Tony Cummings tells the story of the unlikely teaming of GORDON GILTRAP with CAROL LEE SAMPSON and MARTIN GREEN

Carol met and married a talented bass player, Gareth Sampson. She enthused, "I'm now remarried to a lovely man, and I've got a nine year old son - at 43 I had my first child! That's a gift from God."

As well as returning to her faith Carol returned to music performing as often as she could in pubs. But though the audience enjoyed her pure, sweet-toned voice with its perfect pitch it was at Malvern's Pentecostal Church, now renamed Eden, that Carol rediscovered a hunger to serve God in music. Carol had been guest worship leader at Eden. The pastor there, Mike Dibbens, let it be known they were praying for someone to come and lead worship there every week. Said Carol, "I really sensed the Lord was saying, 'This is the open door'. Way back when I met Gordon at that party, my New Years Resolution was, 'Lord, your agenda, not mine'. I totally gave it over to him. Especially singing in pubs, I was getting disillusioned. I thought, 'God, I want to do more for you again'. There was a hunger to please God again. Those were my words, 'Lord, your agenda, not mine. Open the doors you want me to go through.' Within a few weeks I'd got that phone call from Gordon; I thought, "Ey up. Prayer works!' Then this pastor asked whether I would consider and pray about going to that church. At first when he asked, I thought, 'No way. I can't leave my church. I love my church; my little boy comes with me every Sunday.' That was my initial reaction. Then it wouldn't go away, the need and the request. So I just was praying over a few months, 'Lord, show me'. I felt the Lord remind me on one particular Sunday, 'You prayed for open doors. What is this? An open door to lead a worship team again.'"

Gordon Giltrap has fond memories of the ease with which the 'Echoes Of Heaven' album was recorded. "We took my instrumentals and slapped vocals on top. We didn't have to remix them or anything. There are one or two pieces where Martin's edited them, chopped them up to make the format longer. For example, 'Love Wins' starts off with my main guitar solo - a virtuoso solo, dare I say it; the original piece didn't start with that. He's moved it around to work with his lyrical content, and I absolutely love it. It's one of the few projects I've been involved with that I didn't have to do anything! I just turned up. Carol, bless her heart, had spent months on these tracks. Amazingly, we did virtually the whole thing in a day, 14 tracks! Carol had a rotten cold but she sang sublimely and then did the harmonies! Martin, I didn't realise what a clever arranger he was. He's a very gifted man, a very modest man. Some of the most gifted people I know are modest. For me it was just a great day, sitting back, listening to what they were doing."

Standout tracks include "First Light" (originally known as the instrumental "The Kerry Dancers"), "Walk Beside Me" ("Elegy") and the title track (originally "Sallie's Song") which Rev Green skilfully turned into a contemplation of Revelation 20. Another standout is the opener "Praise Him", originally titled "Roots". Said Carol, "When I first heard 'Roots', what impacted me was the energy and vibrancy of it. I was up very early one morning, listening with my headphones on, and imagining what could be sung over it. I opened my Bible to the Psalms and could hear in my mind a gospel choir singing 'Praise Him' with great gusto! The lyrics are a mixture of Psalms 148 and 150. It was quite a challenge to get it just right, but it was worth the effort."

Martin Green wrote about another of the album's standouts, "Under A Blue Sky". He explained, "As I was filling the car up one day, across the road was a cyclist in his yellow lycra suit, taking a breather - he was lying on his back on the grass verge, completely motionless, looking up at the cloudless blue sky. The vivid colours and peace of this scene linked up in my mind with images from Psalm 23, and the two began to develop into this, the first song I wrote for the album."

There's a track, "Christmas Carol", on the album which bares the same title as when released in its instrumental form. Observed Green, "Given the original title of the piece, what better way to remain true to it than write a Christmas carol! The reflective themes are inspired by a liturgical prayer I wrote some years ago which we use at our Christmas services each year. It's a hard one to sing because of the musical range, but Carol did a fantastic job."

Gordon spoke about his personal favourite on 'Echoes Of Heaven'. "My favourite piece is the one where Martin is doing the narration, ''Mary''. The way he's timed it for when the orchestra comes in, and Carol starts doing the choral bit, it just makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up - every time. That's the only way you can judge something, you listen to it. It gives me a great pleasure and a great deal of joy, and I find it uplifting. I don't think you can ask any more of an album."

Carol named her favourite as one she co-wrote. "Because God gave it to me, it's special. To the tune of 'Drifter', it's called 'This Father's Love'. When I first heard the tune, I thought, 'Yes, I can definitely hear something to go with this'. I was pondering over some lyrics, thinking that it was like 'what can I give to God?' sort of thing. But the idea came, it's God, how he sees us. I had taken my little boy to school in between starting to think about these lyrics. When I came back from the school I was hanging some washing on the line, and I had these words. 'O child of mine, precious and loved.' I thought, 'That's it! That's the beginning of the song!' So I came back in, wrote the lyrics, then quickly popped round to Colin's - because I'm still best friends with Colin, which is amazing. He lives in Malvern."

Colin Owen is in fact a member of the worship team at the Eden church where Carol is now leading worship. After so many years away from recording, not only is Carol featured on 'Echoes Of Heaven' but she has also just released the independent album 'Bigger Picture', recorded "in my front room with my lovely friend Dave Draper who's a great engineer and who brought over his Apple Mac with all the gear." For his part Gordon is returning to prog rock. "I'm working with the wonderful Oliver Wakeman, who is an extraordinary musician - piano player, synth player, and he writes wonderful tunes."

Gordon made the final comment about 'Echoes Of Heaven'. "If your music can make a difference, if it can touch people - wherever that comes from, that's fine. I don't know where it comes from: to me, that's the mysterious. But I'm very grateful for it, and I'm very touched when I hear these things, because one is so busy trying to make a living, doing the next project, you never know how your music touches people, what it means to people. I've been in the business now 45 years; that's happened time and time again. Janie Webber, the boss of my record company, she has a piece of music of mine that she wants to be played at her funeral - it's actually written in her will! My hope for 'Echoes Of Heaven' is that my music, and Carol's voice, and those lyrics, all bring people pleasure. That's all one can ask. I am not a Christian artist, and therefore to get into an area that I haven't been accepted in is a lovely thing."