I've done a bunch of live albums in the past week, and an album of Rich Mullins covers. So for today, we're going to mash both of those together! In September 2017, 20 years after the death of Rich Mullins, Andrew Peterson held a one-night-only concert at Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium. To celebrate the life of Rich Mullins, he and his friends along with some of Rich's friends recreated, note for note, Rich's finest album, the 1993 release A Liturgy, A Legacy & A Ragamuffin Band. I wasn't there, but I totally wished I could have made the trip to be there. It passed, and I thought we would only hear the legends of that evening. Then earlier this year, Andrew Peterson announced that his team had actually recorded it, it sounded great and they wanted to release it! Hooray! I ordered it on vinyl from their crowd-funding campaign, and I'm so looking forward on having the recording in hand. But for now, I have this digital version.

Released today to digital platforms, this is the full two-hour concert, complete with brief banter between songs and over a dozen covers of Rich Mullins favorites not on that album. Tracks 15-27 are an excellent, nearly note-for-note recreation of the A Liturgy... album, and it's done so well by all the musicians involved, it honestly does sound just as good as the studio album. There's not just drums, bass and guitars like a standard live show, but strings, flutes, and pretty much anything that was played on the original studio recording. Plus the audience knows all these songs well and joins in as a choir at just the right times. I think my favorite tracks currently are Jeremy Casella's version of "The Howling" and Andrew Osenga and the band rockin' out on Mark Heard's "How To Grow Up Big And Strong". Even if you're not familiar with that album, they sing a lot of well-known and lesser-known Rich Mullins songs from throughout his career. I'm going to love listening to this for many years, almost as much as Rich's album, honestly. Rich Mullins was a great songwriter, and I love that though he passed on to be with God, so many people honor his legacy and share it with all of us.

Release Year: 2025
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Released 21 years ago today, Bullet is the debut album from Mat Kearney, a singer-songwriter who likes to blend genres. I first heard of Mat Kearney a few years before when he spit a verse on a hip-hop mixtape album, so I expected a bit of hip-hop on his debut. This album mixes Coldplay-esque pop with hip-hop and spoken word verses on songs like the title track, "Trainwreck" and "Girl America". On other songs, it's just Kearney crooning with an acoustic guitar and a few other instruments, singing beautiful love songs about life, and songs like "Call Me" and "Won't Back Down" show a musician that has lots of promise from the start and continues to write great music over 20 years later. 18 months after this album's release, he released Nothing Left To Lose on Columbia Records, which takes 6 songs from this album and adds 7 new ones, and that is now widely considered Kearney's debut album, as Bullet is not available on streaming and is mostly forgotten. So you might have to find a CD copy of this to give this album a listen.

Release Year: 2004

Released on this day 25 years ago was Phil Keaggy's most epic and maybe most experimental vocal albums, and as one of the first Phil Keaggy albums I owned, Inseparable also holds a special place in my heart. Phil recorded almost all of this 16-song album in his home studio and he played pretty much everything on this recording himself, which I'm sure was a huge undertaking. This album has more electronic programming and unique percussion and drum sounds than you would certainly expect for the guitar virtuoso. Electric and acoustic guitar are definitely present throughout, but there are no freewheelin' jam sessions here, just the instrument being used well to serve each song. Songs like "Chalice" and "Litany Of The Spirit" seem to be Phil reconnecting with his Roman Catholic roots a bit lyrically, as well as "Blessed Are" being the Beatitudes put to music. And right in the midst of this spiritual lyrics is a Paul McCartney cover, "Motor Of Love". Phil's got some instrumental songs here, too, mixed throughout the songs. And after a few instrumental tracks, it ends with "Little Star", encouraging the listener to live in God's love. Throughout this album, Phil Keaggy is preaching the Gospel, but it's an experimental rock masterpiece that is really well put-together and I love it. It was also available in an independently-released 2-CD version, which can now be bought digitally online (see links below).

Release Year: 2000
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Released 20 years ago last week, this is the second album from Kevin Max, the man who had all the best vocal parts in dc Talk. While his first solo album was a very experimental pop/rock/world music sound, this album is definitely more straightforward rock. "Jumpstart Your Electric Heart!" is a fun song that gets the listener jammin' and there are definitely a bunch of slower rock ballads as well that benefit from Max's great voice and soaring falsetto. One of my favorites is his cover of Bob Dylan's "When He Returns", which has excellent vocals from Kevin Max and great piano from Producer Andrew Prickett. Lyrically, the original poetry is thick with with language of love and religion, but it's hard to tell if it's about God or a lover and it definitely is not your standard Christian rock lyrics. This is one of Kevin's better overall albums of his solo career, but if you like the obscure and somewhat odd music, keep digging into his later albums.

Release Year: 2005
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