JESUS, BE THE LORD OF ALL LW plays LW with story

JESUS, BE THE LORD OF ALL - Lanny Wolfe plays Lanny Wolfe (with story) Many of my family, friends, students I've taught, and industry cohorts have, over the years, begged me to do a piano CD, playing Lanny Wolfe songs. I have always pushed the idea aside because, the idealist and perfectionist in me would feel that it would need to have all the bells and whistles to make it the production that i would envision. That, along with other things on my plate always seemingly screaming louder for me to address them, have pushed this idea to the sidelines of my 'to do' list. That somehow changed when Danny Shelton initiated a project around the song "Jesus Loves Me" asking me along with some of his other professional friends and associates to do their instrumental or vocal take on this, one of the most beloved songs of the church. I accepted this challenge from my friend, diving into a swimming pool of pianistic musical ideas, not quite sure what I would come up with when I would surface for air. As He has done so many times in my past, 'The Lord Came Through" and kept pushing me to put together 'my take' on this wonderful hymn. I was one of the first ones to submit my 'musical offering' to this project . . . and after being in the forest of creativity for hours, I stepped outside the forest and was pleased with what the Lord helped me to put together in the way of a Lanny Wolfe piano arrangement. With this under my belt, I got inspired to readdress the "Lanny Wolfe plays Lanny Wolfe" piano project, not worrying about all the bells and whistles of orchestral, and/or vocal enhancement to my piano arrangements, I just 'took another plunge." Maybe God would work out bells and whistles for my piano efforts at some future time, but for now, I'm inspired to sit down at the keyboard and let creativity flow. I realized that for most people who are, were, and might be familiar with the name, "Lanny Wolfe," most will remember him as a gospel songwriter. Students who have studied under my mentorship for a twenty-six year tenure will remember Lanny Wolfe as the guy who devoted most his his time and heart to train them to be musicians, vocalists, ministers of music, educators and the guy who came up with the "Near The Cross" piano series that will bring back haunting memories for some who struggled to get through college piano juries and the music program. To many, the Lanny Wolfe Trio, or his musicals added a musical arena that was anointed and blessed them and their churches. Nowhere in this paragraph does Lanny Wolfe, keyboardist show up. In concerts, my piano playing always took a back seat to the song the trio was singing and the focus on ministering to the audience. I never was focused on my keyboard skills vying for any attention. So, with this project "Lanny Wolfe plays Lanny Wolfe" for the first time my piano artistry gets to take the driver's seat and not the passenger's seat. That brings with it an exciting challenge to craft out a musical arrangement in a different way that I'm used to thinking when I'm playing accompaniment and basically operating off of somewhere between "feel" and "auto pilot." ENJOY!