Backstory:
Hymns and Songs of My Mother

To order Hymns and Songs of My Mother click on Store Access. That webpage provides a convenient link to the online marketplace product page, where you can preview, and/or purchase either a digital download (various formats from MP3 to audiophile, or a CD to be mailed to you.)

Reason This Album Was Recorded

This magnificant album was a request from my mother in 1998, following the death of my father in late 1996. In early 1998, mother, knowing I had sung in choirs since elementary school, studied voice in college and after, and was recording at a professional studio, requested I record this album of their favorite hymns and songs. Together we selected the hymns and songs to include from my parents' favorites. (See selected list at Simple Playlist.)

David put his ongoing project recording, Romantic Duets, on hold and focused on producing Hymns and Songs of My Mother. (Materials from those Romantic Duets will be included in future EPs in the series of Nostalgic Love Songs.)

This Hymns and Songs project started off quickly, with David sharing draft recordings with his mother every weekend. However, later that year, his mother also died. After her death, demands in the lives of both David and the Phase I producer of this recording, Ms. Heidi Gerber-Salins, in 2004 led to work on this project entering an extended hiatus. That resulted in this becoming a very long, protracted, multi-year project.

In 2019, it became possible to initiate Phase II and complete this album. This album was publically released in the summer of 2024.

Credits for this album are grouped under Phase I and Phase II. Phase I successfully recorded the majority of the foundational components that are included on the final album. Phase II added the new arrangement of the song "Welcome Home," replaced all the electronic organ accompaniments, and added multipart harmony to several of the hymns.

Note. Although the new arrangement and recording of "Welcome Home" included on the album occurred in Phase II, previously in 1998 during Phase I, we succeeded in recording a reference version of "Welcome Home" with the composer and lyricist, Kathy Brigman Haupt, singing and playing acoustic guitar. (Some of the composer's vocal from the 1998 reference recording was used in the final mix.)

Insights About Included Hymns and Songs

The dropdown submenu top left provides links to both 1) a simple and 2) an augmented (or annnotated) playlist for the 27 hymns and songs.

Hymns

There are 21 congregational hymns on the album, sung basically as they might be in church, but with the following variations:

• Occassional interludes,
• Variations in harmony:
  • Solo
  • Duet
  • Multipart harmony, plus some descants, and
  • A capella.
• In addition to the above vocal variations, a variety of instrumental accompaniments are used.

The 21 congregational hymns represent a wide range of types. They were selected from the hymnals his parents collected over their lives when their churches bought new hymnals and disposed of the old.

Songs

Also included are 6 religious songs that were important to them. They represent a combination of service and religious songs.

Two are service songs from the back of hymnals, which are commonly considered doxology or service songs/benedictions, rather than congregational hymns. They are:

• First. "God Be with You Till We Meet Again."
• Second. "The Lord Bless You And Keep You".

The other 4 songs came from several sources:

• Third. A wedding song text, titled "Be Thou with Them," lyrics by Lloyd Pfautsch. The lyrics are set to the classical song tune known as "Bist du bei mir." Originally the tune was thought to be by J.S.Bach, but is now attributed to a contemporary of his, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. This song became special to David's mother when he sang it at their rededication on their 50^th wedding anniversary.


• Fourth. "Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring." This song's tune was originally a hymn tune by Johann Schop, written in 1642, the same year as a hymn text by Johann Rist was published. However, Schop's tune was not published until 1661. Bach's use of this hymn tune replaced the hymn text lyrics by Rist with ones by Martin Janus, published in 1665. (Bach used 2 verses from Janus' text for 2 different movements in his 1723 version of contata 147.) It is J.S.Bach's arrangement of this tune in his last movement of the 1723 version of contata 147 that became well known with the very loosely adapted English lyrics by Lord Robert S. Bridges. (His appointment as English poet laureate in 1913 gave him title of Lord.) This song represents David's father's love of more classical church music.


