Pat Boone - 'Glory Train: the lost sessions'

• Style: Oldies


• 13 songs and a bonus DVD


• Released: August 23, 2005

Pros

The all-star tribute to Billy Graham features contributions by greats like

Leann Rimes
Larry King
Kenny Rogers
dc Talk
Andre Crouch

Cons

• Pat Boone's style of music may not be well received by fans of hard rock, rap or modern rock, but before you write him off, remember that the music of today evolved from the tunes of yester-year.

OK, I'll admit it - I cringed a little bit when I first saw this CD. Pat Boone had his heyday back in the days of my mom's youth and I figured that listening to it would be like when I was a little kid and my grandparents would make me sit with them and watch Lawrence Welk!

I'm happy to report that it wasn't bad! The story behind the album is pretty interesting in itself. With the exception of the first song, which is an incredible tribute to Billy Graham featuring some of the biggest names in music as well as Bono and Larry King speaking, the rest of the album was recorded 20 years ago. The music was thought to be too "gospel" for his secular label to touch it and it was too "pop" for the gospel labels to release it. So the tapes were stored away and forgotten about. Fast forward 20 years and Pat wondered what ever happened to the tapes. They were found, in a box in his producers attic but were badly damaged. Basically, they had to cook them in an oven on low heat to unstick them and whether they would actually play was up in the air. Apparently God wanted this release to get out there, because they played just perfectly.

Even though the messages found in the music are 20 years old, they are just as important today as they were back in the 80's. Take track 11 for example - "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?". With today's popularity of hard rock/metal and rap/hip-hop, plenty of people are asking that very question when questioned about their style of music.

Other songs of note were "Bread Upon the Waters" and "Night Train." The title track, "Glory Train," has a nice bluesy background to it and whoever played the guitar did a jam-up job.