk by Rufus Wainwright (2001)Song 4: Chandelier by Sia (2014)Song 5: Theme From Another Enlightened Rogue by Ominous Seapods (1997)Song 6: I Don't Mind by Lindsey Buckingham (2021)Song 7: Sadness by Porno for Pyros (1993)Song 8: Cherry Oh Baby by The Rolling Stones (1976)Song 9: White Riot by The Clash (1977)Song 10: Big Willie Style by Will Smith (1997)

Hailing from Kentucky, Terra Renae initially pursued modeling and completed a doctoral degree before meeting GRAMMY award winner Macy Gray by chance in Los Angeles, which kicked off her musical career recognizing her undeniable talent. Macy Gray stepped in as Renae's executive producer, facilitating collaborations with top-tier musicians and producers, deeming her a protégé. Renae's previously released singles have captured the attention of outlets like Voxwave Magazine, Naluda Magazine, Female Magazine, and Live Nation's Ones To Watch. In addition, Music Connection Magazine named her in their 2024 Hot 100 Unsigned Artists of the Year. Join Terra Renae on a journey through love, loss, and self-discovery with her debut album, All I Have, releasing March 7th. Stay connected with her on Instagram @terra.renae and TikTok@terrarenae, and visit her website, www.TerraRenae.com, for more updates and information. About Music Matters with Darrell Craig Harris The Music Matters Podcast is hosted by Darrell Craig Harris, a globally published music journalist, professional musician, and Getty Images photographer. Music Matters is now available on Spotify, iTunes, Podbean, and more. Each week, Darrell interviews renowned artists, musicians, music journalists, and insiders from the music industry. Visit us at: www.MusicMattersPodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/musicmattersdh For inquiries, contact: musicmatterspodcastshow@gmail.com Support our mission via PayPal: www.paypal.me/payDarrell     

The Greg and Dan Show highlights a moment of kindness shared with the world once a day, Monday - Friday, at 6:25 AM. Today's edition of Way To Go, Todd is titled: It's All I Have... Don't forget to spread some kindness!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

"MixTape 114 Classic Oldies Favorites" TRACK 1 AUDIO TITLE "Stand By Me" PERFORMER "Ben E. King" INDEX 01 00:00:00 TRACK 2 AUDIO TITLE "The Sound of Silence - Acoustic Version" PERFORMER "Simon & Garfunkel" INDEX 01 02:46:70 TRACK 3 AUDIO TITLE "All I Have to Do Is Dream" PERFORMER "The Everly Brothers" INDEX 01 05:31:35 TRACK 4 AUDIO TITLE "All You Need Is Love - Remastered 2009" PERFORMER "The Beatles" INDEX 01 07:41:11 TRACK 5 AUDIO TITLE "Ring of Fire" PERFORMER "Johnny Cash" INDEX 01 10:36:31 TRACK 6 AUDIO TITLE "Suspicious Minds" PERFORMER "Elvis Presley" INDEX 01 13:00:26 TRACK 7 AUDIO TITLE "Sugar, Sugar" PERFORMER "The Archies" INDEX 01 17:01:33 TRACK 8 AUDIO TITLE "Travelin' Man - Remastered" PERFORMER "Ricky Nelson" INDEX 01 19:36:73 TRACK 9 AUDIO TITLE "Splish Splash" PERFORMER "Bobby Darin" INDEX 01 21:52:10 TRACK 10 AUDIO TITLE "Do You Love Me - Mono Single" PERFORMER "The Contours" INDEX 01 23:49:50 TRACK 11 AUDIO TITLE "Runaway" PERFORMER "Del Shannon" INDEX 01 26:21:04 TRACK 12 AUDIO TITLE "Johnny B. Goode" PERFORMER "Chuck Berry" INDEX 01 28:23:33 TRACK 13 AUDIO TITLE "Tutti Frutti" PERFORMER "Little Richard" INDEX 01 30:49:36 TRACK 14 AUDIO TITLE "I Walk The Line - Single Version" PERFORMER "Johnny Cash, The Tennessee Two" INDEX 01 33:06:73 TRACK 15 AUDIO TITLE "Only the Lonely" PERFORMER "Roy Orbison" INDEX 01 35:20:16 TRACK 16 AUDIO TITLE "Dream Lover" PERFORMER "Bobby Darin" INDEX 01 37:35:34 TRACK 17 AUDIO TITLE "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" PERFORMER "The Shirelles" INDEX 01 39:53:17 TRACK 18 AUDIO TITLE "Brown Eyed Girl" PERFORMER "Van Morrison" INDEX 01 42:17:71 TRACK 19 AUDIO TITLE "You Never Can Tell" PERFORMER "Chuck Berry" INDEX 01 44:58:04 TRACK 20 AUDIO TITLE "I'm a Believer - 2006 Remaster" PERFORMER "The Monkees" INDEX 01 47:27:06 TRACK 21 AUDIO TITLE "Runaround Sue" PERFORMER "Dion" INDEX 01 49:57:73 TRACK 22 AUDIO TITLE "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" PERFORMER "Nancy Sinatra" INDEX 01 52:11:36 TRACK 23 AUDIO TITLE "Don't Be Cruel" PERFORMER "Elvis Presley" INDEX 01 54:34:24 TRACK 24 AUDIO TITLE "Bye Bye Love" PERFORMER "The Everly Brothers" INDEX 01 56:26:43 TRACK 25 AUDIO TITLE "Misirlou" PERFORMER "Dick Dale" INDEX 01 58:20:52 TRACK 26 AUDIO TITLE "Then He Kissed Me" PERFORMER "The Crystals" INDEX 01 60:24:66 TRACK 27 AUDIO TITLE "(What A) Wonderful World" PERFORMER "Sam Cooke" INDEX 01 62:45:16 TRACK 28 AUDIO TITLE "Do Wah Diddy Diddy - 2007 Remaster" PERFORMER "Manfred Mann" INDEX 01 64:44:71 TRACK 29 AUDIO TITLE "Be My Baby" PERFORMER "The Ronettes" INDEX 01 67:02:23 TRACK 30 AUDIO TITLE "Mambo Italiano (with The Mellomen) - 78rpm Version" PERFORMER "Rosemary Clooney, The Mellomen" INDEX 01 69:23:33 TRACK 31 AUDIO TITLE "Let's Twist Again" PERFORMER "Chubby Checker" INDEX 01 71:23:31 TRACK 32 AUDIO TITLE "Wipe Out - Hit Version / Extended Ending" PERFORMER "The Surfaris" INDEX 01 73:36:28 TRACK 33 AUDIO TITLE "Great Balls Of Fire" PERFORMER "Jerry Lee Lewis" INDEX 01 75:32:13 TRACK 34 AUDIO TITLE "Think" PERFORMER "Aretha Franklin" INDEX 01 77:16:50 TRACK 35 AUDIO TITLE "California Dreamin' - Single Version" PERFORMER "The Mamas & The Papas" INDEX 01 79:20:31 TRACK 36 AUDIO TITLE "Mrs. Robinson - From "The Graduate" Soundtrack" PERFORMER "Simon & Garfunkel" INDEX 01 81:42:59 TRACK 37 AUDIO TITLE "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" PERFORMER "The Animals" INDEX 01 85:02:61 TRACK 38 AUDIO TITLE "Oh, Pretty Woman" PERFORMER "Roy Orbison" INDEX 01 87:09:29 TRACK 39 AUDIO TITLE "Always On My Mind" PERFORMER "Elvis Presley" INDEX 01 89:59:40 TRACK 40 AUDIO TITLE "I Got You Babe" PERFORMER "Sonny & Cher" INDEX 01 93:19:73

On this episode of the podcast we had photographer Danielle Dombrowski on the show. Co host Mark is a photographer so it was cool to nerd out a bit on photo stuff! We talked to Danielle about getting into the 'core. We chatted about past and current photo adventures including having her pictures appear in records and shooting shows. Danielle has been on the cast before and i'm sure we will have her on again! Enjoy! Peace! Episode Music is "All I Have" by Bulldoze

On this episode of the podcast we had photographer Danielle Dombrowski on the show. Co host Mark is a photographer so it was cool to nerd out a bit on photo stuff! We talked to Danielle about getting into the 'core. We chatted about past and current photo adventures including having her pictures appear in records and shooting shows. Danielle has been on the cast before and i'm sure we will have her on again! Enjoy! Peace! Episode Music is "All I Have" by Bulldoze

Sometimes, the chain just slips. This episode is about healing. If I could afford it, I'd play this song at the end. Listen to it and heal. Sometimes a song can express what we can't. "All I Have" by Ry X fits the mood. Its lyrics capture the sentiment: “I would love to love you I would love to need you Turn around and leave you But you're caught in my heart I would love to find you I'm the one that had you Free yourself and leave me now You're caught in my darkness” You may just be something they can have if they want, nothing more. Moving on from these types of situations can be painful, but the lessons learned are invaluable for the next person you love. You will never take for granted someone who truly cares, and that's the point of learning from it. To forever cherish and respect real love and companionship. I'll be back next week to lighten the mood. Hold tight. Starfish: 00:05:58 Cloud: 000:14:29 ⚠️ These are performances and for entertainment purposes only. Make Good Decisions www.lovesexandtarot.com lovesexandtarot@gmail.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1IsG1DBKaI

On Today's Entry the Time-Capsule, the Fellas dive a little deeper on a few issues that have been causing confusion in our American society as well as the World (Check out the time stamps below please). Don't miss out, listen to the whole conversation... and don't forget...Please, Like, Comment, & Subscribe/Follow. Thanks for being apart of this young platforms growth. We love ya'll ! Time Stamps: Dear Future Robots Question: (00:00:28) 10 Million Names Project reaction: (00:02:28) #DragonBallZ Creator #AkiraToriyama was racist?? Blackface controversy: (00:10:11) #Haiti aka Ayiti: (00:15:30) Mr. Popo & Makalah (00:17:20) Scrap Metal #Media Starts off with Haiti convo (00:18:50) Ayiti is mineral rich United Nation Office of Drugs and Crime report on Haiti (00:22:00) These Haitians are Not a " #Gang " : (00:23:59) Haitians don't like the Clintons: (00:24:55) #TikTok Controversy...Should it stay or should it go?: (00:38:20) Aldi just leveled up..are they laundering money??: (00:48:18) #ShannonSharpe & #ClubShayShay can't stay out the news/ #KattWilliams on #JoeRogan: (00:52:47) #NoName's Beef with the mighty #Oprah / #WeightWatchers: (01:07:19) Why is Russell Wilson hated?: (01:16:55) Do Women prefer a Russell Wilson or a Future?: (01:23:01) MyPhilosophy: A Requiem on Kevin Samuels (Real talk); (01:27:43) Bet by Bit Prediction of The Day: (01:48:47) Please Remember to Like, Comment, Subscribe/Follow. That's All I Have for The Time-Capsule Today! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dear-future-robots/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dear-future-robots/support

Nick Power’s away so here’s an early Soul Kandi Special Vol.1 broadcast on the 13th June 2009. Omar & Stevie Wonder – “Feeling You” Dennis Ferrer ft K T Brooks – “How Do I Let Go” [Defected] Mμ Soul – “All I Have” [Whatzat] Charles Dockins – “Flowers & Kisses” This Is Rhythm ft Kathleen […] The post Soul Kandi Radio Show 24th Feb 2024 appeared first on SSRadio.

For this week's episode of Sample Sunday , Ball Hog Beats samples "All I Have" by The Moments. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ballhogbeats/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ballhogbeats/support

As a continuation of the series in Acts, Pastor David Halan presents a special message focused on the Christmas season, where we contemplate the meaning of Christ's birth, life, ministry, and sacrificial death. As Acts 20:35 says, "It is more blessed to give than receive", Pastor David provides 5 Blessings this Holiday Represents: 1) The 1st and Greatest Blessing - Christ's Life; 2) The 2nd and Significant - To Receive that Life Through Faith by Grace; 3) The 3rd and Better Blessing - The Profound Reality & Freedom in Giving; 4) The 4th and Beneficial Blessing - The Participation & Witness of Meeting the Needs of Others with Giving; and 5) The 5th & Transforming Blessing - To Understand the Humility that Comes Full Circle in Realizing that All I Have has Been Given to me by God.

A new MP3 sermon from Currytown Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: When He's All I Have, He's All I Need Subtitle: Let's Find Out Speaker: Jimmy Money Broadcaster: Currytown Baptist Church Event: Midweek Service Date: 11/21/2023 Bible: Genesis 37:13-18; Genesis 37:24 Length: 38 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Currytown Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: When He's All I Have, He's All I Need Subtitle: Let's Find Out Speaker: Jimmy Money Broadcaster: Currytown Baptist Church Event: Midweek Service Date: 11/21/2023 Bible: Genesis 37:13-18; Genesis 37:24 Length: 38 min.

A new MP3 sermon from Currytown Baptist Church is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: When He's All I Have, He's All I Need Subtitle: Let's Find Out Speaker: Jimmy Money Broadcaster: Currytown Baptist Church Event: Midweek Service Date: 11/21/2023 Bible: Genesis 37:13-18; Genesis 37:24 Length: 38 min.

Series:  Above & BeyondPart I:  What God Can Do with All I Have? Sermon by: Bro. Chris CarterScripture:  John 6:1-14In the inaugural sermon of our "Above and Beyond" series, Bro. Chris Carter delves into the profound message behind the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 from the book of John, chapter 6. While the story is familiar, Bro. Chris challenges us to see beyond the surface and recognize that it's about more than just the multiplication of bread and fish. He encourages us to view this event as a testament to God's nature and a call to trust in His abundance.The sermon explores how Jesus tested Philip and Andrew not to tempt them but to reveal their understanding of Him. Philip and Andrew's initial hopelessness in the face of an enormous task reflects the human tendency to focus on our limitations. However, Jesus shows that when we yield what we have to Him, He can multiply it beyond our expectations.The sermon reinforces the idea that life often presents challenges beyond our capacity, debunking the notion that "God will never give us more than we can handle." Instead, it suggests that God allows us to face overwhelming situations to teach us reliance on Him. Just as Jesus gave Philip more than he could handle, He invites us to trust in His transformative power.In closing, Bro. Chris encourages us to yield our resources and challenges to Jesus, trusting that He can do something new and creative with them. By doing so, we discover the beauty of stewardship and learn to see our limitations as opportunities for God's abundance to shine through.

