Here's the first of a small set of albums from TV preachers back when they seemed to be all over the airwaves. We only had three or four channels, and you didn't have much else to watch if you happened to be looking for something on a Sunday morning. We usually settled on a Tarzan movie on the local independent station, but not before flipping through all the network channels and finding nothing but preachers dressed in their Sunday best doing their thing. And one of those was Robert Schuller and The Hour Of Power. This past January, I was in California for a few days of software training, and the class was being held at a small hotel sort of katy-cornered from the former
Crystal Cathedral, a huge house of worship that Schuller built some years after the release of this album. The music here is not bad, it's probably what you would expect from a group that was on TV every week performing behind a well-known preacher. There are also six different parts of the story of the first Christmas, as told by Schuller. Those might be the part that's most worth the price of admission here. This is
Robert Schuller And The Hour Of Power Television Musicians-
Merry Christmas From The Hour Of Power (Hour Of Power RS 1002, Stereo).
1. Christmas Is Here
2. The First Christmas-Part 1
3. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
4. In Dulci Jubilo
5. O Holy Night
6. The First Christmas-Part 2
7. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
8. Carol Of The Manger
9. The First Christmas-Part 3
10. Angels We Have Heard On High
11. The First Christmas-Part 4
12. Stille Nacht
13. I Wonder As I Wander
14. Noel
15. Adeste Fideles
16. The First Christmas-Part 5
17. He Came Here For Me
18. The First Christmas-Part 6
19. Joy To The World
MEGA
I saw the original plans for the Crystal Cathedral and if the actual materials were used...that church would have been razed by at least three different earthquakes...
ReplyDeleteThe untold story is that Fleetwood RVs saved Schuller from total disaster and how everyone from the founder on down helped build that mega-church (structurally) on their own dime...so that nothing short of a 9.5 earthquake would cause major damage to it... Since it was put up...they only had to repair 15 panes of glass (that I know of) between then and 2003 (the year I moved to Las Vegas)... Sadly...four of those were due to vandalism...
If I ever get to do another one of those Power Of Christmas productions...I'd love to be in it...
I remember those days when there was virtually nothing to watch or listen to on Sunday mornings. I hated it then. While I doubt I'd still be a fan, I was never against listening to Christmas offerings, so they got a once a year reprieve. Thank you for this offerings.
ReplyDeleteI've met Robert Schuller and rode in an elevator with him. A very nice man. I attended a music conference at the old church in the mid-70s when they were beginning to dig the foundation of the Crystal Cathedral. We visited that church a few times in the late 80s/early 90s when we lived in So. California. The Crystal Cathedral is quite a structure.
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