Reviewed by Doug Holland

The songbook of the highly-rated 2004 album from Californian Chris is designed to give you everything you need to bring the songs it contains to your fellowship. All the songs on the album are here presented in sheet music and chord chart formats (with fret boards included) and with an overhead lyric master. The quality of the songs has been widely appreciated elsewhere, but there are some practical issues with the book for the gigging worshipper. The songs appear in a different sequence from the CD, and there is no obvious theme to that sequence (eg, alphabetical order); for this reason use of the Contents at the front is necessary in the early stages to find your way around it. The font size on the overhead masters is rather small at around Arial 19 and they have the writing credits at the top of the master. The chord charts show capo-adjusted chords only, which may hamper some non-music reading keyboard players. As regards the songs themselves, a number are in keys not often played by guitarists and for many these will necessitate use of a capo, although position two is the highest suggested. All that said, the suggested arrangements for the songs are clear and easy to follow, although the absence of ring binding for the book makes page turning a little tricky until it is well and truly broken in.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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