Description

When Bob Carlisle's album, "Butterfly Kisses (Shades of Grace)" went toward the top of the charts in 1997 - it was a major surprise. This Christian Contemporary album came out of left field to generate some significant sales. Much of the success of this album was propelled by the title song "Butterfly Kisses". Carlisle puts together a nice album of some Christian tunes with some very good songwriting that was a refreshing change from the ever dominant "alternative music" landscape.

Out of the gate, I think it is some powerful songwriting that gives the strength to this album. To be objectivemore… here, Bob Carlisle is a nice vocalist, but I don't think he does much to distinguish himself as a great vocalist. He is good enough to carry out the lyrics that he wrote - and that's good enough for this collection. Carlisle's work does show a nice amount of diversity in the instrumentals that inject some nice moments into what could have been an ballads album. While this is a nice effort and certainly the collection has its moments where it justifies why it was able to make a print on the 1997 music landscape - I still wouldn't go as far as to say this is a Hall of Fame album.

The title track, "Butterfly Kisses" tells the story of a father's relationship with his daughter. This song was the most successful and has probably made a permament mark in terms of being a song that will be a staple at weddings and Sweet 16 parties. This is a song that really makes use of metaphors (i.e. 'to perfume and makeup from ribbons and curls"). "Butterfly Kisses" is included as the first and last song and there are some suttle differences between the two versions (the latter is a 'live' version). One of these differences is when "All the precious time..." is sung about 3:15 into the song, you will hear stronger percussion on the later 'live' version of the song. Carlisle has definitely rode the wave with the success of this song. He has used the title song on 2 other albums. In fact, this album was originally released as "Shades of Grace". As the song "Butterfly Kisses" gained momentum, the "Shades of Grace" collection was repackaged as "Butterfly Kisses" and the order of all of the songs was reshuffled as well.

The Christian Contemporary framework on this album is present on every track of this album. There are songs on the collection that do have a late 1970's adult contemporary feel to it in terms of the sound. This is demonstrated on the tracks "You Must Have Been a Angel" and "I'm Gonna Be Ready". These two songs are two of the stronger tracks on the album as well. The later track features a great duet with Bryan Duncan - who is also a well known voice in the Christian Contemporary music scene. (I like the reference to Bob Carlisle as "Bobby C" in the song). The song "On My Way to Paradise" almost has a Michael McDonald - especially with the background vocals. "One Man Revival" and "It is Well with My Soul" are nice songs that are solid Christian Contemporary Songs - if you listen closely, you might get the feel of a (very) light carribean sound in the background of each of these songs.

The song "Man of His Word" is one of those songs that has brilliant lyrics. In this song Carlisle tells the story of a preacher and his relationship with his family over 50 years. The song discusses three periods: 1944 when the preacher met his wife, 1964 when the Vietnam War would divide the family, and 1994 when the preacher is on his deathbed. This is some very powerful stuff and shows how the strength of the lyrics can carry the song.

Finally the song, "On My Knees" is another nice song. This song does have a Gospel feel to it. It doesn't have a Gospel Chorus on it, but it could have easily had one. This is one track on the album where the lyrics don't carry it, but the music and surprisingly, Carlisle's vocals prove to be the real strength of this song.

The liner notes are solid in that the lyrics are included to all of the songs - as well as the songwriting and musician credits. As mentioned above, this album does fall short of being a "Hall of Fame" album. While I do think there is some brilliant songwriting, this is a tough album to get into for long periods of time. The things that are nice about this album are probably found on many of Christian Contemporary (or for that matter Adult Contemporary) albums. Clearly, it will be the strength of some powerful lyrics that will be what this album has to offer. It was a shame it didn't get the mainstream radio airplay to back the solid sales of this album. As a result, this is a solid album - and even if you aren't a Christian Contemporary music fan, you may find this collection enjoyable.

Tracks

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Info:

Category:

Music > Albums

Case Type:

CD

Release Type:

Retail

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Cover Info:

Title:

Bob Carlisle - Butterfly Kisses (1997) Retail CD

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Front

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947 x 928 px

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05/04/08 by Microjamm

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