Series:  Above & BeyondPart I:  What God Can Do with All I Have? Sermon by: Rev. Paul LawlerScripture:  John 6:1-14In the inaugural sermon of our "Above and Beyond" series, Pastor Paul Lawler delves into the profound message behind the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 from the book of John, chapter 6. While the story is familiar, Pastor Lawler challenges us to see beyond the surface and recognize that it's about more than just the multiplication of bread and fish. He encourages us to view this event as a testament to God's nature and a call to trust in His abundance.Drawing inspiration from the words of Saint Augustine, the sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding the deeper meaning behind events in our lives. The context of Passover is explored, highlighting how it represents God's claim on His people, their release from slavery, and His provision for their needs—a message relevant even today.The sermon explores how Jesus tested Philip and Andrew not to tempt them but to reveal their understanding of Him. Philip and Andrew's initial hopelessness in the face of an enormous task reflects the human tendency to focus on our limitations. However, Jesus shows that when we yield what we have to Him, He can multiply it beyond our expectations.The sermon reinforces the idea that life often presents challenges beyond our capacity, debunking the notion that "God will never give us more than we can handle." Instead, it suggests that God allows us to face overwhelming situations to teach us reliance on Him. Just as Jesus gave Philip more than he could handle, He invites us to trust in His transformative power.In closing, Pastor Paul encourages us to yield our resources and challenges to Jesus, trusting that He can do something new and creative with them. By doing so, we discover the beauty of stewardship and learn to see our limitations as opportunities for God's abundance to shine through.

i feel really protective of diy when i see things that feel like a cooptation of the ethos and values. but i know i can get cynical too. i guess if people seem to be having an okay time then who am i to say anything. they could have it so much better though, and i just hope that they know that. i’ll keep trying to provide and example and folks can make their own decisions.DOWNLOAD/STREAM RECORDING00:00 (intro by omar)00:20 Lily Konigsberg "I Said" It’s Just Like all the Clouds02:09 Foodman "Hirake Tobira" DOKUTSU05:18 privacy issues "managed world" privacy issues07:29 Big Kitty "Johnny Rosemary" Excelsior Breeze Catchers10:55 Larry Wish "Ubduction Revisited" Laire Wesh16:34 Body Lens "Fading" BL Mini20:14 Slum of Legs "I Dream of Valves Exploding" Slum of Legs23:53 Horse Lords "People’s Park" The Common Task28:14 Vasas "Bad Farkle Day" Diving Bells30:31 Spam Risk "Destroy Madness" Spam Risk32:07 SPECTRES "Dreams" Nostalgia35:27 VACANT GARDENS "SLOW DIAMONDS" UNDER THE BLOOM38:51 Honey Cutt "All I Have" Coasting43:32 Porches "rangerover" Ricky Music45:47 Heavy Petting "Program 2" Adult Program51:32 Uncle Pit "Cement" Disposal Unit53:18 Handle "What It Does" In Threes54:45 kidnap kids! "1 2 3" you would run from ratboy grave56:45 Tommy Tone "Computer Is Better" Bad To The Tone58:44 Big Blood "Olamina (for Octavia Butler)“ Operate Spaceship Earth Properly

In this week's episode, sisters Camille and Melissa reveal their favorite albums with no skips! This means that these are the albums we can play from the first track all the way to the end, and each and every song is a JAM! If you're listening on Spotify, be sure to answer the Q&A for this episode to let us know what your favorite no skip album is. We may decide to publish your response for all listeners to see!  Here's where you can listen to the songs we mentioned in today's episode!

In our first episode, get to know your hosts Melissa and Camille as we tell you about the songs that were playing during some of the most memorable moments in our lives!  Here's where you can listen to the songs we mentioned in today's episode!

Today on the radio show. 1 - Smoko Chat. 4 - Ooh That Shouldn't be Inside Me. 9 - Ooh That Shouldn't be Inside Me. Pt.2. 12 -  I Bought 'A' and Sold it for 'B'. 17 - I Bought 'A' and Sold it for 'B'. Pt.2. 22 - How Helpful are Bunnings Staff? 26 - It's a Useless Skill but It's All I Have. 30 - It's a Useless Skill but It's All I Have. Pt.2. 35 - Rock Goes Country. 38 - iJam. https://bit.ly/3CmbTJn & https://bit.ly/3X4JO2t. & https://bit.ly/3NpdIv8  & https://bit.ly/3X6Np03.     42 - Late Mail. 46 - Last Drinks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Do You Feel like you've been Waiting forever for us to cover the one man band spectacular that is The Rocket Summer? All I Have to say is it's time to Break It Out. So In This Hour… or two... we dive into Do You Feel by The Rocket Summer. Will we have So Much Love for this record, or will we be Taken Aback? Save yourself from wondering and join us for some High Life Scenery while we listen to Do You Feel.Church Jams Now is sponsored by Collide Records. Visit colliderecords.com and use promo code “churchjamsnow” for 20% off your first purchase!If you like what you hear, please rate, review, subscribe, and follow!Connect with us here:Voicemail: 971-380-5660Email: churchjamsnowpodcast@gmail.comIG: @churchjamsnowTwitter: @churchjamsnowFB: https://www.facebook.com/churchjamsnowpodcastPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/churchjamsnowpodcast

Hello, and welcome back to my website and podcast refort.co I'm R. E. Fort. I'm so excited to announce the release of my new CD Life on The Other Side. The tracks on this release are mostly soulful ballads with a smooth vibe and one hot fusion track. My wife Cheryl named the track and what would become the cd's title. When I think of the title, Life on The Other Side, I see two couples on a beach at sunset, an older couple and a younger one. Showing the stages of life and of course that love can survive the tides of time. The tracks on this CD are Life on The Other Side, There's Never Enough Time, There'll Be Time for Us, Love's All I Have to Give, Listen to Your Heart, All I Need Is in Your Eyes, Why Don't Ya Just Let Us Play and Just Kick Back and Relax. Without Music Life Has No Soul

