Step into the Water

 

 

 

Kirk Talley was born June 9, 1958 in Johnson City, TN.  He grew up in a small Free Will Baptist Church in rural East Tennessee.  His dad was the song leader at that church so he was naturally interested in music at an early age.  Kirk's brother, sister, and himself stated singing in a kids trio before he could even read.  His dad taught him to sing first tenor.  They would sing at their home church and anywhere they were invited.  He knew he wanted to be a professional Gospel Singer after attending his first concert at the Kingsport, TN Civic Auditorium after seeing the Inspirations and the Hoppers perform.  Talley began performing Southern Gospel Music in 1972.  He has been a member of groups such as "The Hoppers", The Cathedrals, and the Talleys.

He became a member of the Cathedrals in 1979.  It was during his years with the Cathedrals that he wrote his first song (yes you guessed it) "Step Into the Water".  Kirk told the story behind this song in the video posted below.  The Cathedrals were singing at a revival in Lenoir, North Carolina.  Phil Haskins was preaching and Kirk was sitting with the choir behind the preacher in which Phil stated that it was time we as Christians need to step into the water.  Kirk wasn't sure why that struck a bell with him, he just knew there was a chorus there and so he took out a pen and piece of paper and wrote the chorus.  He then later added the verses but not growing up in a quartet didn't here the bass part that George Younce added during their practice one evening.  This song made it to #1 on the charts and remained at the top of the charts for nine months. 

 

In early 1984 Kirk left the Cathedrals to join his brother and sister in law, Roger and Debra, to form The Talleys.  He then went on to write "He is Here".  The Talleys received the 1992 Dove Award for 'Song of the Year' for this song.  It was also nominated for the 34th annual Grammy Awards that same year. 

 

In 1993 Kirk began his own solo career and performed across the United States and Canada.  "I Speak to You" was his first soloist project in which his #1 song "Joy On the Other Side of Jordan" came from.  His next project was "Serenade" which produced two Top 10 charting songs, "Serenaded By Angels" and "If He Hung the Moon".  He also received several awards at the 1996 National Quartet Convention.  The Gospel Voice magazine presented him with three Diamond Awards; Soloist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year, and Song of the Year for "Serenaded By Angels".  The Singing News magazine presented him with the 1996 Fan awards for ; Favorite Male Vocalist, Favorite Songwriter, and Song of the Year again for "Serenaded By Angels". 

 

Life changed for Kirk in 2003 after he made a life changing decision that I choose not to post.  You may research all the information on any search engine for yourself. 

 

Lyrics

 

Chorus

Step into the water

Wade out a little bit deeper
Wet your feet in the water of His love
Step into the water
Wade out a little bit deeper
Come join angels singing praise to the Lamb of God

I.

It's time we, the people, stand up for what is right.
It's time we squared our shoulders back and raised our
swords to fight.  For the Bible is my weapon and the Spirit is my shield.
The Church needs more of its members to be workers in  the field.

II.

There is victory for the Christian who walks the

narrow way.  There has been a prize appointed for the soul who does
not stray.  Though I want to live for Jesus, and be all that I can
be. So, that I can rest with Him forever, live eternally.

 

  

YouTube post

                                   Ernie Haase and Signature Sound singing "Step into the Water"

Other songs he has written:

He is Here

 

 

 

Serenated by Angels

 

 

I Start my Day

 

Sources: 
Most of this information was collected from many different posts of Kirk's personal testimonies. 

 



 

The Anchor Holds

Lawrence Mendel Chewning Jr. is a Christian recording artist, songwriter, and speaker.  He was born in 1949 and grew up in rural South Carolina. He was the son of a cotton farmer, ginner and merchant.   At the age of eight he accepted Christ at a country church in South Carolina.  After he graduated he moved to Anderson, Indiana to attend Anderson University to major in Religion and Social Work.  During his junior year a massive revival outbreak spread throughout colleges which became known as the Asbury Awakening.  It started one morning in 1970, without warning, what has been described as a “divine visitation” broke loose during Asbury College’s 10 am chapel service in Wilmore Kentucky.  Dr. David Hunt, a Louisville physician who was then a student stated, “You just walked in and sensed that God had indeed sent His Spirit.” The service, a routine meeting, was scheduled for 50 minutes. Instead, it lasted 185 hours non-stop, 24 hours a day. Intermittently, it continued for weeks and spread throughout many colleges. 
During this same year Chewning started travelling full time with a group of his friends that formed a gospel band known as the Fishermen.  They witnessed on the streets, spoke and sung in churches all over.  This was the time that Chewning began song writing, and within a couple of years this band evolved into a music group singing original songs he wrote.  The group was based out of Anderson, Indiana but travelled performing in coffee houses, college and high school campuses, Jesus festivals and outdoor concerts throughout the Midwest, the South and the New England states.   They were right in the middle of the Jesus Movement that began on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960's and early 70's and spread primarily through North American and Europe until about the early 1980's.    In which a new genre of music was born that we know as contemporary Christian music today.  The Fishermen were together from 1970 to 1977.  It is stated that a teenage boy named Ray Boltz accepted Christ while attending one of the Fishermen's concerts at a Christian coffeehouse in Hartford City, Indiana.  He is now known as an award winning Christian recording artist. 