• Fifth. The 4^th number from Dvorak's 10 Biblical Songs. In English, titled "God Is My Shepherd." This is the 23 ^rd psalm. However, the original lyrics used by Dvorak to this song were in Czech, from the 1600 Czech Kralice Bible. (For that bible, the New Testament was translated from Greek, and the Old Testament from Hebrew.) The English lyrics are a translation from the Czech (likely by Dvorak) to fit the music, and thus differ a tad from the familiar King James version of the lyrics.


• Sixth. The folk influenced Contempory Christian Music song by Ms. Kathy Brigman Haupt, titled "Welcome Home." She wrote it for the funeral of her grandmother (David's mother's sister.) While the style of this song differs dramatically from the rest of the traditional, nostalgic hymns, this song was absolutely a favorite of mother's. (Two versions of this song, the 1998 reference version recorded by the composer and lyricist and the newer arrangement created for the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother, are available separately as a mini-EP, titled Welcome Home.)

(Note. A more detailed discussion of why Kathy wrote "Welcome Home", and why it was very special to David's mother, is found under Kathy Brigman Haupt: "Welcome Home." However, because "Welcome Home" is an unknown Contemporay Christian song, the following abbreviated notes are provided here.)

This song became a favorite of David's mother both because Ms. Brigman Haupt had lived with them during the year she served as youth minister at their church, and because she wrote this song as a tribute for her grandmother's funeral, who she was very close to. That occurred when her grandmother suddenly died on a trip to help another grand-daughter in Alaska. Ms. Haupt's grandmother was the elder sister of David's mother (i.e., David's Aunt), and David's mother loved the song written for her sister's funeral by one of her sister's grand-daughters.

The other grand-daughter involved in this story, Ms. Donna Hicks, is the one David's mother's sister went to Alaska to assist, where her grandmother died suddenly.. Donna later sent an artistic rendering as a framed copy of the song's lyrics to David's mother from Alaska. Mother hung them on her bedroom wall, where they hung until she died. (David now has that copy of the framed lyrics Donna sent to his mother.)

Kathy also sang this song at the memorial service for David's mother.

It was during Kathy's trip back to Maryland for that memorial service when we were able to record Kathy's version of the song at Bias. (Note. Getting an audio engineer to work that Labor Day weekend Saturday to make the reference recording was not easy!) Having that reference recording enabled:

• Learning the song;
• Using titbits of Kathy's vocal from that 1998 recording session in the new arrangement of this song on the hymns and songs album: and
• Although Ms. Haupt did not create sheet music, her cousin in Alaska did, and years later I got a photocopy of that hand transcribed sheet music from Ms. Haupt. That enabled post production processing of both the original recording and the new arrangement, and offering them as a separate mini-EP of this folk, Contemporary Christian song.

Copyrights

All but one of the hymns were public domain as of the album's release in 2024. The exception is the lyrics to the hymn "Morning Has Broken". Additionally, lyrics to the song "Be Thou with Them" are still under copyright. TortoiseClimbing™ obtained "mechanical licenses" for lyrics to both "Be Thou with Them" and "Morning Has Broken," authorizing us to sell our recordings of these songs. (A seal indicating that licensure is displayed on both the simple and annotated playlists and on the CD envelope.)

The author and compose to the original song "Welcome Home," Ms. Kathy Brigman Haupt, gave written permission for TortoiseClimbing™ Audio to arrange, record and make the initial public release of her song, which is both included on Hymns and Songs of My Mother, and as a separate mini-EP with both versions of the song. In addition to giving Ms. Haupt copies of both recordings, we are copyrighting "Welcome Home" on behalf of the composer.

Making the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother Album Changed TortoiseClimbing™

The original goal/mission of TortoiseClimbing™ in 1993, when Solo Collection was released, was the very modest hobby orientation of recording nice albums for private release.

The interchange with mother about this album changed that. I asked whether:

• This should be a nice recording for friends and family,
• vs:
  1. A high-quality product,
  2. Made available to the public.

She requested it be a high quality recording, and be publicly distributed. (Her request took this project out of the hobby category.)

To achieve her preference, required substantial evolutions in TortoiseClimbing™:

• A significant upgrade in goal/mission of TortoiseClimbing™ was needed to specify producing:
• Outstanding, professional quality recordings;
• For public distribution.
• Required becoming functional in a number of capabilities beyond those originally conceived in the 1993 founding. Those included at least 6 significantly separate parts:
  1. Making a high quality audiophile Recording;
  2. Figure out the marketing and packaging variations to make this recording publically available (CD, digital files, easy listening, and backup accompaniment tracks), and how to market so the public knows the recording is available;
  3. Writing, editing and marketing the companion History book;
     (After editing the book text, the plan is to add public domain pictures for the large number of historical persons discussed in the histories. The majority of those public domain pictures are low resolution for computer screens. That works fine for the planned eBook format.);
  4. Building the extensive, responsive, dynamic new TortoiseClimbing™ website, which you are reading, as part of the marketing efforts;
  5. Putting the history book into an eBook book format that preserves the extensive footnotes (likely as chapter endnotes); and
  6. Recording advance podcasts of the chapters (planned to begin as soon as the eBook is completed), and creation of an audiobook version of the History Through 27 Hymns and Songs (targeted for TBD).


• To carry out those responsibilities several, specialized subdivisions of TortoiseClinbing™ were created:
  1. First, Audio, the record label TortoiseClimbing Audio™ - To carry out the many steps involved to produce high quality professional recording;
  2. Second, Publications, the subsidiaryTortoiseClimbing Publishing™ - To:
     • Write our Business Plan; and
     • Write and publish the companion history book to this recording, providing the histories that influenced the hymns and songs. (Researching the histories was an eye opening experience about how much they can tell us. After considerable content research, that the next step was the world of editing.)
  3. Third, Website/Marketing, the subsidiaryTortoiseClimbing WebServices™ - To create and maintain this website and develop our marketing program using the website, as part of our marketing efforts, for releasing our audio and publications publicly. (For more background details about the extensive work creating this website, see the Website Background.)


• All these changes contributed to the choice to become a for-profit endevor. That decision was made about a year into the Phase II effort - The goal is to try recouping the considerable ongoing expenses. (A consequense of that decision is it created more recordkeeping requirements that are still expanding.)


• We followed up with development of a detailed Business Plan, including preliminary research and thoughts regarding our marketing program for current and forthcoming products. (Efforts to implement marketing plans were delayed by the deteriorating health of the lady in my life and her eventual death in February 2025. We are returning a focus to refinement and implementation of our marketing plan.)

The Hymns and Songs album was produced over many years in 2 Phases

Reminder - You can preview and/or order Hymns and Songs of My Mother from Store Access, which provides a convenient link to our online marketplace product page. You can purchase either a digital download, or a CD to be mailed to you.)

Many Are Due Credits

The quality and variety acheived throughout this recording project were made possible by participation of numerous professional artists. Separate webpages are included for each of the artists (instrumental, vocal and technical). The wealth of their training, experience and skills contributed to creation for the exceptional album, Hymns and Songs of My Mother.

To assist you find credits for different artists and instruments, we created an artists' Cross Reference webpage for all artists and instruments included on our recordings. See Cross References webpage.

The artists' credit pages for this album are grouped by which phase the artists were involved with:

• Phase I - 1998 to 2004;
• Hiatus - 2004-2019;
• Phase II - 2019 to 2024.

Other versions of Hymns and Songs recording to Be Made

We plan to add new credits when we create the additional versions of album - (Easy Listening and possibly karaoke accompaniments for home/church).

Companion eBook: History Through 27 Hymns and Songs

Information about the extensive companion eBook History Through 27 Hymns and Songs is found under Publications at: History Through 27 Hymns and Songs. Target for availability of the ebook is in TBD. Plans are to offer the eBook as part of a discounted bundle with the album.

The companion eBook provides extensive historical details about the times each of the hymns and songs were written, and how those world histories influenced the hymns and songs. The Publications section of this website can be reached by selecting that choice on the Top menu. Or, for easy access you can click the above link to jump directly to the write up on the extensive companion hymn history book.

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