December 8, 1979

December 8, 1979 is an important date in my history, even though I wasn’t born until later in the following year. On that date, three students at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky grabbed their guitars and, with the help of a friend and his recording equipment, recorded a 40-minute tape of their favorite songs.

One of those men was my father, and he wrote some of the songs they recorded.

My dad’s copy of the tape (the master may still exist somewhere, but nobody seems to know for sure) is still on the bookshelf at my mom’s house. The songs have all been digitized, and some of the tape hiss removed. I listen to them every now and then.

Vocal recordings are like photographs, in a way, in that they capture a moment in time and preserve it for as long as they exist. Unlike a picture, a recording isn’t a single instant that’s been frozen onto a page; it’s a sequence of time that’s been capture, a sequence imprinted with someone’s voice, a sequence that can be repeated, a moment that can be re-experienced.

My dad had a really good voice. It lowered over the years, but in ‘79 it was a high, clear tenor. Whether singing, talking, laughing, or preaching, its familiar sound was always (and probably always will be) one of my favorite things to hear.

Many of the songs on the recording are ones that he sang again and again throughout my childhood and teenage years. We all loved it when he’d bring out the guitar and we could join in the singing. We sang John Denver songs, and songs by the Pat Terry Group (a late 70’s/early 80’s Christian group from Georgia), but mostly songs that my dad had written.

I still know all of them by heart.


I’ll put aside this body,
And every earthly thing I’ve known
And I will fly to Jesus
To stand with him before the throne
Where he’ll change me into glory
And transform my filthy rags
Into a robe of righteousness
So the Father won’t see my sin.

“The Last Chorus” by Phil Wiley