Episode 164 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "White Light/White Heat" and the career of the Velvet Underground. This is a long one, lasting three hours and twenty minutes. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-three minute bonus episode available, on "Why Don't You Smile Now?" by the Downliners Sect. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata I say the Velvet Underground didn't play New York for the rest of the sixties after 1966. They played at least one gig there in 1967, but did generally avoid the city. Also, I refer to Cale and Conrad as the other surviving members of the Theater of Eternal Music. Sadly Conrad died in 2016. Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Velvet Underground, and some of the avant-garde pieces excerpted run to six hours or more. I used a lot of resources for this one. Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga is the best book on the group as a group. I also used Joe Harvard's 33 1/3 book on The Velvet Underground and Nico. Bockris also wrote one of the two biographies of Reed I referred to, Transformer. The other was Lou Reed by Anthony DeCurtis. Information on Cale mostly came from Sedition and Alchemy by Tim Mitchell. Information on Nico came from Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon by Richard Witts. I used Draw a Straight Line and Follow it by Jeremy Grimshaw as my main source for La Monte Young, The Roaring Silence by David Revill for John Cage, and Warhol: A Life as Art by Blake Gopnik for Warhol. I also referred to the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of the 2021 documentary The Velvet Underground.  The definitive collection of the Velvet Underground's music is the sadly out-of-print box set Peel Slowly and See, which contains the four albums the group made with Reed in full, plus demos, outtakes, and live recordings. Note that the digital version of the album as sold by Amazon for some reason doesn't include the last disc -- if you want the full box set you have to buy a physical copy. All four studio albums have also been released and rereleased many times over in different configurations with different numbers of CDs at different price points -- I have used the "45th Anniversary Super-Deluxe" versions for this episode, but for most people the standard CD versions will be fine. Sadly there are no good shorter compilation overviews of the group -- they tend to emphasise either the group's "pop" mode or its "avant-garde" mode to the exclusion of the other. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I begin this episode, there are a few things to say. This introductory section is going to be longer than normal because, as you will hear, this episode is also going to be longer than normal. Firstly, I try to warn people about potentially upsetting material in these episodes. But this is the first episode for 1968, and as you will see there is a *profound* increase in the amount of upsetting and disturbing material covered as we go through 1968 and 1969. The story is going to be in a much darker place for the next twenty or thirty episodes. And this episode is no exception. As always, I try to deal with everything as sensitively as possible, but you should be aware that the list of warnings for this one is so long I am very likely to have missed some. Among the topics touched on in this episode are mental illness, drug addiction, gun violence, racism, societal and medical homophobia, medical mistreatment of mental illness, domestic abuse, rape, and more. If you find discussion of any of those subjects upsetting, you might want to read the transcript. Also, I use the term "queer" freely in this episode. In the past I have received some pushback for this, because of a belief among some that "queer" is a slur. The following explanation will seem redundant to many of my listeners, but as with many of the things I discuss in the podcast I am dealing with multiple different audiences with different levels of awareness and understanding of issues, so I'd like to beg those people's indulgence a moment. The term "queer" has certainly been used as a slur in the past, but so have terms like "lesbian", "gay", "homosexual" and others. In all those cases, the term has gone from a term used as a self-identifier, to a slur, to a reclaimed slur, and back again many times. The reason for using that word, specifically, here is because the vast majority of people in this story have sexualities or genders that don't match the societal norms of their times, but used labels for themselves that have shifted in meaning over the years. There are at least two men in the story, for example, who are now dead and referred to themselves as "homosexual", but were in multiple long-term sexually-active relationships with women. Would those men now refer to themselves as "bisexual" or "pansexual" -- terms not in widespread use at the time -- or would they, in the relatively more tolerant society we live in now, only have been in same-gender relationships? We can't know. But in our current context using the word "homosexual" for those men would lead to incorrect assumptions about their behaviour. The labels people use change over time, and the definitions of them blur and shift. I have discussed this issue with many, many, friends who fall under the queer umbrella, and while not all of them are comfortable with "queer" as a personal label because of how it's been used against them in the past, there is near-unanimity from them that it's the correct word to use in this situation. Anyway, now that that rather lengthy set of disclaimers is over, let's get into the story proper, as we look at "White Light, White Heat" by the Velvet Underground: [Excerpt: The Velvet Underground, "White Light, White Heat"] And that look will start with... a disclaimer about length. This episode is going to be a long one. Not as long as episode one hundred and fifty, but almost certainly the longest episode I'll do this year, by some way. And there's a reason for that. One of the questions I've been asked repeatedly over the years about the podcast is why almost all the acts I've covered have been extremely commercially successful ones. "Where are the underground bands? The alternative bands? The little niche acts?" The answer to that is simple. Until the mid-sixties, the idea of an underground or alternative band made no sense at all in rock, pop, rock and roll, R&B, or soul. The idea would have been completely counterintuitive to the vast majority of the people we've discussed in the podcast. Those musics were commercial musics, made by people who wanted to make money and to  get the largest audiences possible. That doesn't mean that they had no artistic merit, or that there was no artistic intent behind them, but the artists making that music were *commercial* artists. They knew if they wanted to make another record, they had to sell enough copies of the last record for the record company to make another, and that if they wanted to keep eating, they had to draw enough of an audience to their gigs for promoters to keep booking them. There was no space in this worldview for what we might think of as cult success. If your record only sold a thousand copies, then you had failed in your goal, even if the thousand people who bought your record really loved it. Even less commercially successful artists we've covered to this point, like the Mothers of Invention or Love, were *trying* for commercial success, even if they made the decision not to compromise as much as others do. This started to change a tiny bit in the mid-sixties as the influence of jazz and folk in the US, and the British blues scene, started to be felt in rock music. But this influence, at first, was a one-way thing -- people who had been in the folk and jazz worlds deciding to modify their music to be more commercial. And that was followed by already massively commercial musicians, like the Beatles, taking on some of those influences and bringing their audience with them. But that started to change around the time that "rock" started to differentiate itself from "rock and roll" and "pop", in mid 1967. So in this episode and the next, we're going to look at two bands who in different ways provided a model for how to be an alternative band. Both of them still *wanted* commercial success, but neither achieved it, at least not at first and not in the conventional way. And both, when they started out, went by the name The Warlocks. But we have to take a rather circuitous route to get to this week's band, because we're now properly introducing a strand of music that has been there in the background for a while -- avant-garde art music. So before we go any further, let's have a listen to a thirty-second clip of the most famous piece of avant-garde music ever, and I'll be performing it myself: [Excerpt, Andrew Hickey "4'33 (Cage)"] Obviously that won't give the full effect, you have to listen to the whole piece to get that. That is of course a section of "4'33" by John Cage, a piece of music that is often incorrectly described as being four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. As I've mentioned before, though, in the episode on "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", it isn't that at all. The whole point of the piece is that there is no such thing as silence, and it's intended to make the listener appreciate all the normal ambient sounds as music, every bit as much as any piece by Bach or Beethoven. John Cage, the composer of "4'33", is possibly the single most influential avant-garde artist of the mid twentieth century, so as we're properly introducing the ideas of avant-garde music into the story here, we need to talk about him a little. Cage was, from an early age, torn between three great vocations, all of which in some fashion would shape his work for decades to come. One of these was architecture, and for a time he intended to become an architect. Another was the religious ministry, and he very seriously considered becoming a minister as a young man, and religion -- though not the religious faith of his youth -- was to be a massive factor in his work as he grew older. He started studying music from an early age, though he never had any facility as a performer -- though he did, when he discovered the work of Grieg, think that might change. He later said “For a while I played nothing else. I even imagined devoting my life to the performance of his works alone, for they did not seem to me to be too difficult, and I loved them.” [Excerpt: Grieg piano concerto in A minor] But he soon realised that he didn't have some of the basic skills that would be required to be a performer -- he never actually thought of himself as very musical -- and so he decided to move into composition, and he later talked about putting his musical limits to good use in being more inventive. From his very first pieces, Cage was trying to expand the definition of what a performance of a piece of music actually was. One of his friends, Harry Hay, who took part in the first documented performance of a piece by Cage, described how Cage's father, an inventor, had "devised a fluorescent light source over which Sample" -- Don Sample, Cage's boyfriend at the time -- "laid a piece of vellum painted with designs in oils. The blankets I was wearing were white, and a sort of lampshade shone coloured patterns onto me. It looked very good. The thing got so hot the designs began to run, but that only made it better.” Apparently the audience for this light show -- one that predated the light shows used by rock bands by a good thirty years -- were not impressed, though that may be more because the Santa Monica Women's Club in the early 1930s was not the vanguard of the avant-garde. Or maybe it was. Certainly the housewives of Santa Monica seemed more willing than one might expect to sign up for another of Cage's ideas. In 1933 he went door to door asking women if they would be interested in signing up to a lecture course from him on modern art and music. He told them that if they signed up for $2.50, he would give them ten lectures, and somewhere between twenty and forty of them signed up, even though, as he said later, “I explained to the housewives that I didn't know anything about either subject but that I was enthusiastic about both of them. I promised to learn faithfully enough about each subject so as to be able to give a talk an hour long each week.” And he did just that, going to the library every day and spending all week preparing an hour-long talk for them. History does not relate whether he ended these lectures by telling the housewives to tell just one friend about them. He said later “I came out of these lectures, with a devotion to the painting of Mondrian, on the one hand, and the music of Schoenberg on the other.” [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte"] Schoenberg was one of the two most widely-respected composers in the world at that point, the other being Stravinsky, but the two had very different attitudes to composition. Schoenberg's great innovation was the creation and popularisation of the twelve-tone technique, and I should probably explain that a little before I go any further. Most Western music is based on an eight-note scale -- do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do -- with the eighth note being an octave up from the first. So in the key of C major that would be C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C: [demonstrates] And when you hear notes from that scale, if your ears are accustomed to basically any Western music written before about 1920, or any Western popular music written since then, you expect the melody to lead back to C, and you know to expect that because it only uses those notes -- there are differing intervals between them, some having a tone between them and some having a semitone, and you recognise the pattern. But of course there are other notes between the notes of that scale. There are actually an infinite number of these, but in conventional Western music we only look at a few more -- C# (or D flat), D# (or E flat), F# (or G flat), G# (or A flat) and A# (or B flat). If you add in all those notes you get this: [demonstrates] There's no clear beginning or end, no do for it to come back to. And Schoenberg's great innovation, which he was only starting to promote widely around this time, was to insist that all twelve notes should be equal -- his melodies would use all twelve of the notes the exact same number of times, and so if he used say a B flat, he would have to use all eleven other notes before he used B flat again in the piece. This was a radical new idea, but Schoenberg had only started advancing it after first winning great acclaim for earlier pieces, like his "Three Pieces for Piano", a work which wasn't properly twelve-tone, but did try to do without the idea of having any one note be more important than any other: [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Three Pieces for Piano"] At this point, that work had only been performed in the US by one performer, Richard Buhlig, and hadn't been released as a recording yet. Cage was so eager to hear it that he'd found Buhlig's phone number and called him, asking him to play the piece, but Buhlig put the phone down on him. Now he was doing these lectures, though, he had to do one on Schoenberg, and he wasn't a competent enough pianist to play Schoenberg's pieces himself, and there were still no recordings of them. Cage hitch-hiked from Santa Monica to LA, where Buhlig lived, to try to get him to come and visit his class and play some of Schoenberg's pieces for them. Buhlig wasn't in, and Cage hung around in his garden hoping for him to come back -- he pulled the leaves off a bough from one of Buhlig's trees, going "He'll come back, he won't come back, he'll come back..." and the leaves said he'd be back. Buhlig arrived back at midnight, and quite understandably told the strange twenty-one-year-old who'd spent twelve hours in his garden pulling the leaves off his trees that no, he would not come to Santa Monica and give a free performance. But he did agree that if Cage brought some of his own compositions he'd give them a look over. Buhlig started giving Cage some proper lessons in composition, although he stressed that he was a performer, not a composer. Around this time Cage wrote his Sonata for Clarinet: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Sonata For Clarinet"] Buhlig suggested that Cage send that to Henry Cowell, the composer we heard about in the episode on "Good Vibrations" who was friends with Lev Termen and who created music by playing the strings inside a piano: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] Cowell offered to take Cage on as an assistant, in return for which Cowell would teach him for a semester, as would Adolph Weiss, a pupil of Schoenberg's. But the goal, which Cowell suggested, was always to have Cage study with Schoenberg himself. Schoenberg at first refused, saying that Cage couldn't afford his price, but eventually took Cage on as a student having been assured that he would devote his entire life to music -- a promise Cage kept. Cage started writing pieces for percussion, something that had been very rare up to that point -- only a handful of composers, most notably Edgard Varese, had written pieces for percussion alone, but Cage was: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Trio"] This is often portrayed as a break from the ideals of his teacher Schoenberg, but in fact there's a clear continuity there, once you see what Cage was taking from Schoenberg. Schoenberg's work is, in some senses, about equality, about all notes being equal. Or to put it another way, it's about fairness. About erasing arbitrary distinctions. What Cage was doing was erasing the arbitrary distinction between the more and less prominent instruments. Why should there be pieces for solo violin or string quartet, but not for multiple percussion players? That said, Schoenberg was not exactly the most encouraging of teachers. When Cage invited Schoenberg to go to a concert of Cage's percussion work, Schoenberg told him he was busy that night. When Cage offered to arrange another concert for a date Schoenberg wasn't busy, the reply came "No, I will not be free at any time". Despite this, Cage later said “Schoenberg was a magnificent teacher, who always gave the impression that he was putting us in touch with musical principles,” and said "I literally worshipped him" -- a strong statement from someone who took religious matters as seriously as Cage. Cage was so devoted to Schoenberg's music that when a concert of music by Stravinsky was promoted as "music of the world's greatest living composer", Cage stormed into the promoter's office angrily, confronting the promoter and making it very clear that such things should not be said in the city where Schoenberg lived. Schoenberg clearly didn't think much of Cage's attempts at composition, thinking -- correctly -- that Cage had no ear for harmony. And his reportedly aggressive and confrontational teaching style didn't sit well with Cage -- though it seems very similar to a lot of the teaching techniques of the Zen masters he would later go on to respect. The two eventually parted ways, although Cage always spoke highly of Schoenberg. Schoenberg later gave Cage a compliment of sorts, when asked if any of his students had gone on to do anything interesting. At first he replied that none had, but then he mentioned Cage and said “Of course he's not a composer, but an inventor—of genius.” Cage was at this point very worried if there was any point to being a composer at all. He said later “I'd read Cowell's New Musical Resources and . . . The Theory of Rhythm. I had also read Chavez's Towards a New Music. Both works gave me the feeling that everything that was possible in music had already happened. So I thought I could never compose socially important music. Only if I could invent something new, then would I be useful to society. But that seemed unlikely then.” [Excerpt: John Cage, "Totem Ancestor"] Part of the solution came when he was asked to compose music for an abstract animation by the filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, and also to work as Fischinger's assistant when making the film. He was fascinated by the stop-motion process, and by the results of the film, which he described as "a beautiful film in which these squares, triangles and circles and other things moved and changed colour.” But more than that he was overwhelmed by a comment by Fischinger, who told him “Everything in the world has its own spirit, and this spirit becomes audible by setting it into vibration.” Cage later said “That set me on fire. He started me on a path of exploration of the world around me which has never stopped—of hitting and stretching and scraping and rubbing everything.” Cage now took his ideas further. His compositions for percussion had been about, if you like, giving the underdog a chance -- percussion was always in the background, why should it not be in the spotlight? Now he realised that there were other things getting excluded in conventional music -- the sounds that we characterise as noise. Why should composers work to exclude those sounds, but work to *include* other sounds? Surely that was... well, a little unfair? Eventually this would lead to pieces like his 1952 piece "Water Music", later expanded and retitled "Water Walk", which can be heard here in his 1959 appearance on the TV show "I've Got a Secret".  It's a piece for, amongst other things, a flowerpot full of flowers, a bathtub, a watering can, a pipe, a duck call, a blender full of ice cubes, and five unplugged radios: [Excerpt: John Cage "Water Walk"] As he was now avoiding pitch and harmony as organising principles for his music, he turned to time. But note -- not to rhythm. He said “There's none of this boom, boom, boom, business in my music . . . a measure is taken as a strict measure of time—not a one two three four—which I fill with various sounds.” He came up with a system he referred to as “micro-macrocosmic rhythmic structure,” what we would now call fractals, though that word hadn't yet been invented, where the structure of the whole piece was reflected in the smallest part of it. For a time he started moving away from the term music, preferring to refer to the "art of noise" or to "organised sound" -- though he later received a telegram from Edgard Varese, one of his musical heroes and one of the few other people writing works purely for percussion, asking him not to use that phrase, which Varese used for his own work. After meeting with Varese and his wife, he later became convinced that it was Varese's wife who had initiated the telegram, as she explained to Cage's wife "we didn't want your husband's work confused with my husband's work, any more than you'd want some . . . any artist's work confused with that of a cartoonist.” While there is a humour to Cage's work, I don't really hear much qualitative difference between a Cage piece like the one we just heard and a Varese piece like Ionisation: [Excerpt: Edgard Varese, "Ionisation"] But it was in 1952, the year of "Water Music" that John Cage made his two biggest impacts on the cultural world, though the full force of those impacts wasn't felt for some years. To understand Cage's 1952 work, you first have to understand that he had become heavily influenced by Zen, which at that time was very little known in the Western world. Indeed he had studied with Daisetsu Suzuki, who is credited with introducing Zen to the West, and said later “I didn't study music with just anybody; I studied with Schoenberg, I didn't study Zen with just anybody; I studied with Suzuki. I've always gone, insofar as I could, to the president of the company.” Cage's whole worldview was profoundly affected by Zen, but he was also naturally sympathetic to it, and his work after learning about Zen is mostly a continuation of trends we can already see. In particular, he became convinced that the point of music isn't to communicate anything between two people, rather its point is merely to be experienced. I'm far from an expert on Buddhism, but one way of thinking about its central lessons is that one should experience things as they are, experiencing the thing itself rather than one's thoughts or preconceptions about it. And so at Black Mountain college came Theatre Piece Number 1: [Excerpt: Edith Piaf, "La Vie En Rose" ] In this piece, Cage had set the audience on all sides, so they'd be facing each other. He stood on a stepladder, as colleagues danced in and around the audience, another colleague played the piano, two more took turns to stand on another stepladder to recite poetry, different films and slides were projected, seemingly at random, onto the walls, and the painter Robert Rauschenberg played scratchy Edith Piaf records on a wind-up gramophone. The audience were included in the performance, and it was meant to be experienced as a gestalt, as a whole, to be what we would now call an immersive experience. One of Cage's students around this time was the artist Allan Kaprow, and he would be inspired by Theatre Piece Number 1 to put on several similar events in the late fifties. Those events he called "happenings", because the point of them was that you were meant to experience an event as it was happening rather than bring preconceptions of form and structure to them. Those happenings were the inspiration for events like The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, and the term "happening" became such an integral part of the counterculture that by 1967 there were comedy films being released about them, including one just called The Happening with a title track by the Supremes that made number one: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "The Happening"] Theatre Piece Number 1 was retrospectively considered the first happening, and as such its influence is incalculable. But one part I didn't mention about Theatre Piece Number 1 is that as well as Rauschenberg playing Edith Piaf's records, he also displayed some of his paintings. These paintings were totally white -- at a glance, they looked like blank canvases, but as one inspected them more clearly, it became apparent that Rauschenberg had painted them with white paint, with visible brushstrokes. These paintings, along with a visit to an anechoic chamber in which Cage discovered that even in total silence one can still hear one's own blood and nervous system, so will never experience total silence, were the final key to something Cage had been working towards -- if music had minimised percussion, and excluded noise, how much more had it excluded silence? As Cage said in 1958 “Curiously enough, the twelve-tone system has no zero in it.” And so came 4'33, the piece that we heard an excerpt of near the start of this episode. That piece was the something new he'd been looking for that could be useful to society. It took the sounds the audience could already hear, and without changing them even slightly gave them a new context and made the audience hear them as they were. Simply by saying "this is music", it caused the ambient noise to be perceived as music. This idea, of recontextualising existing material, was one that had already been done in the art world -- Marcel Duchamp, in 1917, had exhibited a urinal as a sculpture titled "Fountain" -- but even Duchamp had talked about his work as "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice". The artist was *raising* the object to art. What Cage was saying was "the object is already art". This was all massively influential to a young painter who had seen Cage give lectures many times, and while at art school had with friends prepared a piano in the same way Cage did for his own experimental compositions, dampening the strings with different objects. [Excerpt: Dana Gillespie, "Andy Warhol (live)"] Duchamp and Rauschenberg were both big influences on Andy Warhol, but he would say in the early sixties "John Cage is really so responsible for so much that's going on," and would for the rest of his life cite Cage as one of the two or three prime influences of his career. Warhol is a difficult figure to discuss, because his work is very intellectual but he was not very articulate -- which is one reason I've led up to him by discussing Cage in such detail, because Cage was always eager to talk at great length about the theoretical basis of his work, while Warhol would say very few words about anything at all. Probably the person who knew him best was his business partner and collaborator Paul Morrissey, and Morrissey's descriptions of Warhol have shaped my own view of his life, but it's very worth noting that Morrissey is an extremely right-wing moralist who wishes to see a Catholic theocracy imposed to do away with the scourges of sexual immorality, drug use, hedonism, and liberalism, so his view of Warhol, a queer drug using progressive whose worldview seems to have been totally opposed to Morrissey's in every way, might be a little distorted. Warhol came from an impoverished background, and so, as many people who grew up poor do, he was, throughout his life, very eager to make money. He studied art at university, and got decent but not exceptional grades -- he was a competent draughtsman, but not a great one, and most importantly as far as success in the art world goes he didn't have what is known as his own "line" -- with most successful artists, you can look at a handful of lines they've drawn and see something of their own personality in it. You couldn't with Warhol. His drawings looked like mediocre imitations of other people's work. Perfectly competent, but nothing that stood out. So Warhol came up with a technique to make his drawings stand out -- blotting. He would do a normal drawing, then go over it with a lot of wet ink. He'd lower a piece of paper on to the wet drawing, and the new paper would soak up the ink, and that second piece of paper would become the finished work. The lines would be fractured and smeared, broken in places where the ink didn't get picked up, and thick in others where it had pooled. With this mechanical process, Warhol had managed to create an individual style, and he became an extremely successful commercial artist. In the early 1950s photography was still seen as a somewhat low-class way of advertising things. If you wanted to sell to a rich audience, you needed to use drawings or paintings. By 1955 Warhol was making about twelve thousand dollars a year -- somewhere close to a hundred and thirty thousand a year in today's money -- drawing shoes for advertisements. He also had a sideline in doing record covers for people like Count Basie: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Seventh Avenue Express"] For most of the 1950s he also tried to put on shows of his more serious artistic work -- often with homoerotic themes -- but to little success. The dominant art style of the time was the abstract expressionism of people like Jackson Pollock, whose art was visceral, emotional, and macho. The term "action paintings" which was coined for the work of people like Pollock, sums it up. This was manly art for manly men having manly emotions and expressing them loudly. It was very male and very straight, and even the gay artists who were prominent at the time tended to be very conformist and look down on anything they considered flamboyant or effeminate. Warhol was a rather effeminate, very reserved man, who strongly disliked showing his emotions, and whose tastes ran firmly to the camp. Camp as an aesthetic of finding joy in the flamboyant or trashy, as opposed to merely a descriptive term for men who behaved in a way considered effeminate, was only just starting to be codified at this time -- it wouldn't really become a fully-formed recognisable thing until Susan Sontag's essay "Notes on Camp" in 1964 -- but of course just because something hasn't been recognised doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and Warhol's aesthetic was always very camp, and in the 1950s in the US that was frowned upon even in gay culture, where the mainstream opinion was that the best way to acceptance was through assimilation. Abstract expressionism was all about expressing the self, and that was something Warhol never wanted to do -- in fact he made some pronouncements at times which suggested he