Some things
we get right, like I'll Go Ahead, our December 1st song drop. I wrote it during the winter of 2008, and like so many of my better pieces, it seems like I needed so badly to hear the song, I just finally wrote it myself. (Sample it here.)
Fast forward a few years… on May 1st, 2011, Ruba Byrd had a birthday party celebration at West Hills Friends, her new Portland faith community. Her parents were there from Texas; her new boyfriend was there - me again; we surely sang worship music in church that morning, and rounded out the day with an hour or so concert after church, singing duet arrangements of our (then) current playlist; lots of my originals. It was a lovely outing then and a treasured memory now… but there's more: because Bill Norris-York, who engineered our live sound ALSO recorded us so carefully.
Then there was that thing that happens with songs: a few years later Ruba's father Paul passed, and her mother Janette requested I sing I'll Go Ahead at his memorial, and so I sang, for several hundred Texans, and thankful to be asked. Time passed, the concert tracks were archived, and then more time passed, and now here we all are.
There are so many good reasons to look at including this joyful transcendent song on this collection. Really nice mix from Slim Novak, too. Thank you Ruba Byrd. Some things we get right. Enjoy!