Customer Reviews

Matters of the Heart

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Timeless christian music about relationships. The more you listen to Bob... the more you appreciate his music. This music was written from his heart... not to please his wallet as many other artists do these days. His older material seems to be his best I think.

Bob Bennett's Matters of the Heart is musically sophisticated though stripped down: I don't think there are more than three instruments on any one song. But his percussionist and acoustic bass player contributes to well executed acoustic rock anticipating Dave Matthews (unplugged) and similar artists. This is top notch music -- if you like this style, don't pass it up. It stands the test of time. This is -still- good music and would be even if released for the first time tomorrow. "A Song About Baseball" was a minor radio hit in the early 80s.

On the contrary, the production for this record is amazing. It reminds me of the jazzier pop that was coming out of Southern California around the time it was released--like the stuff Kenny Loggins was putting out after Loggins & Messina but before the uber-pop of the Footloose years.

I can't find liner notes for this record, but it was originally released on CBS/Columbia's (now Sony) brief foray into Christian music. It would make sense that Columbia's production sound would leak over... thankfully.

The album really does sound good, even now. But as I mentioned above, it's a nostalgic sound, from a golden time in pop music. And that makes me sound my age, doesn't it?

Bob's songwriting has never been the knee-jerk propaganda-based writing that has always plagued the mainstream of Christian music. Even in this second record, you can see he tries to deal with life honestly with integrity.

I was very young and very zealous at the time this record came out--in fact, speaking of coming out, I was also running from myself. It's honest Christian music that I can still listen to these days. And this album is one of my long-time favorites. I bought it in 1982 and have been fond of it ever since.

Tunes that I've quoted for the past nearly 30 years include: "Madness Dancing," "Mountain Cathedrals," "A Song About Baseball," and "Falling Stars," one of my all-time favorite images...