As promised I’m following on from last time. More of my music memories. I shall keep you waiting a little longer, saving the best till last, for my all time favourite song from my teens.
We are so fortunate today, in that we have access to endless music using various streaming platforms. As a lot of Christian artists in my teenage years were from the U.S.A, I had no way of hearing any of them before I purchased. Russ Taff ‘Medals’, was another one of those albums that I randomly purchased because I liked the look of it when browsing in a Christian Bookstore.
I wasn’t disappointed at all with this one and he became one of my frequently played artists. ‘I’m not Alone’ here was my favourite track. You can tell it was an 80s song just by listening, but when watching the video I think the hair style gives it away too. I loved his voice and style and I really liked the lyrics to this particular song.
Actually, I have found it hard to choose just two favourites from this album because I loved them all, but I will go with ‘Rock Solid’ as my second favourite. This is much more up-tempo and more pop/rock in style. Great memories listening to this album again. The live video is here, it’s not so good sound wise but it’s nice way to immerse yourself in the iconic 80’s fashion and sound.
Next up is a Norwegian artist called Solvei. There is a story behind this artist as Stewart and I both attended a concert of hers that was held in a church local to us both. At the time we hadn’t met, I went with some youth from my Church and Stewart did the same. It wasn’t until we were married some years later that we realised we had been at the same concert. Small world sometimes isn’t it.
After enjoying the live event I purchased the album ‘Starting Now’ here. The song that I always remember her for is ‘Press On’ but another of my favourites was ‘Awesome Love’.
Now for the band I loved most of all in my late teens. The Saltmine Band, were locally based and were the resident band at a youth event held by Saltmine Trust, called ‘The Filling Station’. It took place over several nights in a large warehouse in Dudley. I still have my badge now with the Filling Station logo. Following this youth event there were monthly events held at Dudley Town Hall on Saturday evenings called ‘The Reclamation Roadshow’, and again this band were always there leading the worship and playing their own songs.
I bought all of their praise albums and one single that they made. The single is the one that became my favourite. I was so disappointed that it wasn’t on any streaming platforms. But last week I found it on a newly released compilation album from Saltmine, happy days! The song in question is ‘So Far So Good’ and you can listen here. I’m surprised my record didn’t wear out the amount of times I played it. Funnily I had a pet budgie at the time called ‘Reilly’, and because he heard it so much it became his favourite too and the second he heard the drum intro he used to shout and excitedly run backwards and forwards on his perch. He was an avid talker and I actually taught him to say “I like the Saltmine band”, except when he said it it came out as Saltbine band.
Just to finish, a few moths ago now I stumbled across the You Tube channel of the original Saltmine band drummer, and he had found a few old recordings from one of the Roadshow events, so here is another of my favourites called ‘King Of Hearts’ here.
I do hope you have enjoyed my walk down memory lane as much as I have, it’s been a long post today but it’s brought back lots of happy memories.
The Church at Hiraeth 