didn't think of himself as *having* a self in the conventional sense. The combination of not wanting to express himself and of wanting to work more efficiently as a commercial artist led to some interesting results. For example, he was commissioned in 1957 to do a cover for an album by Moondog, the blind street musician whose name Alan Freed had once stolen: [Excerpt: Moondog, "Gloving It"] For that cover, Warhol got his mother, Julia Warhola, to just write out the liner notes for the album in her rather ornamental cursive script, and that became the front cover, leading to an award for graphic design going that year to "Andy Warhol's mother". (Incidentally, my copy of the current CD issue of that album, complete with Julia Warhola's cover, is put out by Pickwick Records...) But towards the end of the fifties, the work for commercial artists started to dry up. If you wanted to advertise shoes, now, you just took a photo of the shoes rather than get Andy Warhol to draw a picture of them. The money started to disappear, and Warhol started to panic. If there was no room for him in graphic design any more, he had to make his living in the fine arts, which he'd been totally unsuccessful in. But luckily for Warhol, there was a new movement that was starting to form -- Pop Art. Pop Art started in England, and had originally been intended, at least in part, as a critique of American consumerist capitalism. Pieces like "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" by Richard Hamilton (who went on to design the Beatles' White Album cover) are collages of found images, almost all from American sources, recontextualised and juxtaposed in interesting ways, so a bodybuilder poses in a room that's taken from an advert in Ladies' Home Journal, while on the wall, instead of a painting, hangs a blown-up cover of a Jack Kirby romance comic. Pop Art changed slightly when it got taken up in America, and there it became something rather different, something closer to Duchamp, taking those found images and displaying them as art with no juxtaposition. Where Richard Hamilton created collage art which *showed* a comic cover by Jack Kirby as a painting in the background, Roy Lichtenstein would take a panel of comic art by Kirby, or Russ Heath or Irv Novick or a dozen other comic artists, and redraw it at the size of a normal painting. So Warhol took Cage's idea that the object is already art, and brought that into painting, starting by doing paintings of Campbell's soup cans, in which he tried as far as possible to make the cans look exactly like actual soup cans. The paintings were controversial, inciting fury in some and laughter in others and causing almost everyone to question whether they were art. Warhol would embrace an aesthetic in which things considered unimportant or trash or pop culture detritus were the greatest art of all. For example pretty much every profile of him written in the mid sixties talks about him obsessively playing "Sally Go Round the Roses", a girl-group single by the one-hit wonders the Jaynettes: [Excerpt: The Jaynettes, "Sally Go Round the Roses"] After his paintings of Campbell's soup cans, and some rather controversial but less commercially successful paintings of photographs of horrors and catastrophes taken from newspapers, Warhol abandoned painting in the conventional sense altogether, instead creating brightly coloured screen prints -- a form of stencilling -- based on photographs of celebrities like Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and, most famously, Marilyn Monroe. That way he could produce images which could be mass-produced, without his active involvement, and which supposedly had none of his personality in them, though of course his personality pervades the work anyway. He put on exhibitions of wooden boxes, silk-screen printed to look exactly like shipping cartons of Brillo pads. Images we see everywhere -- in newspapers, in supermarkets -- were art. And Warhol even briefly formed a band. The Druds were a garage band formed to play at a show at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, the opening night of an exhibition that featured a silkscreen by Warhol of 210 identical bottles of Coca-Cola, as well as paintings by Rauschenberg and others. That opening night featured a happening by Claes Oldenburg, and a performance by Cage -- Cage gave a live lecture while three recordings of his own voice also played. The Druds were also meant to perform, but they fell apart after only a few rehearsals. Some recordings apparently exist, but they don't seem to circulate, but they'd be fascinating to hear as almost the entire band were non-musician artists like Warhol, Jasper Johns, and the sculptor Walter de Maria. Warhol said of the group “It didn't go too well, but if we had just stayed on it it would have been great.” On the other hand, the one actual musician in the group said “It was kind of ridiculous, so I quit after the second rehearsal". That musician was La Monte Young: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] That's an excerpt from what is generally considered Young's masterwork, "The Well-Tuned Piano". It's six and a half hours long. If Warhol is a difficult figure to write about, Young is almost impossible. He's a musician with a career stretching sixty years, who is arguably the most influential musician from the classical tradition in that time period. He's generally considered the father of minimalism, and he's also been called by Brian Eno "the daddy of us all" -- without Young you simply *do not* get art rock at all. Without Young there is no Velvet Underground, no David Bowie, no Eno, no New York punk scene, no Yoko Ono. Anywhere that the fine arts or conceptual art have intersected with popular music in the last fifty or more years has been influenced in one way or another by Young's work. BUT... he only rarely publishes his scores. He very, very rarely allows recordings of his work to be released -- there are four recordings on his bandcamp, plus a handful of recordings of his older, published, pieces, and very little else. He doesn't allow his music to be performed live without his supervision. There *are* bootleg recordings of his music, but even those are not easily obtainable -- Young is vigorous in enforcing his copyrights and issues takedown notices against anywhere that hosts them. So other than that handful of legitimately available recordings -- plus a recording by Young's Theater of Eternal Music, the legality of which is still disputed, and an off-air recording of a 1971 radio programme I've managed to track down, the only way to experience Young's music unless you're willing to travel to one of his rare live performances or installations is second-hand, by reading about it. Except that the one book that deals solely with Young and his music is not only a dense and difficult book to read, it's also one that Young vehemently disagreed with and considered extremely inaccurate, to the point he refused to allow permissions to quote his work in the book. Young did apparently prepare a list of corrections for the book, but he wouldn't tell the author what they were without payment. So please assume that anything I say about Young is wrong, but also accept that the short section of this episode about Young has required more work to *try* to get it right than pretty much anything else this year. Young's musical career actually started out in a relatively straightforward manner. He didn't grow up in the most loving of homes -- he's talked about his father beating him as a child because he had been told that young La Monte was clever -- but his father did buy him a saxophone and teach him the rudiments of the instrument, and as a child he was most influenced by the music of the big band saxophone player Jimmy Dorsey: [Excerpt: Jimmy Dorsey, “It's the Dreamer in Me”] The family, who were Mormon farmers, relocated several times in Young's childhood, from Idaho first to California and then to Utah, but everywhere they went La Monte seemed to find musical inspiration, whether from an uncle who had been part of the Kansas City jazz scene, a classmate who was a musical prodigy who had played with Perez Prado in his early teens, or a teacher who took the class to see a performance of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra: [Excerpt: Bartok, "Concerto for Orchestra"] After leaving high school, Young went to Los Angeles City College to study music under Leonard Stein, who had been Schoenberg's assistant when Schoenberg had taught at UCLA, and there he became part of the thriving jazz scene based around Central Avenue, studying and performing with musicians like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Eric Dolphy -- Young once beat Dolphy in an audition for a place in the City College dance band, and the two would apparently substitute for each other on their regular gigs when one couldn't make it. During this time, Young's musical tastes became much more adventurous. He was a particular fan of the work of John Coltrane, and also got inspired by City of Glass, an album by Stan Kenton that attempted to combine jazz and modern classical music: [Excerpt: Stan Kenton's Innovations Orchestra, "City of Glass: The Structures"] His other major musical discovery in the mid-fifties was one we've talked about on several previous occasions -- the album Music of India, Morning and Evening Ragas by Ali Akhbar Khan: [Excerpt: Ali Akhbar Khan, "Rag Sindhi Bhairavi"] Young's music at this point was becoming increasingly modal, and equally influenced by the blues and Indian music. But he was also becoming interested in serialism. Serialism is an extension and generalisation of twelve-tone music, inspired by mathematical set theory. In serialism, you choose a set of musical elements -- in twelve-tone music that's the twelve notes in the twelve-tone scale, but it can also be a set of tonal relations, a chord, or any other set of elements. You then define all the possible ways you can permute those elements, a defined set of operations you can perform on them -- so you could play a scale forwards, play it backwards, play all the notes in the scale simultaneously, and so on. You then go through all the possible permutations, exactly once, and that's your piece of music. Young was particularly influenced by the works of Anton Webern, one of the earliest serialists: [Excerpt: Anton Webern, "Cantata number 1 for Soprano, Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra"] That piece we just heard, Webern's "Cantata number 1", was the subject of some of the earliest theoretical discussion of serialism, and in particular led to some discussion of the next step on from serialism. If serialism was all about going through every single permutation of a set, what if you *didn't* permute every element? There was a lot of discussion in the late fifties in music-theoretical circles about the idea of invariance. Normally in music, the interesting thing is what gets changed. To use a very simple example, you might change a melody from a major key to a minor one to make it sound sadder. What theorists at this point were starting to discuss is what happens if you leave something the same, but change the surrounding context, so the thing you *don't* vary sounds different because of the changed context. And going further, what if you don't change the context at all, and merely *imply* a changed context? These ideas were some of those which inspired Young's first major work, his Trio For Strings from 1958, a complex, palindromic, serial piece which is now credited as the first work of minimalism, because the notes in it change so infrequently: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Trio for Strings"] Though I should point out that Young never considers his works truly finished, and constantly rewrites them, and what we just heard is an excerpt from the only recording of the trio ever officially released, which is of the 2015 version. So I can't state for certain how close what we just heard is to the piece he wrote in 1958, except that it sounds very like the written descriptions of it I've read. After writing the Trio For Strings, Young moved to Germany to study with the modernist composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. While studying with Stockhausen, he became interested in the work of John Cage, and started up a correspondence with Cage. On his return to New York he studied with Cage and started writing pieces inspired by Cage, of which the most musical is probably Composition 1960 #7: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Composition 1960 #7"] The score for that piece is a stave on which is drawn a treble clef, the notes B and F#, and the words "To be held for a long Time". Other of his compositions from 1960 -- which are among the few of his compositions which have been published -- include composition 1960 #10 ("To Bob Morris"), the score for which is just the instruction "Draw a straight line and follow it.", and Piano Piece for David  Tudor #1, the score for which reads "Bring a bale of hay and a bucket of water onto the stage for the piano to eat and drink. The performer may then feed the piano or leave it to eat by itself. If the former, the piece is over after the piano has been fed. If the latter, it is over after the piano eats or decides not to". Most of these compositions were performed as part of a loose New York art collective called Fluxus, all of whom were influenced by Cage and the Dadaists. This collective, led by George Maciunas, sometimes involved Cage himself, but also involved people like Henry Flynt, the inventor of conceptual art, who later became a campaigner against art itself, and who also much to Young's bemusement abandoned abstract music in the mid-sixties to form a garage band with Walter de Maria (who had played drums with the Druds): [Excerpt: Henry Flynt and the Insurrections, "I Don't Wanna"] Much of Young's work was performed at Fluxus concerts given in a New York loft belonging to another member of the collective, Yoko Ono, who co-curated the concerts with Young. One of Ono's mid-sixties pieces, her "Four Pieces for Orchestra" is dedicated to Young, and consists of such instructions as "Count all the stars of that night by heart. The piece ends when all the orchestra members finish counting the stars, or when it dawns. This can be done with windows instead of stars." But while these conceptual ideas remained a huge part of Young's thinking, he soon became interested in two other ideas. The first was the idea of just intonation -- tuning instruments and voices to perfect harmonics, rather than using the subtly-off tuning that is used in Western music. I'm sure I've explained that before in a previous episode, but to put it simply when you're tuning an instrument with fixed pitches like a piano, you have a choice -- you can either tune it so that the notes in one key are perfectly in tune with each other, but then when you change key things go very out of tune, or you can choose to make *everything* a tiny bit, almost unnoticeably, out of tune, but equally so. For the last several hundred years, musicians as a community have chosen the latter course, which was among other things promoted by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of compositions which shows how the different keys work together: [Excerpt: Bach (Glenn Gould), "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Fugue in F-sharp minor, BWV 883"] Young, by contrast, has his own esoteric tuning system, which he uses in his own work The Well-Tuned Piano: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] The other idea that Young took on was from Indian music, the idea of the drone. One of the four recordings of Young's music that is available from his Bandcamp, a 1982 recording titled The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath, consists of one hour, thirteen minutes, and fifty-eight seconds of this: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath"] Yes, I have listened to the whole piece. No, nothing else happens. The minimalist composer Terry Riley describes the recording as "a singularly rare contribution that far outshines any other attempts to capture this instrument in recorded media". In 1962, Young started writing pieces based on what he called the "dream chord", a chord consisting of a root, fourth, sharpened fourth, and fifth: [dream chord] That chord had already appeared in his Trio for Strings, but now it would become the focus of much of his work, in pieces like his 1962 piece The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, heard here in a 1982 revision: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer"] That was part of a series of works titled The Four Dreams of China, and Young began to plan an installation work titled Dream House, which would eventually be created, and which currently exists in Tribeca, New York, where it's been in continuous "performance" for thirty years -- and which consists of thirty-two different pure sine wave tones all played continuously, plus purple lighting by Young's wife Marian Zazeela. But as an initial step towards creating this, Young formed a collective called Theatre of Eternal Music, which some of the members -- though never Young himself -- always claim also went by the alternative name The Dream Syndicate. According to John Cale, a member of the group, that name came about because the group tuned their instruments to the 60hz hum of the fridge in Young's apartment, which Cale called "the key of Western civilisation". According to Cale, that meant the fundamental of the chords they played was 10hz, the frequency of alpha waves when dreaming -- hence the name. The group initially consisted of Young, Zazeela, the photographer Billy Name, and percussionist Angus MacLise, but by this recording in 1964 the lineup was Young, Zazeela, MacLise, Tony Conrad and John Cale: [Excerpt: "Cale, Conrad, Maclise, Young, Zazeela - The Dream Syndicate 2 IV 64-4"] That recording, like any others that have leaked by the 1960s version of the Theatre of Eternal Music or Dream Syndicate, is of disputed legality, because Young and Zazeela claim to this day that what the group performed were La Monte Young's compositions, while the other two surviving members, Cale and Conrad, claim that their performances were improvisational collaborations and should be equally credited to all the members, and so there have been lawsuits and countersuits any time anyone has released the recordings. John Cale, the youngest member of the group, was also the only one who wasn't American. He'd been born in Wales in 1942, and had had the kind of childhood that, in retrospect, seems guaranteed to lead to eccentricity. He was the product of a mixed-language marriage -- his father, William, was an English speaker while his mother, Margaret, spoke Welsh, but the couple had moved in on their marriage with Margaret's mother, who insisted that only Welsh could be spoken in her house. William didn't speak Welsh, and while he eventually picked up the basics from spending all his life surrounded by Welsh-speakers, he refused on principle to capitulate to his mother-in-law, and so remained silent in the house. John, meanwhile, grew up a monolingual Welsh speaker, and didn't start to learn English until he went to school when he was seven, and so couldn't speak to his father until then even though they lived together. Young John was extremely unwell for most of his childhood, both physically -- he had bronchial problems for which he had to take a cough mixture that was largely opium to help him sleep at night -- and mentally. He was hospitalised when he was sixteen with what was at first thought to be meningitis, but turned out to be a psychosomatic condition, the result of what he has described as a nervous breakdown. That breakdown is probably connected to the fact that during his teenage years he was sexually assaulted by two adults in positions of authority -- a vicar and a music teacher -- and felt unable to talk to anyone about this. He was, though, a child prodigy and was playing viola with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from the age of thirteen, and listening to music by Schoenberg, Webern, and Stravinsky. He was so talented a multi-instrumentalist that at school he was the only person other than one of the music teachers and the headmaster who was allowed to use the piano -- which led to a prank on his very last day at school. The headmaster would, on the last day, hit a low G on the piano to cue the assembly to stand up, and Cale had placed a comb on the string, muting it and stopping the note from sounding -- in much the same way that his near-namesake John Cage was "preparing" pianos for his own compositions in the USA. Cale went on to Goldsmith's College to study music and composition, under Humphrey Searle, one of Britain's greatest proponents of serialism who had himself studied under Webern. Cale's main instrument was the viola, but he insisted on also playing pieces written for the violin, because they required more technical skill. For his final exam he chose to play Hindemith's notoriously difficult Viola Sonata: [Excerpt: Hindemith Viola Sonata] While at Goldsmith's, Cale became friendly with Cornelius Cardew, a composer and cellist who had studied with Stockhausen and at the time was a great admirer of and advocate for the works of Cage and Young (though by the mid-seventies Cardew rejected their work as counter-revolutionary bourgeois imperialism). Through Cardew, Cale started to correspond with Cage, and with George Maciunas and other members of Fluxus. In July 1963, just after he'd finished his studies at Goldsmith's, Cale presented a festival there consisting of an afternoon and an evening show. These shows included the first British performances of several works including Cardew's Autumn '60 for Orchestra -- a piece in which the musicians were given blank staves on which to write whatever part they wanted to play, but a separate set of instructions in *how* to play the parts they'd written. Another piece Cale presented in its British premiere at that show was Cage's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra": [Excerpt: John Cage, "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"] In the evening show, they performed Two Pieces For String Quartet by George Brecht (in which the musicians polish their instruments with dusters, making scraping sounds as they clean them),  and two new pieces by Cale, one of which involved a plant being put on the stage, and then the performer, Robin Page, screaming from the balcony at the plant that it would die, then running down, through the audience, and onto the stage, screaming abuse and threats at the plant. The final piece in the show was a performance by Cale (the first one in Britain) of La Monte Young's "X For Henry Flynt". For this piece, Cale put his hands together and then smashed both his arms onto the keyboard as hard as he could, over and over. After five minutes some of the audience stormed the stage and tried to drag the piano away from him. Cale followed the piano on his knees, continuing to bang the keys, and eventually the audience gave up in defeat and Cale the performer won. After this Cale moved to the USA, to further study composition, this time with Iannis Xenakis, the modernist composer who had also taught Mickey Baker orchestration after Baker left Mickey and Sylvia, and who composed such works as "Orient Occident": [Excerpt: Iannis Xenakis, "Orient Occident"] Cale had been recommended to Xenakis as a student by Aaron Copland, who thought the young man was probably a genius. But Cale's musical ambitions were rather too great for Tanglewood, Massachusetts -- he discovered that the institute had eighty-eight pianos, the same number as there are keys on a piano keyboard, and thought it would be great if for a piece he could take all eighty-eight pianos, put them all on different boats, sail the boats out onto a lake, and have eighty-eight different musicians each play one note on each piano, while the boats sank with the pianos on board. For some reason, Cale wasn't allowed to perform this composition, and instead had to make do with one where he pulled an axe out of a single piano and slammed it down on a table. Hardly the same, I'm sure you'll agree. From Tanglewood, Cale moved on to New York, where he soon became part of the artistic circles surrounding John Cage and La Monte Young. It was at this time that he joined Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, and also took part in a performance with Cage that would get Cale his first television exposure: [Excerpt: John Cale playing Erik Satie's "Vexations" on "I've Got a Secret"] That's Cale playing through "Vexations", a piece by Erik Satie that wasn't published until after Satie's death, and that remained in obscurity until Cage popularised -- if that's the word -- the piece. The piece, which Cage had found while studying Satie's notes, seems to be written as an exercise and has the inscription (in French) "In order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." Cage interpreted that, possibly correctly, as an instruction that the piece should be played eight hundred and forty times straight through, and so he put together a performance of the piece, the first one ever, by a group he called the Pocket Theatre Piano Relay Team, which included Cage himself, Cale, Joshua Rifkin, and several other notable musical figures, who took it in turns playing the piece. For that performance, which ended up lasting eighteen hours, there was an entry fee of five dollars, and there was a time-clock in the lobby. Audience members punched in and punched out, and got a refund of five cents for every twenty minutes they'd spent listening to the music. Supposedly, at the end, one audience member yelled "Encore!" A week later, Cale appeared on "I've Got a Secret", a popular game-show in which celebrities tried to guess people's secrets (and which is where that performance of Cage's "Water Walk" we heard earlier comes from): [Excerpt: John Cale on I've Got a Secret] For a while, Cale lived with a friend of La Monte Young's, Terry Jennings, before moving in to a flat with Tony Conrad, one of the other members of the Theatre of Eternal Music. Angus MacLise lived in another flat in the same building. As there was not much money to be made in avant-garde music, Cale also worked in a bookshop -- a job Cage had found him -- and had a sideline in dealing drugs. But rents were so cheap at this time that Cale and Conrad only had to work part-time, and could spend much of their time working on the music they were making with Young. Both were string players -- Conrad violin, Cale viola -- and they soon modified their instruments. Conrad merely attached pickups to his so it could be amplified, but Cale went much further. He filed down the viola's bridge so he could play three strings at once, and he replaced the normal viola strings with thicker, heavier, guitar and mandolin strings. This created a sound so loud that it sounded like a distorted electric guitar -- though in late 1963 and early 1964 there were very few people who even knew what a distorted guitar sounded like. Cale and Conrad were also starting to become interested in rock and roll music, to which neither of them had previously paid much attention, because John Cage's music had taught them to listen for music in sounds they previously dismissed. In particular, Cale became fascinated with the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, hearing in them the same just intonation that Young advocated for: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "All I Have to Do is Dream"] And it was with this newfound interest in rock and roll that Cale and Conrad suddenly found themselves members of a manufactured pop band. The two men had been invited to a party on the Lower East Side, and there they'd been introduced to Terry Phillips of Pickwick Records. Phillips had seen their long hair and asked if they were musicians, so they'd answered "yes". He asked if they were in a band, and they said yes. He asked if that band had a drummer, and again they said yes. By this point they realised that he had assumed they were rock guitarists, rather than experimental avant-garde string players, but they decided to play along and see where this was going. Phillips told them that if they brought along their drummer to Pickwick's studios the next day, he had a job for them. The two of them went along with Walter de Maria, who did play the drums a little in between his conceptual art work, and there they were played a record: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] It was explained to them that Pickwick made knock-off records -- soundalikes of big hits, and their own records in the style of those hits, all played by a bunch of session musicians and put out under different band names. This one, by "the Primitives", they thought had a shot at being an actual hit, even though it was a dance-craze song about a dance where one partner lays on the floor and the other stamps on their head. But if it was going to be a hit, they needed an actual band to go out and perform it, backing the singer. How would Cale, Conrad, and de Maria like to be three quarters of the Primitives? It sounded fun, but of course they weren't actually guitarists. But as it turned out, that wasn't going to be a problem. They were told that the guitars on the track had all been tuned to one note -- not even to an open chord, like we talked about Steve Cropper doing last episode, but all the strings to one note. Cale and Conrad were astonished -- that was exactly the kind of thing they'd been doing in their drone experiments with La Monte Young. Who was this person who was independently inventing the most advanced ideas in experimental music but applying them to pop songs? And that was how they met Lou Reed: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] Where Cale and Conrad were avant-gardeists who had only just started paying attention to rock and roll music, rock and roll was in Lou Reed's blood, but there were a few striking similarities between him and Cale, even though at a glance their backgrounds could not have seemed more different. Reed had been brought up in a comfortably middle-class home in Long Island, but despised the suburban conformity that surrounded him from a very early age, and by his teens was starting to rebel against it very strongly. According to one classmate “Lou was always more advanced than the rest of us. The drinking age was eighteen back then, so we all started drinking at around sixteen. We were drinking quarts of beer, but Lou was smoking joints. He didn't do that in front of many people, but I knew he was doing it. While we were looking at girls in Playboy, Lou was reading Story of O. He was reading the Marquis de Sade, stuff that I wouldn't even have thought about or known how to find.” But one way in which Reed was a typical teenager of the period was his love for rock and roll, especially doo-wop. He'd got himself a guitar, but only had one lesson -- according to the story he would tell on numerous occasions, he turned up with a copy of "Blue Suede Shoes" and told the teacher he only wanted to know how to play the chords for that, and he'd work out the rest himself. Reed and two schoolfriends, Alan Walters and Phil Harris, put together a doo-wop trio they called The Shades, because they wore sunglasses, and a neighbour introduced them to Bob Shad, who had been an A&R man for Mercury Records and was starting his own new label. He renamed them the Jades and took them into the studio with some of the best New York session players, and at fourteen years old Lou Reed was writing songs and singing them backed by Mickey Baker and King Curtis: [Excerpt: The Jades, "Leave Her For Me"] Sadly the Jades' single was a flop -- the closest it came to success was being played on Murray the K's radio show, but on a day when Murray the K was off ill and someone else was filling in for him, much to Reed's disappointment. Phil Harris, the lead singer of the group, got to record some solo sessions after that, but the Jades split up and it would be several years before Reed made any more records. Partly this was because of Reed's mental health, and here's where things get disputed and rather messy. What we know is that in his late teens, just after he'd gone off to New

Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Interviewing the Legends I'm your host Ray Shasho. In a distinguished career as a singer, songwriter and producer, William Bell has come to define the essence of “soul.” Born in Memphis but based in Atlanta since 1970, William Bell was one of the pioneers of the classic Stax/Volt sound, joining such other illustrious musical forces at that label as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. & the MG's, Albert King, Eddie Floyd, Carla and Rufus Thomas, The Staple Singers and the Bar-Kays, among others. After a two-year stint in the Armed Forces, William released his first full-length album in 1967, the classic The Soul of a Bell, which included the Top 20 hit single, “Everybody Loves a Winner.” That same year, blues great Albert King recorded what came to be his signature tune, “Born Under a Bad Sign,” also written by Bell, which has since become one of the most-recorded blues songs of all-time. Among his other classic hits at Stax were “Any Other Way,” “Never Like This Before,” “A Tribute to a King” (William's personal tribute to Stax legend Otis Redding), “I Forgot to be Your Lover,” his internationally acclaimed duet with Judy Clay, “Private Number,” and the perennial Christmas music favorite, “Every Day Will Be Like a Holiday.” As a songwriter, William Bell's compositions have also been recorded by such diverse stars as Otis Redding, Eric Clapton, Billy Idol, Lou Rawls and Rod Stewart, among many others. In February 2017 William received a Grammy for his latest CD on STAX/Concord Records “This Is Where I Live” for Americana Album of the Year and performed on the live TV presentation with Gary Clark, Jr.!  On April 14th, 2023, William Bell will release an Album titled “One Day Closer To Home” with 12 NEW songs. William Bell continues to be a major force in the music industry! Please welcome Singer - Songwriter - Entertainer – Record Producer- Business Man- the legendary William Bell to Interviewing the Legends …   Legendary Soul Singer William Bell Releasing New Album  ‘One Day Closer To Home'   PURCHASE  THE LATEST ALBUM BY WILLIAM BELL entitled ‘ONE DAY CLOSER TO HOME' Available at https://williambellmusic.com/shop-download-music “One Day Closer To Home” is a master class on how to put down the deepest kind of blues from a lifetime achiever. With tremendous groove, the song leans into his signature, soulful sound. Bell doesn't waste a note, word, or bar telling this story of trying to get back to freedom and he makes you believe every bit of it. His vocal delivery is heart-wrenching, loaded with hope and despair all at once. Both the instrumentation and the track's music video are austere and minimal, which keeps the focus on Bell, where it belongs. It's an outstanding song that will catch you and keep you. OFFICIALLY RELEASED APRIL 14TH 2023   FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT WILLIAM BELL VISIT www.williambellmusic.com Official website www.facebook.com/TheRealWilliamBell Facebook www.youtube.com/@WilliamBellmusic You Tube https://music.apple.com/us/artist/william-bell/1198111 iTunes   Discography Studio albums Year  Album 1967  The Soul of a Bell 1969 Bound to Happen 1971  Wow ...William Bell 1972  Phases of Reality 1973  Waiting for William Bell 1974  Relating 1977  Coming Back for More It's Time You Took Another Listen 1983  Survivor 1985  Passion 1989 On a Roll 1992 Bedtime Stories 1999 A Portrait Is Forever 2006 New Lease on Life 2016 This Is Where I Live One Day Closer To Home (2023) Compilation albums The Best of William Bell (1988) The Very Best of William Bell (2007) Singles 1961  "You Don't Miss Your Water" 1962 "Any Other Way" 1963  "I Told You So" "Just as I Thought" "Somebody Mentioned Your Name" "I'll Show You" 1964 “Who Will It Be Tomorrow" 1965  "Crying All by Myself" 1966 "Share What You Got (But Keep What You Need)" "Never Like This Before" 1967    "Everybody Loves a Winner" "Eloise (Hang on in There)" "Everyday Will Be Like a Holiday" 1968   "Every Man Ought to Have a Woman” "A Tribute to a King" "Private Number" (with Judy Clay) "I Forgot to Be Your Lover" "My Baby Specializes" (with Judy Clay) 1969   "My Whole World Is Falling Down" "Happy" "Soul-A-Lujah" (with Johnnie Taylor, Eddie Floyd, Pervis Staples, Carla Thomas, Mavis Staples and Cleotha Staples) "Love's Sweet Sensation" (with Mavis Staples) "I Can't Stop" (with Carla Thomas) "Born Under a Bad Sign" 1970   "All I Have to Do Is Dream" (with Carla Thomas) "Lonely Soldier" 1971   "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "All for the Love of a Woman" 1972  "Save Us" 1973  "Lovin' on Borrowed Time" "I've Got to Go on Without You" 1974  "Gettin' What You Want (Losin' What You Got)" "Get It While It's Hot" 1976  "Tryin' to Love Two" 1977  "Coming Back for More" "Easy Comin' Out (Hard Goin' In)" 1983  "Bad Time to Break Up" "Playing Hard to Get" 1985  "Lovin' on Borrowed Time" (new version) 1986 "I Don't Want to Wake Up (Feelin' Guilty)" (with Janice Bulluck) "Headline News" "Passion" "Please Come Home for Christmas" 1989 "Getting Out of Your Bed" 1990 "Need Your Love So Bad" 1992 "Bedtime Story" 1995  "Shake Hands (Come Out Lovin')"     Support us!

