Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

When I saw the name of Bud Tutmarc on the front of the sleeve, I had an inkling of what would be in store when I shoved this into the CD ROM.  One of my abiding memories of the early days of CR magazine was the Greybearded One panning a megacheesy 'Hawaiian Hymns' disaster of an album that Bud had made, and I had visions of Sankey hymns Waikiki-style, with hula dancers swaying to "What A Friend We Have In Jesus".  Sadly, on the six tracks that feature Mr T out of the 24 (was it worth the namecheck for a 25 per cent participation rate?) this is more or less what we get, along with much additional narration and poetry reading.  I'm not sure why producer Wes Davis had to pad out the music with all the extraneous clutter, taking the secateurs to the master tape could have made this a lot less cringeworthy, because the prose is maudlin in the extreme, some of the doggerel passing itself off as poetry is painful to listen to and good ol' George's North Carolina drawl doesn't help, particularly when he talks the words of the hymns instead of singing them.  The Timeless series has been usually worth at least a six, but the Corn Count on this one cancels out the underlying quality of these classic hymns.  Definitely a miss.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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