A new band was formed in 1978 called Lawrence Chewning & Eastland Band.  They moved to New England and did a number of concerts there for a couple of years.  He moved there with his wife living in Marlborough, Massachusetts.  In the beginning of 1979 Chewning and his wife moved to Clinton, Massachusetts and resided there for 16 years where Chewning co-pastored a non-denominational church. 

The year of 1992 became known as the year of sorrows for this family.  It was a trying time as it seemed like an accumulation of one sorrow after another during this time.  They had become discouraged and depressed after their third miscarriage which was a little boy.  Chewning took a six month sabbatical from pastoring in which he started playing the piano once more to get closer to God.  He read some things about the long dark night of the soul when it seems that you just can't find God anywhere.  He stated he had experienced this void for few months.  He would play the piano for hours at a time.  Then one day he started playing a song he realized he had never heard before.  He realized that it was because he was in the process of writing it.  It was truly a song coming from deep down as he sang after awhile he realized he had a song over ten minutes long.  It was a therapeutic song for him personally that helped him through his discouragement and depression.  This song is titled "The Anchor Holds." 

In the spring of 1993, Chewning  went to Ray Boltz concert in Maine where he told him about this song during a time of sharing together after the concert.  A few months later Boltz called him to see if he could sing it. Chewning sent the song to Boltz "in the rough" and told him that he was free to adapt it for his purposes. Ray reworked some of the lyrics, shortened it a bit, and added a musical bridge.  Finally in 1994 this song was recorded on Boltzs' "Allegiance" project.  "The Anchor Holds" was later released for national radio airplay and quickly rose to #1 position on the Inspirational charts. It remained #1 for three weeks.

Since 1994 Chewning has been employed by the State of South Carolina as a social worker, serving at various times as a foster care worker, child protective services intake worker, and for over fifteen years as an adoption specialist.  For two years, from 2004 to 2006, Lawrence worked part-time with the agency as a free-lance adoption home evaluation writer, while he travelled throughout the United States performing concerts and speaking in churches.  He continues to accept speaking and singing engagements as his work schedule permits.  His most recent recording, entitled "The Road Back Home", was released in the summer of 2011.  Lawrence and his wife, Trish, reside in Florence, South Carolina.  They have three grown children and one grandson.

Also featured on the WOW 1996 project. In 2003 "The Anchor Holds" was featured on Bill and Gloria Gaither's"Red Rocks Homecoming" and performed by Donnie Sumner.  It has also been recorded by Karen Peck and New River, as well as Jimmy Swaggart and Shara McKee.


The Anchor Holds
I
I have journeyed
Through the long, dark night
Out on the open sea
By faith alone
Sight unknown
And yet His eyes were watching me

Chorus
The anchor holds
Though the ship is battered
The anchor holds
Though the sails are torn
I have fallen on my knees
As I faced the raging seas
The anchor holds
In spite of the storm

II
I've had visions
I've had dreams
I've even held them in my hand
But I never knew
They would slip right through
Like they were only grains of sand

III
I have been young
But I am older now
And there has been beauty
That these eyes have seen
But it was in the night
Through the storms of my life
Oh, that's where God proved
His love to me
 

 

"The Anchor Holds" written and performed by Lawrence Chewning

 

This is one of my favorite singers who happens to sing this song as well.