Episode Title: Songwriting, Early Success, & Music Education Feat. Curtis RichardsonIn this episode Durell is joined by songwriter, producer, and music publisher Curtis Richardson. Durell and Curtis begin the episode talking about how they got connected and his earliest memories of music. Curtis shares that he got a late start to his music career compared to most people being in his mid to late 20's. He shared with Durell that he had a whole different career path in corporate america and made the decision right before September 11th to go hard for one more year and if he didn't have success he would go back to his career in corporate america. Curtis and Durell talked about the opportunity he had to write his number one hit entitled “All I Have” with Jennifer Lopez & LL Cool J. Durell and Curtis talk about when he understood the power of being international and made a conscious pivot to build his international catalog working with foreign superstars in Asia such as Taemin, Kumi Koda & Tohoshinki. Curtis and Durell talk about the business of songwriting and music publishing. Curtis shares that he sees a lot of mistakes that new songwriters make. He shares that so many of them don't approach their songwriting career as a business and oftentimes put themselves in situations that don't set them up to achieve success. Durell and Curtis end the episode talking about something that they are both very passionate about and that is educating songwriters and creatives on the business of music. Curtis shares what really got him excited about education and why he thinks it's so important. For more information on Curtis Richardson, please checkout his social media profile, Instagram @curtisricha

Episode Title: Songwriting, Early Success, & Music Education Feat. Curtis RichardsonIn this episode Durell is joined by songwriter, producer, and music publisher Curtis Richardson. Durell and Curtis begin the episode talking about how they got connected and his earliest memories of music. Curtis shares that he got a late start to his music career compared to most people being in his mid to late 20's. He shared with Durell that he had a whole different career path in corporate america and made the decision right before September 11th to go hard for one more year and if he didn't have success he would go back to his career in corporate america. Curtis and Durell talked about the opportunity he had to write his number one hit entitled “All I Have” with Jennifer Lopez & LL Cool J. Durell and Curtis talk about when he understood the power of being international and made a conscious pivot to build his international catalog working with foreign superstars in Asia such as Taemin, Kumi Koda & Tohoshinki. Curtis and Durell talk about the business of songwriting and music publishing. Curtis shares that he sees a lot of mistakes that new songwriters make. He shares that so many of them don't approach their songwriting career as a business and oftentimes put themselves in situations that don't set them up to achieve success. Durell and Curtis end the episode talking about something that they are both very passionate about and that is educating songwriters and creatives on the business of music. Curtis shares what really got him excited about education and why he thinks it's so important. For more information on Curtis Richardson, please checkout his social media profile, Instagram @curtisricha

All I Have, I Give To God ♥️

This podcast features the song “All I Have is Christ"(The Galkin Evangelistic Team)as well as part 1 of the message called "Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled" given by Pastor Stephen Pope from the pulpit of Calvary Baptist Church(Union Grove, NC)

Growing up in the 90s, we were able to be raised with some of the best R&B songs ever. Now that we are in our 30s we can reeeaaalllllyy listen to and UNDERSTAND these songs. Some of them are TOXIC as hell! The songs we sang with our whole heart like “All I Have” that told us to drop our pride to deal with a ‘bad guy' and ‘Can We Talk' that encourages accepting some stalker ish! Dissecting them and analyzing from this point of view to determine whether they were toxic or real love was a fun discussion… maybe argument LOL. We had so much fun with this because these are some of favorite songs. What were some toxic songs we may have missed?? Cheers!The Sip: Popsicle Spritz and The Shot: Miami Vice

'The Brisk Lad' [Roud 1667] was collected from Edith Sartin by the Hammond brothers in 1906 in Corscombe, Dorset. Also known as 'The Sheepstealer' and 'All I Have is My Own', it has been performed and recorded by many traditional folk singers over the ensuing century (and a bit). Jimmy Aldridge and Sid Goldsmith chose to speak about the song here for its political content, and will be singing it at their Cecil Sharp House gig on October 5th (tickets are available here). Jimmy and Sid chat here to Jon Wilks about the history of the song, where they first heard it, and what it means to them as modern interpreters of traditional songs. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Paul Sartin.  

