Mother of all Tribute Albums, The
HM Magazine has put together the "ultimate tribute album," The Mother of All Tribute Albums, a collective effort of 15 artists who chose to pay tribute to some of their favorite artists. The results? You must hear this one for yourself!
HM's editor, Doug Van Pelt says he doesn't remember exactly how the idea for The Mother of All Tribute Albums originated, but he says it went something like this: "First, I thought of coming up with a killer tribute album. I thought of several bands covering a variety of artists; like Mortification covering MxPx, Guardian covering One Bad Pig and One Bad Pig covering Guardian, a swing band doing a version of 'No Way I'm Going Down' (Whitecross), a Sheryl Crow sound alike doing an acoustic ballad of Barren Cross' 'Heaven or Nothing,' Ian of All Star United doing 'Virginity Disease' (Lust Control). I thought of the phrase 'mother of all tribute albums,' just like Saddam Hussein's phrase of 'the mother of all battles' (gulf war). I shared that with assistant editor, Brian McGovern, who said, 'Yeah, great idea! And you could put photos of each artist's mom on the cover!'"
"The artists that I started contacting were excited. I chose artists who I liked, who I knew could perform a quality song, and who had access to a home studio, or studio time for little to no cost, as I had a very limited budget with which to finance this by," explains Van Pelt.
"Doug told me about the idea for The Mother of all Tribute Albums," recalls Atomic Opera's Frank Hart. "The first thing I said was 'why don't you let me cover Black Sabbath's 'Heaven and Hell' for that?' I thought that was funny. Doug thought that might be a little too far out there, so we did 'WaterGrave' by the Imperials."
"It was my first Christian rock concert," Hart remembers. "I saw the Imperials in Lincoln, Illinois. I was sitting there and they were playing disco music. I was there basically because the youth group from my church had gone. I was watching the concert, but I really wasn't into it. Then they started playing this song, 'WaterGrave.' They had me then. I really liked that one and I bought the Sail On record for that song. When I wanted to do a cover song for this record, I remember that was the first Christian rock song that really got under my skin."
"We gave it a really different treatment -- sort of Led Zeppelin, acoustic guitar song," Hart adds. "I played a bunch of tracks and the cello. The two percussionists from Caedmon's Call, Todd and Garrett, did percussion on the song. Kemper Crabb also played mandolin and sang background vocals on the song."
Hart describes The Mother of All Tribute Albums like this: "It has a neat cross section of styles and influences, not only the songs that are being covered, but also the way they are being covered. I also think my mom will be thrilled having her picture in a CD that has major distribution!"
Since The Mother of All Tribute Albums didn't hit the streets until the day the label has dubbed "Mother's Day" (March 16th), the majority of artists hadn't heard the completed project at the time of this writing. However, some of the artists took the time to explain to us why they chose to cover a particular song and the meaning behind it.
One of modern Christian music's founders and veteran artist Larry Norman chose to do a version of dc Talk's "Jesus Freak," one of the record's more recently recorded songs. "I love dc Talk. As a band, I really love their music, and as people, I really love them, individually. I wanted to record something of theirs. I thought 'Jesus Freak' was a song that I could identify with. It relates to things that I thought about in the 60's. I like their rap and that style of writing. I was very comfortable singing it, because I like the structure. I think that the song 'Jesus Freak' is modern, and at the same time, it's kind of retro too. I don't know if everyone will understand this, but the modality of the song is not so far from the music of the 50's. The intervals, the notes that are being sung are not extremely unusual, or harmonically abusive to one another. Then, the verses themselves are free form, because they're talking. I think that's a nice contrast. It's as though people, who were writing the song, were singing something very old and then singing something very modern at the same time within the same song. I think that's one of the reasons it won awards and why it's such a popular song with people."
A member of dc Talk's management staff commented that when Norman's version of the song was played for Toby, Michael, and Kevin, "I could tell by the grins on their faces that they were very pleased."
"With the vast majority of the artists, I let them choose the song they would cover and I was delighted with their choices," recalls Van Pelt.
Norman remembers it being an easy decision. "I got to choose the song that I wanted to sing. I wouldn't have recorded (just) any song. If I hadn't recorded a song by dc Talk, I might not have recorded anything."
"We narrowed it down to two choices," recalls Blackball's Rocco Sigona. "It was between 'Message in a Bottle' by the Police and 'Are You Going to Go My Way' by Lenny Kravitz. 'Message in a Bottle' wasn't my first choice, but it's what the other three guys wanted to perform. My first choice would have been something funkier, or a little more retro than that. After I read the lyrics, they moved me. They're really insightful. The other three guys are totally into the Police, so we chose 'Message in a Bottle.'"
Justin Fox explains that even though they pondered several songs, the classic 77's song "Do it for Love" shone brightly in comparison to the rest. "There were a few other songs that we considered," he says, "but 'Do it for Love' stuck out for us, because it had a real strong hook in the chorus. When you compare our version to the original, our version is definitely more acoustic. We tried to give it a little bit of a folk vibe, and make it a little more rootsy."
The Channelsurfers is a band that basically evolved from what the band Lovewar was. They recorded a lighthearted, zany version of the Veggie Tales "God is Bigger." "We try to make the best music and we try to be creative, and at the same time, try to say some things that matter and have fun with our music. I feel really privileged to be a part of this project," says The Channelsurfers Tim Bushong.
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