Something a little different for this “Pic A Week” post. Instead of a few photos or slide show, a group of photos and a short video at the end, set to music. The song is Bob Bennett’s “1951.” Before the video, a little about Bob Bennett, the song and the album it was released on.
I first became of Bob Bennett in 1983, when Teri, Caleb and I moved to Louisville, KY and I started working at a Christian radio station. Bob had released the album “Matters of the Heart” in the spring of 1982. The record was released on CBS/Priority and went out of print that summer when Priority went out of business. Star Song records re-released it in 1985, but it went out of print again in 1987. Urgent Records released it on cassette in 1990 and then on CD. But Urgent went out of business and once again “Matters of the Heart” went out of print. In May 2007 it was released on iTunes.
The reason I spend so much time on the history of this album is that it is one of my favorites of all time, and one of the most critically acclaimed in Christian music history. CCM Magazine named it the 1982 Album of the Year. A few years later the magazine placed in the top 20 of its first “Greatest Albums Of All Time” list. In 2011 it placed #17 on their “CCM’s 500 Best Albums Of All Time” list. I featured “A Song About Baseball” on a TBT feature last March. This coming Thursday I’m featuring another portion of that interview and the song “1951” on the feature.
Bob told me that “1951” is not as autobiographical as “A Song About Baseball.” He actually came in late in the songwriting process on this tune, sharing songwriting credit with Jim Fowler and Michael Aguilar. Bob was born in1955, “so the numbers don’t work, but 1955 doesn’t sing as well as 1951,” he told me.
The dates don’t work exactly for my use in this video either, but the spirit of the song certainly does. I hope this combination of images and the song paint the picture of the love my mom and dad modeled for each other, our family and the Lord.
I hope you’ll think about listening to or purchasing this masterpiece (the album, not the video). It’s available on Amazon here and iTunes here.