All I Have by Angel Boateng - August 28, 2022

In this episode Simon K speaks to singer songwriter and musical artist Eleanor McEvoy.Simon & Eleanor speak about her beginnings in music,when success came and how she has evolved in the music industry.Eleanor also sings a beautiful song on the show.Eleanor McEvoy (born 22 January 1967) is one of Ireland's most accomplished contemporary singer/songwriters. McEvoy composed the song "Only A Woman's Heart", the title track of "A Woman's Heart", the best-selling Irish album in Irish history.In a world where the word star and the gift of talent are often devalued, McEvoy is neither an overnight success nor a four week wonder. A musician and songwriter of note, the real deal, possessing all of the qualities that go to make up the complete artist. Her career began at the age of four when she took piano lessons, taking up violin at the age of eight. Upon finishing school she attended Trinity College in Dublin where she studied music by day and worked in pit orchestras and music clubs by night.McEvoy graduated from Trinity and was accepted into the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland where she worked four years before finally taking the plunge to concentrate on her passion for songwriting. After a long hard slog, the girl who spent the year of 1988 busking in Union Square, New York had come a long way, a route that took her through the disciplines of classical music, Irish traditional music and contemporary music to a point where she finally found success in 1992.It happened when one of her songs "Only a Woman's Heart" inspired the title for, and appeared on, the "A Woman's Heart" anthology album. It has since gone on to become the best selling album in Irish history, staying in the Irish Top 10 for over a year. Since then McEvoy has gone on to become an artist and performer known throughout the world. Her critically-acclaimed canon of work spans six albums, several singles and appearances on numerous compilation albums and is today recognised as Ireland's most successful female singer songwriter having enjoyed personal chart success and numerous cover versions of her songs. (Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Phil Coulter, amongst others). Her song “All I Have” features in the HBO cult series “Six Feet Under”Her co-writing song credits have seen her published with fellow writers and performers such as Rodney Crowell, Lloyd Cole, Johnny Rivers, Brad Parker, Henry Priestman and Dave Rotheray.Web: www.eleanormcevoy.comYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUP-j9-iab4DOFzFxbHrHigTwitter: http://twitter.com/eleanormcevoyFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/eleanormcevoyInstagram: http://instagram.com/eleanormcevoy

Thank you for listening to episode 61 of The Classic Manny Show, hosted by yours truly. I am joined with our favourite foodfluencer Hadley O'Garro. Make sure to subscribe, rate the podcast and use #TCMSHOW to join the conversation.   CLASSIC FAVE: Amerie's ‘All I Have' album {2002}   LATEST RELEASES: Beyonce's ‘Renaissance' [album] Calvin Harris' ‘Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 [album] Odeal's ‘Kainji Dam' [single] Ms Banks' ‘Bank Statement' [ep] SiR's ‘Life Is Good' (feat. Scribz Riley) [single] Doechii's ‘Persuasive' (feat. SZA) [single]   TRENDING TOPICS: Ekin Su and Davide win Love Island 2022 Big Brother coming back in 2023 Jesy Nelson parts ways with label Neyo cheats on his wife Crystal Smith again     ‘THE CLASSIC MANNY SHOW' MUSIC PLAYLISTS: https://linktr.ee/theclassicmanny   FOLLOW/SUPPORT HADLEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter – https://twitter.com/hadleyogarro Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hadleyogarro TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@hadley.ogarro     FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA THE CLASSIC MANNY / @TCMANNYHQ Twitter – https://twitter.com/THEECLASSICMAN https://twitter.com/tcmannyhq Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/theclassicmanny https://www.instagram.com/tcmannyhq/   Photography in artwork by Shots By Gracie - https://www.shotsbygracie.com/ For enquires – theclassicmanny@yahoo.com To send questions, dilemmas or inspiring stories - https://curiouscat.me/TCMANNYHQ

Today on episode 3 we are celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Amerie's debut album “All I Have”was released. On this album we are dissecting the lyrics to the 1st single “Why Don't We Fall In Love”. My special guest for this episode Entrepreneur, Host of “Play The BoomBox” and Owner of KWJ Productions Ms. KelloWithDaJello. Our QOTD- “Why Are People So Invested In Being Love?” --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Helen and Gavin chat about Fire Island, The Baby, and Crimes of the Future, and it's Week 36 from the list of Rolling Stone's 500 Best Songs Ever, numbers 325 to 321; Lust for Life by Iggy Pop, Scenes From an Italian Restaurant by Billy Joel, All I Have to Do is Dream by The Everly Brothers, After the Gold Rush by Neil Young, and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For by U2.

For the 50th anniversary of Exile on Main St., hosts Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot do a classic album dissection of the iconic Rolling Stones record. They tell the story of the album's recording, analyze the songs and reflect on its lasting musical impact. Join our Facebook Group: https://bit.ly/3sivr9TBecome a member on Patreon: https://bit.ly/3slWZvcSign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/3eEvRnGMake a donation via PayPal: https://bit.ly/3dmt9lUSend us a Voice Memo: Desktop: bit.ly/2RyD5Ah  Mobile: sayhi.chat/soundops Featured Songs:The Rolling Stones, "Soul Survivor," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "All Down the Line," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Wild Horses," Sticky Fingers, Rolling Stones, 1971The Rolling Stones, "Ventilator Blues," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Rocks Off," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Rip This Joint," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Tumbling Dice," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Flying Burrito Brothers, "Sin City," The Gilded Palace of Sin, A&M, 1969The Byrds, "You Ain't Goin Nowhere," Sweetheart of the Rodeo, Columbia, 1968The Everly Brothers, "All I Have to Do is Dream," All I Have to Do is Dream (Single), Cadence, 1958The Rolling Stones, "Torn and Frayed," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Happy," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Title 5," Exile on Main St. (Deluxe Edition), Universal, 2010The Rolling Stones, "Sympathy For The Devil (Live)," Beggars Banquet, Rolling Stones, 1968The Rolling Stones, "I Just Want To See His Face," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972James Cleveland & the Angelic Choir, "Peace Be Still," Peace Be Still , Savoy, 1963The Rolling Stones, "Let It Loose," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Sweet Black Angel," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Shine A Light," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Rolling Stones, "Loving Cup," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Band, "In a Station," Music From Big Pink, Capitol, 1968The Rolling Stones, "Stop Breaking Down," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972Pussy Galore, "Loving Cup," Exile on Main St., Shove, 1986White Stripes, "Rag & Bone," Icky Thump, Warner Bros., 2007Liz Phair, "Johnny Sunshine," Exile in Guyville, Matador, 1993Red Red Meat, "Rusted Water," Jimmywine Majestic, Sub Pop, 1993New York Dolls, "Trash," New York Dolls, Mercury, 1973The Clash, "Death or Glory," London Calling, CBS, 1979Wilco, "Monday," Being There, Reprise, 1996Kings of Leon, "Taper Jean Girl," Aha Shake Heartbreak, Columbia, 2004The Black Keys, "Do the Rump," The Big Come Up, Alive , 2002The Rolling Stones, "Shake Your Hips," Exile on Main St., Rolling Stones, 1972The Lovin' Spoonful, "Do You Believe in Magic," Do You Believe in Magic, Kama Sutra, 1965

In this podcast I explore the song All I Have is Christ composed by Jordan and Bob Kauflin – for more information about the hymn visit: https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/all-i-have-is-christ 

Legend Michael "Spiderman" Robinson is a multi-platinum keyboardist, writer, arranger, producer, and band leader. He played keyboards on the R&B Classic "Very Special" by Debra Laws, which is now sampled by a host of artists on millions of recordings including the Multi platinum hit "All I Have" by Jennifer Lopez and LL Cool J. Find out more about Michael "Spiderman" Robinson at http://www.mikespidermanrobinson.com/.

6.26 - This is the end! Here about Doctor Strange, new comics, and we the boys go in for a second round! All I Have to Do is Dream by Everly Brothers Waterfalls by TLC Twitter: @wednesdaycomics @TheAPKeaton @garot2188 @marvin_salguero Email: wednesdaycomics605@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/wednesday-comics-podcast/message

The Drive PODCAST HR 2 "All I Have to Do is Dream" 4/21/22 by FOX Sports Knoxville

#35-31Intro/Outro: Rip It Up by Little Richard35. Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash34. All I Have to Do is Dream by The Everly Brothers33. Only You by The Platters32. Bo Diddley by Bo Diddley31. Roll Over Beethoven by Chuck BerryVote on your favorite song from today's episodeVote on your favorite song from Week 2

Ian Donaldson in conversation with David Eastaugh Ian Donaldson is a Scottish singer, songwriter, composer, record producer and writer - with a new single, All I Have is Forever, coming out spring 2022. Donaldson's music career spans more than 40 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and lead singer of new wave band H2O, which released two UK Top 40 hits in 1983 with the singles "I Dream to Sleep" and "Just Outside of Heaven". After the band's break-up, he pursued a solo career and played in a band called FourGoodMen. Donaldson released his debut novel, A Rainbow in the Basement, in 2016.

"And Must I Part with All I Have" by Benjamin Beddome (1717-1795) Hymn Stories is a part of the Media Gratiae podcast network.

By the time the Everly Brothers signed with Cadence Records in March 1957 (a deal midwifed by music publisher Wesley Rose of Acuff-Rose), they were singing teenage playlets crafted by songwriters Boudleaux and Felice Bryant overlaid with R&B rhythm patterns. They scored a string of hits, including “Bye, Bye Love,” “Wake Up, Little Susie,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Bird Dog,” and others. They became Grand Ole Opry members on June 1, 1957. In a sense, though, Don and Phil Everly were more important to Nashville. They were the first consistently successful rock & roll act to come from there. Their management and their songs came from Nashville, and they recorded there with local session musicians. In other words, they extended Nashville's sense of what was commercially possible. Learn more at the Country Music Hall of Fame/org/artist/the-everly-brothers. Lyrics Wake up, little Susie, wake up Wake up, little Susie, wake up We've both been sound asleep Wake up, little Susie and weep The movie's over, it's four o'clock And we're in trouble deep Wake up, little Susie Wake up, little Susie Well, what are we gonna tell your mama? What are we gonna tell your pa'? What are we gonna tell our friends when they say "Ooh, la, la"? Wake up, little Susie Wake up, little Susie Well, we told your mama that we'd be in by ten Well, Susie, baby, looks like we goofed again Wake up, little Susie Wake up, little Susie We gotta go home Well, what are we gonna tell your mama? What are we gonna tell your pa'? What are we gonna tell our friends when they say "Ooh, la, la"? SOURCE: COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME.org Isaac Donald Everly Born: Brownie, Kentucky, February 1, 1937 Died: August 21, 2021 Philip Everly Born: Chicago, Illinois, January 19, 1939 Died: January 3, 2014 Songwriters: Boudleaux Bryant / Felice Bryant Correction: pre·dic·a·ment; noun 1. a difficult, unpleasant, or embarrassing situation.

Boudleaux and Felice Bryant had a deep impact in Nashville, with notable hits like "Bye Bye Love" and “All I Have to Do Is Dream.” Their music has been recorded by artists like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Dolly Parton and Simon & Garfunkel. The hit-making couple is the subject of a new exhibit at The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tenn.

Not this week, my friend... Black Business of the Week: William + James | http://williamplusjames.com | https://www.instagram.com/williamandjames In this episode: - RIP Mac Miller (Part 1) - Nicki vs Cardi (Part 1) - Serena Da Gawd (Part 2) WYBLT: Remy - Mac Miller, "Swimming" https://open.spotify.com/album/5wtE5aLX5r7jOosmPhJhhk - Roc Marciano, "Warm Hennessey" https://open.spotify.com/album/50ni8DeEHYj3A5PQwnyJrx - Kanye West x Lil Pump https://open.spotify.com/track/4S8d14HvHb70ImctNgVzQQ - Chance The Rapper, "No Problems" Sample https://youtu.be/NW3QVXxHUVM Boom - Russ, "ZOO" https://open.spotify.com/album/48Kac3ieDtt9OSp9Fm4g9e - Lebron James x Kevin Durant https://youtu.be/UPKiag-TABk - Valee, "Womp Womp" https://open.spotify.com/album/7o66H14uvkdLb6dI866lOW Cannon - Amerie, "All I Have" https://open.spotify.com/album/3KUaoEXmzVovDKWionaofI - The Firm, "The Album" https://open.spotify.com/album/7ulHRBCAipnGUHvnIEt59Z Email: podcast@defconjive.com | Twitter: https://twitter.com/dcjpodcast | Patreon: https://patreon.com/defconjive

Not this week, my friend... Black Business of the Week: William + James | http://williamplusjames.com | https://www.instagram.com/williamandjames In this episode: - RIP Mac Miller (Part 1) - Nicki vs Cardi (Part 1) - Serena Da Gawd (Part 2) WYBLT: Remy - Mac Miller, "Swimming" https://open.spotify.com/album/5wtE5aLX5r7jOosmPhJhhk - Roc Marciano, "Warm Hennessey" https://open.spotify.com/album/50ni8DeEHYj3A5PQwnyJrx - Kanye West x Lil Pump https://open.spotify.com/track/4S8d14HvHb70ImctNgVzQQ - Chance The Rapper, "No Problems" Sample https://youtu.be/NW3QVXxHUVM Boom - Russ, "ZOO" https://open.spotify.com/album/48Kac3ieDtt9OSp9Fm4g9e - Lebron James x Kevin Durant https://youtu.be/UPKiag-TABk - Valee, "Womp Womp" https://open.spotify.com/album/7o66H14uvkdLb6dI866lOW Cannon - Amerie, "All I Have" https://open.spotify.com/album/3KUaoEXmzVovDKWionaofI - The Firm, "The Album" https://open.spotify.com/album/7ulHRBCAipnGUHvnIEt59Z Email: podcast@defconjive.com | Twitter: https://twitter.com/dcjpodcast | Patreon: https://patreon.com/defconjive

Steve Swartz, "What the Hymn Writers Know, Part 2: All I Have is Christ" (John 8:21-30) from the What the Hymn Writers Know series. More sermons available online at www.gbcob.org.

