With the immense success of the Bishops’ previous 2 mainline recordings, along with releasing “Front Porch Collection, Volume 2” and “Classics Live” in 1997, the guys ended up not releasing any new music in 1998. In 1999, the Bishops released “Let’s Celebrate Jesus”, which took a more straight forward Southern Gospel approach, and when compared to “Reach the World” and “You Can’t Ask Too Much of My God”, it comes across a bit more low-key, as well. Also, when releasing something on as grand a scale as “Reach the World” was, most artists tend to dial things back a bit for the follow-up release, which is exactly what it appears the Bishops did with “Let’s Celebrate Jesus”.

Produced by Steve Mauldin, the recording has a unique set of musicians that haven’t really played together on many (or any) previous recordings by the Bishops, as we have David Huntsinger on piano, Duncan Mullins playing bass, Shannon Forrest on drums, Bobby All and John Willis playing guitars and Bruce Watkins playing multiple instruments including guitar, mandolin and fiddle. With 6 musicians, plus orchestra players, it’s definitely scaled back a bit, and I can hear the difference in the overall sound when compared to their other recordings.

“Let’s Celebrate Jesus” features a rather fun, celebratory shot of the Bishops on the cover, as they are mixed in with several folks who worked for Homeland Records, including Homeland president, Bill Traylor and Jeff Harper (the Bishops’ booking agent), and thankfully for the string of dots on the cover, you can easily pick out each member of the Bishops in the photo. Looking at the cover, you’d probably imagine this would be a rather upbeat recording, which it was, but despite its upbeat nature, it really seemed to lack the “sparkle” that all their other recordings seemed to have, and I never have been able to fully connect with “Let’s Celebrate Jesus”. Unlike all their other recordings, after only a few listens when it came out in 1999, I never really listened to it again until I started preparing for this series in the fall of last year!

With its big orchestral track, the Celtic feel of the title song, “Let’s Celebrate Jesus”, gets the recording underway with a song that would have easily fit on their “Reach the World” recording. I remember when I bought this recording back in 1999, I hadn’t heard the title song yet, and I tend to listen to my music loud, but when this song kicked off with its colossal orchestra track, it nearly blew me out of the car! As they were working on the arrangement for this song, they went back to an idea they had for when they recorded the song, “Reach the World”, where they initially thought about including several different groups, but instead of going that route, since the Bishops worked a lot with the Hoppers (and since the Hoppers were also part of the Homeland label as well), it was decided to have the Hoppers join the Bishops, and make the song very fun and engaging, showing the camaraderie between both groups. It was decided to include each group “rooting” the other on during the song, but this would be another instance where Steve Mauldin’s wife asked, “Am I going to hear that talking every time I hear this song?”, so when they released it to radio, they made a “radio edit” where they edited out the “talking” that you hear. This would be the first single from this recording, and for whatever reason, it didn’t do well in the charts, stalling out at #28 in the February 2000 Singing News chart, their lowest charting song since their very first single, “Oh God, I Love You” (which did climb to #40 in September 1986).

Next, we come to the highly enjoyable, “When You Have Faith in a Great God”, which features Mark. Highlighting some nice banjo and steel guitar work, it’s a fun tune that is distinctively “Bishops”, before we move on to the nice, easy-going feel of the acoustic, “Somebody in Heaven”. As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t listen to this recording very much when it came out, but over the last several months as I have prepared for this series, this has become my favorite song from this recording. With hindsight fully in view, had this song been released as a single, I think this could have done really well in the charts for the Bishops. Featuring Mark, this has a very distinct sound that really foretells the type of songs Mark would write and sing when he transitioned to a soloist a couple years later. In fact, though it has a quicker tempo to it, it has a similar feel to one of Mark’s biggest hit songs as a soloist titled, “I Got Here as Fast as I Could”. Personally, I’d love to hear Mark bring this song back sometime on a future recording! HINT HINT!!

With a popping brass section, Kenny steps up to the mic, as he sings the exciting “When I Testify”. Starting off slowly, with just the piano and organ giving it a soulful, churchy feel, the tempo kicks into high gear for the second verse, and Kenny delivers the goods! Also, I think that this would have been a really great song to add a gospel choir on the final chorus and bridge, but I digress…

Moving on, we come to the happy feel of, “My God is a God of All Good Things”, which has a distinct old-fashioned campmeeting hymn feel to it. Featuring a dominant piano track, and Mark, Kenny and Kennth tackling their respective verses, this is another one of my personal favorites from this recording. I can easily hear this song being sung on any random Sunday morning at the local Church of God, and it would feel right at home at a Red Back Hymnal sing along as well!

Slowing the pace down, we come to the worshipful, “That Holy Place in Me”, which features Kenny. With the feel of a modern-day hymn, it’s not a powerful worship anthem or power ballad, but was something a little different for the Bishops, highlighting Kenny’s lower register, bringing a reverent, liturgical feel to the song. The Bishops didn’t stage this song a lot, but when they did, it was usually on their solo dates towards the close of the service, and it really seemed to create an intimate moment of worship for both the Bishops and the audience.

Kicking the tempo back up, we find the electric guitar driven track for the country feel of, “The Angels Know My Name”. This encouraging song features Mark, and is a fun and enjoyable tune, before the pace slows down a bit for the medium tempo, “He Said It All”, which features Mark and Kenny. This was the second single from this recording, topping out at the #21 position in the August 2000 Singing News chart.

Next, we come to the bouncy, “Not in a Million Years”, which was one of the first songs Joel Hemphill ever wrote back in the mid-1960’s. Featuring both Mark and Kenny, along with an enjoyable electric and steel guitar driven track, having grown up hearing the song on the Happy Goodmans’ 1967 album, “Bigger ‘N Better”, this was a song Kenny suggested that the Bishops record, paying homage to one of their early musical influences.

Closing out the recording is a unique acapella tune entitled, “One Day I’ll Be There”. Written by Kenny, who is a fan of musicals and has always loved the barbershop quartet in the musical “The Music Man”, he decided to write something that has a bit of a barbershop quartet sound to it. It’s a little different for the Bishops (not their normal acapella fare), and it’s a cool departure from the norm for the guys.

With Mark contributing 8 songs, and Kenny contributing one, “Let’s Celebrate Jesus” continues the trend with Mark providing most of the material for their recordings. Outside of a couple of songs, orchestrations for “Let’s Celebrate Jesus” are pretty understated, and as I’ve already mentioned, it appears the overall production level for the recording was a bit less than their last several releases, and I felt it seemed to lack some of the musical creativity that always found its way into their music. It’s not a bad recording, and I will admit (as I have re-connected with it over the last few months) that I do find that I enjoy it more than I did when it first came out. I think at the time I first heard it back in 1999, I was a little disappointed with it, as it wasn’t on the same level that I had come to expect from the Bishops. I will also add it seems that the chart action for the single releases from this recording seemed to reflect a similar sentiment, as neither single from this recording even made it into the Top 20. I will add this caveat though, that sometimes a song’s journey in the charts can be driven by more than just it’s own merit, but can also be driven by what’s out there at the time, and there were some extremely strong songs out there during the lifetime of this recording, including “Just One More Soul” (Greater Vision), “Praise His Name” (Jeff & Sheri Easter), “Children of the Dust” (Freemans), “He Said” (Gold City), “Praise God, It’s Settled, I’m Saved” (Perrys), “Through the Fire” (Crabb Family), “I Stand Redeemed” (Legacy Five) and “Searchin’” (Talley Trio). Incidentally, Mark Bishop did have another song in the chart around the same time, as the Kingsmen recorded his song, “What I Found at the Altar”, which went all the way to #10 in the July 2000 Singing News chart!

Sometime before “Let’s Celebrate Jesus” was released, Bill Traylor approached the Bishops about recording a bluegrass album. Being the Bishops were basically raised around bluegrass, this was an easy recording for them to make, and with Mark serving as producer, they created an exceptional bluegrass album titled, “Kentucky Bluegrass”, which actually won the Bishops their only Dove Award in 2000, for “Bluegrass Album of the Year”! Mark fondly recalls this album as one of the best studio experiences, ranking “Kentucky Bluegrass” as one of the best things the Bishops ever recorded. The guys included such songs as the Buford Abner penned/Swanee River Boys classic, “Was He Quiet or Did He Cry”, as well as “Come Unto Me”, “Rank Strangers” (which was a popular, and rather comical concert favorite), “Brother Moses Smote the Water” and “The Tear Stained Altar”, along with a couple penned by Mark titled, “I Saw a Lot of Happy People” and “With the Spirit of the Lord Inside”. Probably the most talked about song from this recording was the emotion ridden tune, “Howard Gray”, which featured Kenneth. Written by Lee Domann, it appears that the tune was first recorded by 2 separate gentlemen around the same time, Gary Hall and John Schmid back in the mid-1980’s, but eventually it made its way to Wendy Bagwell & the Sunliters, who recorded it on their 1987 album, “Let’s Turn the Lights On” (which is where Mark first heard the song). There is much to be said about the story behind this song, but it’s an emotional ballad that many can relate to. Though it’s a sad story, there is redemption in the lyrics, and the final chapter of this true story (which came long after the song was actually written) is that reconciliation was found between the writer of the song and the man, Howard Gray. Kenneth does a great job conveying the heart-rendering story in the song and it’s one of my all-time favorite Kenneth features. Ironically, “Kentucky Bluegrass” became such a popular recording for the Bishops, the group started getting invited to sing at several bluegrass festivals!

“Kentucky Bluegrass” and “Let’s Celebrate Jesus” would end up being the final recordings the Bishops would record for Homeland, as the group would eventually leave the label. They would eventually sign with the newly formed “Cathedral Records”, which would basically “course correct” the trajectory of the Bishops’ music, as their final 2 recordings would be some of the finest work they ever recorded as a group!

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