Preacher John
Well here I am waiting in a restaurant to catch up with Iain Jamieson. It's Monday night and we're going to be thinking about re-recording a tune I wrote for John Stuart who now lives and ministers in Knoxville USA.
It got me thinking all this songwriting started way back in 1986 we had just completed a long weekend in Maybole as a joint youth project between the young people in Maybole Old and St Andrew's Bo'ness. My friend Gordon Reid, was the Maybole minister. We called the week BAMS Week. Highly original, I know. Bo'ness and Maybole Week. Anyway it was out of that week of activity Gordon and I started to encourage the young people in the art of song writing.
A few weeks later John Stuart was to join Gordon as a colleague in ministry in Maybole. As I had been inspired the week before to write some songs now a few weeks later I continued to write. To mark the occasion of John's ordination I wrote the song "Preacher John". Well believe it or not this wee song appears to have struck a chord with a number of people. I know of at least one person who found it helpful as they struggled with the call to ministry. And i heard of another who used it at his ordination.
I well remembers singing the song for the first time at John's induction social. I'm sure a few people got a bit of a fright as the long haired minister from Bo'ness urged his friend to be a preacher who fearlessly proclaims the Gospel.
Anyway after 25 years I thought it might be good to give the song a face lift hence my meeting with Iain tonight. We're going to see what we can do with it. The last time it was recorded John was using a cassette tap. Hopefully he'll have a brand new recording he can download from itunes.
Anyway here I am still sitting at this table feeling a bit like someone who has been stood up. Where is Jamieson? In the midst of all this I'm joined by may daughter for a half hour she just lives a stone's throw from the restaurant. But where is Jamieson? He'll swan in shortly full of patter telling me how he had an emergency and that he had to save someone's life. Look what can you say to that excuse. Nothing, just when I'm thinking these bad thoughts Iain arrives. It turns out he's been sitting in the restaurant for the past 20 minutes.
After a long catch up Iain delivers the first reworked version of the song. It sounds good. We'll get together again within the next few weeks. next time in the studio and let's hope that together we can recreate something of the passion that was recorded on the original tape.
Posted By: italker On: 25 Mar 2011 At: 8:26pm
Thanks Heather I hope people will like the new version.