Well, I've been looking forward to preaching this sermon for a long time. I'm preaching effectively on one verse, Ephesians 2:7. And it's not the kind of verse that maybe many people would focus on, but for a long time I have been meditating on what will be our occupation in Heaven, what will we spend eternity in Heaven doing? Randy Alcorn recently wrote a book called "Heaven." It's an interesting book, almost 500 pages long on that one topic, and I think it's a great book. He does a lot of Heavenly speculation. I think John Calvin would have been struggling with all that speculation, but I actually enjoyed it. I think we came to the conclusion that if Randy Alcorn likes something on Earth, it's going to be in Heaven. Just go to him and find out what we're going to be doing in Heaven and he will know, but one thing he's writing against, and that is the idea of a static, boring Heaven, the kind of thing that you could kind of shrink back from. You think about floating on fluffy clouds and strumming a harp and you're like, “who wants to do that?: I don't know anyone that would be excited about looking forward to doing that. And so he just unfolds how ridiculous that is, if you understand the creativity and the power and the glory of God, it is unthinkable that we would be for even a moment, bored in Heaven. And so, for me, the idea of what will we be doing and what will be our occupation, how will we spend eternity? Like it says in Amazing Grace, “When we've been there 10,000 years…” It's hard to even imagine that span of time, “bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise, than when we’d first begun,” but then we start thinking, “Okay, 10,000 years, what will we do?” I don't think there's anything that I do on earth now that I'd want to do every day for 10,000 years. I don't think there's any food that I like here on Earth, that I'd want to eat every day for 10,000 years, even pepperoni pizza, which I love, and you never got fat and nothing bad ever happened, I still wouldn't want to do it for 10,000 years, and so we might struggle with it. But the more you meditate on the immense creativity of God displayed in this present created order. Just go to an aquarium and look at all the different species of tropical fish. You look at all the different colors, their shapes, their sizes, what they do, how they behave. Or you look at just the different types of birds there are, some different ones that fly and soar in thermals like birds of prey, like eagles and falcons and hawks. And the peregrine Falcon, that in a hunting dive can get to 250 miles an hour, all the way down to more simple sparrows that are two sparrows sold for a penny, and they're not incredibly consequential, but part of the world that God made, same thing with all the things that grow on the earth, the different range of plants and vegetation and bushes and trees and flowers. Our God is an amazingly creative God, isn't He? It's just incredible how He has woven all of this in. The Past: God’s Grace Displayed in Us And so what I'm going to say to you today is that Heaven is going to be a very exciting, thrilling place and I believe based on Ephesians 2:7, we're going to spend at least part of eternity celebrating the grace of God that He's already shown us in Christ, and that He has yet more to show to us of His grace for all eternity. Look at verses 6 and 7, it says that God, “raised us up with Christ, and seated us with Him in the Heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages, He might show or display or demonstrate the incomparable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” In other words, He has more to show us in the future and the coming ages about what He has already been doing in the church in Christ Jesus. Understanding God’s Power at Work in Our Lives Now, last week, we had a chance to hear from Walter Lee some of what God had done in his life. I shared some of the things that happened in my life. I think we are going to have unfolded before us, church history as we have never seen it or heard it before. We're going to find out, from brothers and sisters in Christ, in every era of history, all the ages of church history just what God did to save them. And I don't mean just bring them to initial saving faith, I mean to guard them and protect them from the world, the flesh, and the devil and how God used each individual brother and sister in Christ, and how He wove together their lives and their works and all that in this magnificent Tapestry of Grace. And we're going to see it and we won't for a moment be selfish or bored, but we will be delighted in everything that God has done. God’s Character in Our Salvation So, we stand here in the middle of one of the great sections of Scripture that you heard Joel read, Ephesians 2:1-10, and it comes after another incredible portion of Scripture in Ephesians 1, and so we have a chance to see the grace of God. And so what I want to do is just kind of stand here in the middle of verses 6 and 7 and say, "We're going to look back what God has already done by grace in our lives, and then look ahead for the rest of our lives here on Earth, how God has yet more grace to show us, and how we should rely on that future grace that is still going to come to us more and more, and He's going to show us how gracious He will be from now until the day we leave this Earth. But then unfolded into the eternity future, the ages yet to come, and how God is going to put His grace on display." Kyle was talking about trophies of grace. And so we're going to see them all and we're going to celebrate them all, and we're going to do it in such a selfless way. All we'll want to see is how each individual saved person glorified God, and we'll be eager for that story. So let's look at it, and let's begin looking at the past. What has God already done? How has He shown grace in us already? And this is just by way of review, Paul's goal here is that the Ephesian Christians will know God better, that God would give them, “a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.” And not only that, he says, but that, “the eyes of their heart would be enlightened.” And so as I was explaining that, that's your faith. By faith, based on the word of God, you would have revelation or illumination, of the grace of God shown us in Christ, so the “eyes of your heart would be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints.” Now, the "in the Saints" phrase is very interesting, but the idea here, at least in part, with some of the themes I'm bringing up, is that we would celebrate what God did in the saints and the other believers in Christ and we would see the greatness and the riches that are going to be in Heaven of all that God's done with our brothers and sisters, and we're going to realize that the grace He showed us is just a small portion of all the grace He showed to the family of God and we're going to realize it's every bit as much worthy of our celebration of someone else's grace as ours. It's the same God that gives all. So He wants the “eyes of our heart enlightened, so we would know the hope of our calling the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and His incomparably great power.” Power at work in us who believe. God has grabbed hold of us by His sovereign power, by His sovereign grace, by omnipotence, and He will never let us go, until His purposes of grace are finished. And so Paul picks up on the third of those three and goes off and talks about that power, that power is like the working of His mighty strength which “He exerted in Christ when He raised Him from the dead, physically, and seated Him at His right hand in the Heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that could be given, not only in the present age, but what? In the age to come.” “And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way.” So in other words, just keeping it simple. Our Origins: Spiritually Dead God wants us to know that the same power of Almighty God, God the Father, that raised Jesus up from the dead, physically has already been at work in us spiritually, if we're Christians. Why is that? Chapter 2, because we were dead spiritually, like Jesus was dead, physically. That's the analogy that he is making. “You were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live, when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit that is now at work in those who are disobedient, all of us also lived among them at one time. Gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” Like Kyle was saying, we already have a sense from Ephesians 2:1-3 of what we were apart from Christ. Actually, we have an inadequate sense of how bad it was. We underestimate how bad it was, and I said, at that time, a couple of weeks ago, your joy and celebration, and sense of gratitude toward God in the good news will be in direct proportion to your sense of the bad news. The more you just know how bad it was apart from Christ, the more joyful you're going to be in your Christian life. And so Ephesians 2:1-3 paradoxically, though very dark and sad verses, actually is a launching pad for great joy in Christ because we were dead. And there was nothing we could have done to save ourselves. Nothing at all. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, God made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions - It is by grace you have been saved,” just can't, can't go even a moment without saying “Grace! Grace! Grace!” Next week, we're going to talk about Ephesians 2:8-9, “It is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ, and seated us with Him in the Heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Miracles Already Worked in God’s People Now all of this, God has done in the past, it's already happened. If you're a Christian, this has already happened to you. God's already displayed incredible power in your life, if you only know what to look for. That you love Jesus right now, it's supernatural power put on display. You were dead. How did you come to love Jesus? How did you come to follow Him and believe in Him against all odds, against the world, the flesh and the devil? How came you out of that dark, cold grip of Satan, and of your sin and your rebellion? It's by the sovereign grace of God, by His power. So, we're looking back, this is something that's already happened to you, celebrate it. Be amazed at it, Never lose your sense of wonder that you're a Christian. It doesn't matter if you were raised in a good Christian home. That's fantastic, that's wonderful. God used that to protect you from corruption and wickedness. It's a good thing to grow up in a Christian home. It doesn't matter that you don't have a dramatic conversion story like Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. It doesn't make a difference. You're a miracle of God's grace, if today you love Jesus and you're following Him. But if on the other hand, you do have an amazing story like in the song, All I Have is Christ, “I was wandering in darkness and rebellion and sin, and did so many evil things, but God reached down and He drew me out of those deep waters,” celebrate God's grace. It doesn't make a difference. What matters is if you're a Christian, you're already a trophy of grace, God's already shown His power at work in your life, and He's doing it still, and He does all of this to put His own glory on display. He's putting Himself on display, He wants us to see His greatness. And so we've seen this again and again in Ephesians chapter 1. Look at verses 4-6, there, “in love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace.” In other words, He did this, He predestined us, elected us and predestined us so that we might be for the praise of His glorious grace. That's why he did it. Again, verse 12, "In order that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be for the praise of His glory". In other words, that we might exist to put God on display to glorify God, that's why He did it. And then again in verses 13-14, "Having believed you, you Ephesians, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit who is a deposit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of His glory.” By the way, in Verse 14, until the redemption of those who are God's possession, God has a whole bunch of elect people that haven't been converted yet, and so, this history is just unfolding, history of evangelism and missions and the growth of the church is unfolding. There are more glorious stories yet to be told. They're going on right now today. Today is somebody's glorious day of conversion. That's awesome, isn't it? But until all that's done, you who have already been saved in Christ, you have been “marked with a seal,” and you're held with the sovereign power of God, He is holding on to you, and He'll never lose you. So that you might be for, “the praise of His glory.” God’s Glory Rightly Displayed It is Right for God to Show Off Now, all of this is the idea of a public display. God's putting this thing on display. He wants to show Himself. He wants to display Himself. And so, that's why Ephesians 2:7, I'm zeroing in on this, this word “show” or “display,” that God has a “show” or “display” to put on in the coming ages, we'll get to that in a minute, but the idea of display that God's putting Himself on display. Well, does God do that kind of thing? Is God a showoff? Oh yes. He's a bigger showoff than we can possibly imagine, but not in any bad way. God wants us to see His greatness. He wants to give us gifts, and the greatest gift He can give us is Himself and the emanations of His creativity and power and who He is and so, oh yes, God shows off. He's done it in physical creation, hasn't He? Don't we see the glory of God in the world around us? Psalm 19:1-2, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech, and night after night, they display knowledge.” I went out last night, I was putting the cars back, they were out in the street and I had to put them away. I don't know why I was going out, it wasn't for taking out the garbage, anyway, so I was going out just looking up at the night sky. There weren't many stars out last night, I don't know what was going on, but I just looked at the silhouettes of the black trees, felt the breeze on my face, just looked around, just... I'm glad no one saw me. It would've been weird. But anyway just looking at what God's made and there wasn't much light, but it's still amazing to me. There's trees and the breeze and everything. God does that, He puts himself on display, the power and the existence of God is on display, all the time. More Glory Displayed in the Gospel But then even more in the Gospel, Amen. Even more has God shown Himself in Christ in the Gospel. He put Jesus up on a cross in order, Romans chapter 3, that He might display His justice, “because in His forbearance, He left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.” David was never punished for what he did with Bathsheba, and with Uriah the Hittite. He wasn't put to death. Why not? Because God looked ahead to Christ. But He had to display His justice in saving us, to show that He was vindicating His law, and vindicating His justice. He showed His justice in the cross. Not just justice, He showed His love at the cross, didn't He? In Romans 5:8, “God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” He's putting His love on display. This is the kind of thing that God does, He displayed His power, didn't He, in Pharaoh? Didn't He say, "I raised you up?," this is Romans 9, "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show My power in you," what's the word "show" mean? "That I might put My power on display, that all the nations would see how powerful I am, and what I can do, And that My name might be proclaimed in all the earth as a powerful, mighty, delivering God." And so we have that great Exodus story. The Ten Plagues, the Red Sea crossing, the water walling up on the right and the left, that's an awesomely powerful display of salvation, isn't it, but God raised Pharaoh up to display His power. God does this. And He does it in conversions, He puts himself on display in converting people. Paul is a great example of this, doesn't God show His nature in converting someone like Saul of Tarsus? He wakes up that morning, breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples, hating the church, hating Jesus, hating everything he stood for, went to bed a Christian. How in the world do you explain that? "Oh, the psychological pressure was on Paul." No, listen. Sovereign grace! He plucked him out of Satan's dark kingdom and He transferred him into the kingdom of light, and Paul says that's what happened in 1 Timothy 1:16, he says, "But I received mercy for this reason, that in me as the foremost of all sinners, Jesus Christ might... " What's the next word? "Display." “Display, show His perfect patience, as an example to those who are to believe in Him for eternal life.” God puts up with rebellious wicked, elect people for a long time and then converts them. And He just puts on display His patience. Paul's humble apparently weak preaching of the Gospel, he said, was a demonstration or display of the Spirit's power. I mean, God's doing this all the time, but He has yet more to show you. You don't even know the millionth part of what God has done to save the elect, the church, in every era of churches. He has more to show you. He's just doing this all the time, He's putting Himself on display. God Displaying Himself in Our Lives And He's doing it in your life. He says, "You are the light of the world." Jesus said that in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:14-16, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl, instead they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father who is in Heaven." Right, but who lit you up? Who lit you like a lamp? Did you light yourself? No. God lit you and God puts you up on a lampstand and makes you give light to everyone in the house. Well, that's going on right now, but it's going to go on for eternity in Heaven, He's going to put you up on a stand and say, Look what I did in this person's life. This is My son, this is My daughter. What's the point in telling a great story if it never gets told? If God's going to craft an incredible story that goes on for decades in someone's life, hey let's tell the story, I want to hear it, don't you? It's like, “Well,” You will then, okay? God is going to transform you and you'll be so ready to hear your brothers and sisters' stories, so He doesn't light a lamp and hide it, instead He puts it out so everyone will see the work of God going on in their lives. And this is an immeasurable display. It talks about the incomparable riches of His grace, this is lavish language of how incredibly rich has been God's grace to us in Christ. He wants us to know how much He spent on us. The Cost of Gospel Glory Have you ever spent a lot of time like scraping a price tag off a gift? I don't know what it is with these price tag manufacturers, they need to study their adhesive better. They are just amazingly strong, and the paper amazingly weak. Have you ever been like, How do I get this gummy stuff off without ruining the paint? You probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but you're just scraping it off. Why? You don't want the person to know how much you spent because you don't want it to be a guilt thing, or whatever, and this goes on. God's the other way, He wants you to know exactly how much He spent on you, He wants you to know how costly it all was, He wants you to know that He gave what was most precious to Him in the entire universe, His only begotten Son, dead on the cross for you. And that, “if He's going to give you that, how much more would He also along with Him, graciously give you all things.” That means Jesus, what He's already given you, is more valuable than the entire universe to God the Father, and He wants you to know that. He wants you to know how much He spent on you and is spending and will spend. It's immeasurable. To some degree, He wants us measuring the immeasurable. The immeasurable riches of His grace, just how much He has spent. He wants you to take your little three yard long piece of string and go to the base of Mount Everest and start going around the circumference of it and start measuring it, get a sense of it, of the “immeasurable riches of His grace, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” Just measure it, we got eternity friends, let's see how much He loved us in Christ and notice what it says, expressed in His kindness to us in Christ. Oh, that word has worked in my heart this week. Kindness! God has shown us kindness in Christ, immeasurable riches of His grace expressed in kindness. You could imagine a stingy person wanting you to know how much he spent on you. Somebody who's doing the guilt manipulation thing. “I hope you realize how much that cost, I mean you know that, don't you? And that's just not just any such and such. That's the best, you do know that, don't you?” “Alright, alright how much did you spend? I mean since you want to tell me, tell me.” It says in Proverbs 23:6-8, I love this, “Do not eat the food of a stingy man. Do not crave his delicacies, for he's the kind of man who's always thinking about the cost. ‘Eat and drink,’ he says, but his heart's not with you. You will vomit up the little you have eaten and will have wasted your compliments.” Don't you love the Book of Proverbs? Just says it straight. But God isn't like that, God isn't stingy, He's kind. He loves saving us. I mean He really enjoys giving us a kingdom. “Fear not little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” that's Luke 12. Fear not, He enjoys lavishly blessing you with grace, He just enjoys that. You think about the father of the prodigal son, he says, "Quick, bring a ring for his finger and a robe and sandals and let's kill the fattened calf and let's celebrate!" He's just so filled with joy at saving sinners. He loves doing this. There's kindness here. God’s Kindness Toward Us in Salvation And one verse, it's been much in my heart this week, and over the last few weeks, as I'm doing some Scripture memory in the minor prophets, Micah 7:18. Listen to this verse Micah 7:18, "Who is a God like You who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of His inheritance. You do not stay angry forever, but delight to show mercy." I mean, just, wow. God delights in showing mercy, that's His kindness. He will greet you kindly, when at last you see Him, don't fear Him, He will greet you kindly. He is the father of the prodigal son, He will welcome you to Heaven, so we're so afraid of that, but He delights in showing kindness. He's so kind to us in His Son, He says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls," that's the kindness of God speaking through His Son. He's so kind in saving us, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light," And so this is an immeasurable display of kindness. And it's going to go on for eternity. So that, “in the coming ages, He might show.” “In the coming ages,” so God was looking ahead to the coming ages. Grace Displayed for the Rest of Your Life Faith in Future Grace Now, I want to take that and expand it from this moment now to the end of your life, and talk about that briefly, and then I'm going to go from the end of your life on Earth on into the coming ages of eternity and say that God has something to show you in both of those ages, the age of your life here on earth this present age and then the rest of all eternity, in the future, age in Heaven. He wants to show you something in both. So let's talk first about the rest of your life. God has more grace to show you from now until the day you die. He's going to continue lavishing grace on you, He's going to continue showing you kindness. You're not done being saved, and neither am I. So we've got more grace to receive from God, yet more grace is going to come our way. James 4:6 says, "but He gives us more grace." So just think about that one expression more, grace. Do you need more grace? Yes, you do, you need a lot more grace, and it needs to just keep coming and coming. But God, having already begun this good work of grace, He will not stop showing you grace until at last you are done being saved. And so, you can count as you look to the future and you look ahead and you say, "You know, this is an uncertain future. I don't know where I'm going to be, I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know what's going to happen to me. I don't know what combination of temptations and assaults, and trials and afflictions Satan's going to bring my way, I don't know. And I could be afraid of that. How am I going to make it? How am I going to run this race with endurance, right to the end? It's a long way to go." God Stays with Us Throughout the Race I'm really impressed with those people that have the 26.2 (which is the amount of miles in a marathon race) things on the back of their cars, or the 13.1. I saw one this week, 0.0. I don't know what that's about. Have you seen that before? 0.0. Boasting about not running a marathon, but anyway. But you know, I used to be a distance runner. And there comes a point in a long race, where you wonder if you're going to make it. It's like that's right around the time they say, of hitting the wall. You got another seven, eight miles to go and you're like, "I'm done, I don't have any more to give". And it's a moment of desperation. How do you know you're going to make it, brother, sister? How do you know you're going to finish this race with endurance? So you have to lay aside every weight and run with endurance. Well, you know how you know? Faith in future grace. Confidence that God has more grace to show you and what you need you will get. That's your confidence, that's how you know you're going to make it. He who began a good work in you, He will most certainly continue to pour out grace in you and work in you until you're done being saved. You can count on that. And so you're going to have constant attacks from the world, the flesh and the devil, it's going to keep coming, that you can bank on. “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart, I will show you all the grace you need to get you through this world, you're going to run your race, you're going to finish it. I'm never going to let you go, I will never leave you, I will never forsake you.” You know how Ananias was sent to baptize Saul of Tarsus after his conversion. “No, no, it's real. It really is real. Go baptize him.” Now, “I've heard reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.” “Go! for this man is my chosen instrument to carry my name before the Gentiles and their kings and before the people of Israel,” and what's he say? "I will show him how much he must suffer for my name." Yeah, but that's not all He was going to show Paul, “I will show him how much grace I have for him, how ‘my strength is made perfect in weakness,’ and how my grace is sufficient for you, Paul, I'm going to show you that too.” And so He's got something. I will show you how much grace I will give you, so that you will finish this race. That's going to happen. So there's your assurance, there's your security, that's how you know you're going to make it. If somebody ever asks, "How do you know you're going to finish your life still believing in Jesus?" Answer, "God's going to show me future grace, He's going to show me grace every day, the rest of my life". Grace Eternally Displayed in Heaven Gifts of Grace in Heaven Thirdly, Grace displayed for eternity in Heaven. So we've got ages to come, we're in a present age now, and then we've got an age to come. Now, I don't know for sure that that's what Paul meant when he says, "In order that in the coming ages, He might show," but maybe this age, and the age to come, or ages of church history could be. And then the age to come. But I think it must include Heaven. So God is going to give us a perpetual heavenly education. Now, for the longest time, I thought that you know how it says, "When we see Him, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is, in a flash in the twinkling of an eye we'll be transformed and we'll be changed." And so I thought at that moment, we would get a kind of an instant upload of a bunch of information and we'd be done learning, right? But then that would make us omniscient, and friends, we will never be omniscient. We'll never be God. So actually the more I started thinking about it I was like, “No, it's not that, is that we'll lose our sin nature that's what's going to happen, we'll be glorified and done sinning, and I think we'll be done forgetting too,” amen. No more forgetting. So ever expanding learning, there's always more to learn. What will we learn? Well, we learn the greatness of God in Christ in saving us at least, I think we'll also have a New Heaven, New Earth, and New Jerusalem to explore, we'll learn what He's made there. That'll be awesome. But just focusing on the grace He's shown us and kindness in Christ Jesus, that will be a study for us and so we will be forever growing, forever learning, Heaven will be a very dynamic place. You're going to study church history in Heaven. Amen, Hallelujah. You're going to study church history in Heaven, you're going to be excited about it, you really will, you'll like it, I promise. You will enjoy it. An Ever-Increasing Kingdom I remember some time ago, I was meditating on those verses, a very famous verse, Isaiah 9:6 and 7, that we focus on at Christmas time, "For to us a child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders, and He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:7, "Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end." Take it literally. An eternal increase. Well, how can that be, if there's no procreation? “Neither marrying or giving in marriage like the angels in Heaven.” We're done with babies being born all that, set number of people. How will His kingdom eternally increase? We'll just keep learning. We'll just keep on magnifying the Lord, more and more than ever before, we're going to just say, "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together. Let's find out some more things about what God has done in redemptive history and in the New Heaven and New Earth," that's what we're going to do. We're just going to keep learning and learning. Like God said to Satan. "Have you considered my servant Job?" Not sufficiently. Hey, let's meet Job. Let's get to know him, you know a lot about him. Let's find out more. I want to know about that widow that put in those two copper coins. Remember her? I want to know all about her. Jesus exalted her to just about the highest place of Christian giving, she gave more than anyone else. I want to meet her, I want to know her. How did she get to that point where she was willing to give all she had to live on? Don't you want to know her? I want to know her. Have you considered my servant Job? You know how it says at the end of John's Gospel, in John 21:25, "Jesus did many other things as well, which are not recorded in this book. I suppose if every one of them were written down, even the whole world would not have room enough to contain the books that would be written." Alright, well, how about Heaven? Is Heaven a big enough container? I want all those books, well, forget the books. That's seeing through a glass darkly. I want to hear the story, I want to see it happen. I feel like we're going to be living it again. Like in a hologram or something. No, not like that, but we're going to just be there and live through it, and see it, and God will display it and we'll learn what He did in the Middle Ages, or what He did to spread the Gospel in this place or how He reached this valley of people in here. Some elect people, and some missionaries went and they suffered in some of those people came to Christ and what they did to the glory of God. I want to know, “have you considered my servant Job?” I want to find out who all his servants are and consider them all, and celebrate God's grace in all of their lives. I just want to do that. The Glory of God in Believers’ Lives I love going over the stories of people's conversions. Don't you love reading? How was Augustine converted? I love that story. How Augustine was burning with lust, and he couldn't shake his sexual immorality. But he knew the Gospel, and his mother was praying for him to become a Christian, but he's just stubbornly holding on to his sins, and he was there in a garden one day and he heard children playing, singing in Latin "Take up and read, take up and read", this little thing and it's like a little children's diddy and there happened to be a scroll of Romans or something like that, there in the garden, opened up to Romans 13, and he happened to read. You ever do that? It's like, "Alright Lord, lead me, bring me to a good verse that will help me". It's not a good way to Bible study, but that seemed appropriate then. It just happened to be open at Romans 13. And then he realized there was a command against the very sins that he was committing. I know that I know, but something happened, and he realized that the very thing God commanded He would give grace to obey. And so he said in his confessions, give what you command, and command what you will, Lord, and at once, he understood the Gospel, that's the very thing, God will give you perfection as a gift, if you just trust in Jesus, and he was saved. I love those stories, I want to know more about it. I want to know how the Gospel was spread. I want to know about how Celtic missionaries went under the tutelage of Columba, and they went across Northern Europe to all these barbarian tribes and set up these enclaves and then courageously went out and shared the Gospel and how they were persecuted and how they were successful. I want those stories, I love the story of Boniface. I was just there in the Northern part of Germany just a little while ago and where he was chopping down the Thor tree, you know, these pagans, and chopping it down. What a bold guy! Give me an axe, I'm going to chop down that sacred oak. And then suddenly a wind comes and finishes the job. People are amazed. He gets up on the stump and preaches the Gospel. Uses the wood to build a chapel for Jesus, Amen. I love a guy like that, I want to meet him. Tell me your story, I've heard that story. Are there any other good ones? I want to know more of the stories. Let's hear them all. I want to know what Thomas did apparently went to India, what Thomas did in the first century to establish the Gospel in India. I want to know the story of that. I want to know who the historians were and how they brought the Gospel early on into China and what happened there. I want to know some things that history hasn't even recorded. People getting on boats and going to South Pacific islands, and bringing the Gospel to some people who have long since died and gone to Heaven. And there's no record of it, but I want to know those stories, don't you? I want to see what God's done. I want to know the things He's doing right now, in the Muslim world. I have all these accounts in here. I don't have time to read them, they're all awesome. God Glorified Through Abouna’s Ministry Let me just tell this one, there's good stories, a wind in the house of Islam, stories of how God is working to bring Muslims to faith in Christ and there's this one guy named Abouna Zakaria Botros, he's a 79-year-old exiled Egyptian Coptic priest who infuriates Muslim fundamentalists by telling the truth about Islam. And this man courageously preaching the truth about Islam and about Christianity, is amazingly effective. Sixty million people listening to his internet webcast every day, in the Muslim world, and many, many people being converted. He said, "I don't hate Muslims, I love them, I hate Islam", and he's telling the truth. Apparently there's a $60 million price on his head. What's it like to live like that? Someone actually was joking, an Egyptian Christian was joking saying, "I think the $60 million is offered to any Muslim who can answer what he says." "If somebody could just refute him, we'd be happy with that." But he's winning people to Christ, and one of the men he led in Christ is a 64-year-old Arab man named Nassir. He'd been wooed by the Gospel all his life, finally came to Christ when he pondered this guy's attacks, gave his life to Christ, soon after that met an American missionary named Tim who was in the city who had been praying, zero fruit for two or three years, finally met Nassir, began to disciple this guy, Nassir, Nassir starts leading dozens and dozens of to other Muslims to Christ. I love those stories, don't you? I want to know him, the trophies of God's grace. One of them, one of the men he led to Christ, was another man named Sabri, he was 50 years old, influential in his village. He first led his own wife and children to Christ by showing them the falseness of Islam and the truth of Christ, and he eventually worked his way through the town and is now responsible for leading 400 to faith in Christ. Divides them into small groups to escape the attention of the police. So many stories. How many will there be? Well, listen to this, Revelation 7, "After this, I looked in there before me was a multitude greater than anyone could count." Take one of those from every tribe, language, people and nation standing around the throne, dressed in white robes, holding palm branches in their hands, and saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb". Each one of that countless multitude has a countless number of stories to tell. It's true. Of all that God did in decades of their lives to bring them to faith in Christ. And then to use them afterwards. Alright, and as a matter of fact, in the text, it asks the question, maybe you didn't notice this before. I never had. Listen to this. It continues. "Then one of the elders asked me, these in white robes, Who are they and where did they come from?" That's my whole point. Who are they? All of these people? And where did they come from? We've got stories to tell, amen. “In order that in the coming ages, He might show the incomparable riches of His grace, express in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus.” So, He's going to show it, and all of us, it's going to be put on display. And why is that? So that all of us may boast in the Lord as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." Application So, what applications can we take from this? Well, begin by meditating again on the richness of God's grace to you expressed in His kindness to us in Christ Jesus, meditate on each word, “the immeasurable riches.” Say, "I am immeasurably rich." Just say that. "I, as a Christian, I'm immeasurably rich." In what? In grace, and mercy, and kindness from God. Ponder the word kindness that God has shown kindness to you. Let it melt your heart, let it just work on you and then say "Oh God, make me merciful and gracious and kind to others". It has that impact on you. It's like, as you've been kind to me, I want to be kind to others. And look forward to the displays. There are many verses that say, This is going to happen, says "Those who live in darkness, do not come into the light" John 3, "for fear that their deeds will be exposed, but everyone who lives by the truth comes into the light," why? “So that it may be seen plainly, that what He has done has been done through God.” What does that mean? We're going to come in and put on display what God did in and through us. That's what's going to happen. And we're going to celebrate. So look forward to that. And so let's do it now, what do you say? Let's talk. Say, how is God at work in your life? How can I celebrate God's grace in your life? Tell me your story, tell me your testimony, and learn to celebrate God's grace in other people's lives, you're going to spend eternity doing it. Let's do it now, it'll bind us together, it'll make us less self-focused. So, celebrate that. CJ Mahaney in his book "Humility" said, one of the best things you can do to somebody, it’s humble too. You say, I see God at work in your life, brother, sister. I see God working in you. That's very encouraging, isn't it? Meditate on salvation by grace through faith apart from works. We're going to talk more about that, God willing, next week, but just celebrate that. And finally, if I can just address you if you're here as a lost person, you came in here in darkness on the outside, I would love for your story to be consummated by faith in Christ. I would love you to come out of darkness right now into the light. You've heard the Gospel several times already today. How God sent His Son, for sinners like you and me, and all you need to do is trust in Him by faith, by grace through faith apart from works, trust in Jesus for the salvation of your souls. Close with me in prayer, please. Prayer Lord, thank you for the time we've had to celebrate your grace. I can't wait, Lord, to get to Heaven and to meet all of my brothers and sisters. “A multitude greater than anyone could count, from every tribe, and language, and people, and nation,” who have been saved by your sovereign grace, each of them individually and in special and separate in different ways. And Lord, I want to know these dressed in white. “Who are they? And where did they come from?” And I want to know how they came out of the tribulation and their robes were washed in the blood of the Lamb and how the Shepherd will forever protect them and bless them, I want to meet them, oh Lord. Help us to love the brothers and sisters now and help us to be energetically active in evangelism and missions leading other people to Christ. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

On tap this week: Joe Thorn Joins us to discuss cigars, beer, kid's church, and what it's like to be a Southern Baptist. Featured song: All I Have is Christ by Sovereign Grace Music Subscribe now: