In this episode of the CMB Podcast, I speak with worship leader and songwriter, Noel Richards.
Noel and his wife Trish have been writing songs for over 30 years. You may have heard songs like All Heaven Declares, You Laid Aside Your Majesty, and By Your Side just to name a few.
He’s also known for finding and exposing great songs that he didn’t write. Remember a little song called I Could Sing of Your Love Forever or We Wanna See Jesus Lifted High? In this session, he goes into the stories of how he discovered these songs and helped to see them go “viral”.
Listen to or download the podcast here, and check out the detailed show notes below….
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Here are some of the highlights from our conversation:
- his story of how he got started
- the days of Christian music before “worship leading”
- how open tuning inspired All Heaven Declares
- understanding the nature of “right brain bursts”
- how his writing has changed over the years
- youth and creativity
- the husband and wife co-writing dynamic
- writing truth in a fresh way
- melodic dynamics, and what makes a good song work
- stop trying to write a song and rediscover your love for your instrument
- writing songs for corporate worship
- how the kaiser capo can break writers block
- musical evangelism
Important Links to Check Out
- http://www.noelrichards.com/
- http://www.thehudsontaylors.com/
- Noel mentioned Kaiser partial capos to spark creativity- (google search link)
- I mentioned his “Champion of the World” event at Wembley Stadium (1997)
Love Songs From Heaven
I didn’t mention this in the podcast, but if you haven’t checked out Love Songs from Heaven: The Songs of Noel Richards, I suggest you click here now and check it out.
On this particular album, some of worship’s most well known artists, including Matt Redman, Darlene Zschech, and Graham Kendrick (to name a few), sang on new recordings of Noel’s best known songs, to honor him as a writer who has contributed so much to the advent of the “modern worship movement”.
Click here to view it at iTunes.