Shara McKee a Pastor's wife in Texas

other songs sung by Ray Boltz and written by Chewning:
At the Foot of the Cross
I Wouldn't Go Back
Carry On


sources: 
http://www.lawrencechewning.com/index.html

"Victory in Jesus"

Eugene Monroe Bartlett, Sr.  is considered one of the founding fathers of Southern Gospel Music.  He was born on Christmas Eve in 1885 near Waynes­ville, Mis­sou­ri.  Bartlett relocated to Sebastian County, Arkansas with his parents. Bartlett dedicated his life to Jesus at an early age.  Bartlett at­tend­ed the Hall-Moody In­sti­tute in Mar­tin, Ten­nes­see, and William Jewell College, Li­ber­ty, Mis­sou­ri.   Bartlett lived in the south and enjoyed a reputation as a fine music teacher. Based in Arkansas, he traveled the entire southern portion of the country holding singing schools for anyone interested. These and similar schools trained aspiring musicians in vocal technique, sight reading, and conducting and were influential in the development of church music as a whole for much of the remainder of the century. 

Eugene M. Bartlett, Sr. meet and married Joan Tatum in 1917.  They were parents to two sons, Gene Bartlett, Jr., a nationally known writer of contemporary church music and Charles Bartlett Minister of Music in a large Texas church.

Eugene M. Bartlett, Sr. was a very successful business man, and decided to invest his money in which he founded the Hartford Music Company in Hartford, Arkansas sometime in 1918.  Within the first year of business he sold more than 15, 000 copies of his hymnbook.  Many writers, singers and musicians received their first opportunity in gospel music at Hartford Music Company including Albert E. Brumley who wrote "I'll Fly Away" and "Turn Your Radio On." Bartlett's mission was to publish hymns and teach singers to sight read.  He hired instructors to teach voice, piano, piano tuning, rudiments, harmony and stringed instruments.  He also was editor of the music magazine, Her­ald of Song. His son Eugene, Jr. was al­so a hym­nist and com­pos­er.  When he was not instructing, Bartlett was an avid composer of hymns and gospel songs.

Though almost all of his songs have sunk into oblivion among the Christian body today, "Victory In Jesus" remains one of the most popular and widely known songs of the church.   In 1939, a stroke rendered Bartlett partially paralyzed and unable to perform or travel.  He spent the last two years of his life bedridden.  Amid such bleak circumstances, he wrote his final and most beloved song, “Victory in Jesus,” an optimistic number that has been sung by millions in worship services and recorded by gospel’s biggest names.  The three verses and refrain enthusiastically tell of one's own personal salvation experience from beginning to end. It's said that Bartlett missed traveling and teaching, but he could still study the Bible, a study from which he gave us this wonderful song during a time when much of the earth sat on the brink of World War II.  The song first appeared that year in "Gospel Choruses," a paperback songbook published by James Vaughan in Lawrenceburg, Tenn.
         
Only two years after his stroke, Bartlett died January 25, 1941.  He is buried at the Oak Hill Cemetery in Siloam Springs in Benton County.  Throughout his 56 years of his life, Bartlett composed more than 800 songs. Since the early 1960s, "Victory in Jesus" has become popular among evangelical congregations, Quartets, and many hymnals have included it within their published pages.  Bartlett was inducted into the Gospel Music Association’s Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1973.

Victory in Jesus Lyrics

I heard an old, old story,
how a Savior came from glory,
How He gave His life on Calvary,
to save a wretch like me;
I heard about His groaning,
of His precious blood's atoning,
Then I repented of my sins
and won the victory.

Oh victory in Jesus, my Savior, forever!
He sought me and bought me
with His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him,
and all my love is due Him-
He plunged me to victory
beneath the cleansing flood.

I heard about His healing,
of His cleansing pow'r revealing,
How He made the lame
to walk again and caused the blind to see;
And then I cried, "Dear Jesus,
come and heal my broken spirit,"
And somehow Jesus came
and brought to me the victory.

Oh victory in Jesus, my Savior, forever!
He sought me and bought me
with His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him,
and all my love is due Him-
He plunged me to victory
beneath the cleansing flood.

I heard about a mansion
He has built for me in glory,
And I heard about the streets of gold
beyond the crystal sea;
About the angels singing
and the old redemption story-
And some sweet day I'll sing up there
the song of victory.

Oh victory in Jesus, my Savior, forever!
He sought me and bought me
with His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him,
and all my love is due Him-
He plunged me to victory
beneath the cleansing flood.

 

 

 Victory in Jesus (1939 original version)  

 

 

 

Other songs:
Everybody Will Be Hap­py Over There
Camping in Ca­naan’s Land

Just a Lit­tle While

 

sources: 

Find A Grave Memorial# 13737445

Encyclopedia of American Gospel Music edited by W. K. McNeil
Livros - 25 Most Treasured Gospel Hymn Stories - Kenneth W. Osbeck
Anderson p. 200
Baxter, pp. 82-84
Sing Unto the Lord p. 116