Beautiful song - one of my dad's favourites - that he used to include in many of his meetings.  Sadly, now lost from our SA songbook (except for the chorus)

I Know He Cares For Me

The tune 'I Love Him Better Every Day' has been used, in The Salvation Army, for many different sets of words - including 'I'll help my mummy all I can' - much used on Mother's Day...

But we sang this version 'back in the day' to make use of 'rock and roll' music.  The clever use of words indicates that our feet are on 'The Rock' (Jesus) and our names are on the Roll (the Soldier's Roll or membership list of the SA.

I was asked to make this recording a while ago for a friend and, although it wasn't used for its intended purpose, I'm happy to share it here for a bit a of fun.

The first recollection I have of the tune came when I was a small child and my father had the Salvation Army 78s - there was a cornet solo played by BM Bert Twitchen (OF) of Regent Hall Corps - recorded in the early 1930's and featuring his unmistakeable 'vibrato'.

I couldn't help but ask Bert to join in the final time through - even though it took a little technical wizardry as I had to change both the speed and pitch of his contribution to make it fit.

It was fun to do though!

I Love the Army Rock and Roll

Old Primary Sunday School Chorus from The Salvation Army.  Recorded for when I needed to quote it in an online service.  Just a quick bit of fun...I did it quite quickly - lapsing into a Beach Boys/Brian Wilson style harmony half way through...I mean it's only 21 seconds long!

Root Them Out

I've been a big fan of The Beach Boys for over 40 years - and especially the genius that is Brian Wilson - so I wrote this arrangement very much with him in mind (how I'd have loved him to sing it!)

It's a favourite carol of many people and a lot of people over the years have told me that this was their favourite track from my 2001 solo CD.

So, enjoy that lazy piano, Wilsonesque falsetto and a bit of euphonium to boot!

Happy Christmas!

Silent Night

"Gethsemane" is a song from my Musical/Song-cycle of the same name, composed originally for a Gethsemane Vigil in the Church of England in Portsmouth. and later expanded into a full-length work.

This song represents Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane prior to His arrest.  

He asks His Father to 'Take this cup from me' but knows that His Father's will must be done for all that Jesus needed to  accomplish could become reality.

This version is sung by my son Lewis.

Gethsemane (the Song)

A setting of the Salvation Army's Junior Soldier's Promise by Diane Berry published as a singing company song in 1988.

This is my multi-layered vocal version with added euphonium - take from my forthcoming CD 'Back in the Singing Company' and released today to mark the enrolment of my daughter Emily as a Junior Soldier

Back in the Singing Company

My Promise

This is a suite for my principle instrument, the euphonium, composed for my finals while at Music College.  It is an unusual set of variations inspired (in idea only!) by Elgar's 'Enigma Variations'. Although it seems obvious that the 'theme' is the famous 'Sailor's Hornpipe' it is less clear as to WHY and HOW it fulfils that tag!  In fact, I chopped the hornpipe up into tiny fragments of just a few notes and based the movements around each fragment.

For example, you hear the opening 5 note motif right at the beginning - but the next 7 notes of the 'theme' do not appear until the music changes in the middle section of the first movement.  That movement is in ABA form - so it was easy to place fragment 3 simply by having the second 'A' section a tone higher!

Movement 2 starts with a piano introduction but the first euphonium notes are made up of the next 7 notes of the 'theme'...and so on.  The entire tune is used by the end!

There is an inverted palindrome movement in which both euphonium and piano parts are truly palindromic AND turned upside down!  My favourite movement (and the only one I regularly play today is the 'slow melody' one in Db Major - which I rather bizarrely named 'Fug'!

This recording is from a recital in the Swinburn Hall, Colchester with me on euphonium and my great friend Alvin Allison is on piano. 

Variation Suite for Euphonium

Back in the days when I was younger and less worried about offending (yeah...as if!!) I was invited to sing for and entertain a group of rich people at an 'elite' Christmas event. What they wanted was Jingly Rudolph Sparkle...what I wrote especially for them was this!
How the 'other' half live at Christmas - the struggling mum who can't afford to fill her child's stocking - the old man dying in a freezing room while the rest gorge on turkey, chestnuts and figgy pudding...
It's a song I now have mixed feelings about...yes - it's a little 'over the top' but it still seems to work well and 'strike a chord'.
Musically, there are some early influences on show - a Pink Floyd chord sequence gets 'borrowed' and my vocals sound rather John Wetton/Greg Lake at times...

X - Mas

Like most people my life has had its ups and downs...but the ONE constant, reliable thing through it all has been GOD. 
Last night I should have been performing a concert but my wife and I were involved in a serious road crash half way there, resulting in the concert having to be cancelled.  I had been asked specifically to sing this song last night - but I would have sung it anyway - as I use it to end all of my concerts and have done for many years.
Joy Webb's wonderful song has blessed so many people over many years since it was first sung and recorded in the late 1960s - yet it sounds as new and fresh as ever nearly half a century later.
I always feel privileged to sing this and I hope you allow God to speak to you today as you listen.
This is a live performance in my home studio .

There Will Be God

One Sunday afternoon, stranded at church between services, I was challenged by my young son to 'write a song'.  As I had no lyrics with me (and neither did I have the inspiration for new lyrics) he suggested that I use a song from The Salvation Army Song Book as my 'inspiration' and he chose a random set of words for me to set to new music.

The song he chose was one with which I was familiar, though hadn't heard sung or played for many years.  The writer was unusual for the age of the song as she was...female - and there weren't many of those known to me (at that time!) amongst early SA composers.

Agnes McDouall was born in Stranraer in 1862 - a hundred years before me! She bacame a Salvation Army officer but married Wyndham Heathcote and they moved to the Church of England.  She wrote several well-known SA songs including another favourite of mine 'I'll Follow Thee - of Life the Giver'.

For this setting I had to 'compress' the 4 verses of the original into two verses, updating the language a little. When recording I decided to play the 'backing vocals' using the voice of my euphonium rather than singing them. It has proved a very popular item in my 'one-man' show that I take all around the country.

Simply Marc (1st mixes)

Jesus Came With Peace To Me

I'm posting this to mark the end of a great adventure.

This time last year I had never played with a contesting brass band, only Salvation Army bands - and I've played with them since the age of 7 - some 43 years ago.  I had always wondered what I could have achieved if I'd chosen a different direction, mixed with Childs, Cloughs, Moores and Baglins rather than staying solely within the SA? 

Last December (2011) I was offered the opportunity to help a top-class contesting band in a one-off concert. I obviously made a good enough impression to be offered the seat on a  permanent basis - and what an AMAZING year I have had in 2012. Those names I mentioned earlier  that were previously legendary to me became friends and acquaintances - I even played under their direction (some of them). Having thrilled to the excitement of pieces like 'Fire in the Blood' by Paul Lovatt-Cooper at ISB120 suddenly I found MYSELF playing it - in a contest - standing in front of 3000 people and WINNING the contest! Talk about dreamland!

Well...you have to wake from dreams and 2 weeks ago, completely unforeseen until a day or so before, it happened: someone woke me up! The adventure was over.

Sorry dad, I still didn't get to fulfil my promise to play at the Royal Albert Hall and I doubt, now, I'll get more opportunities. But I did my best - as you would know I would have!

I never got to play a 'flashy' solo with the band, even though that's my 'forte' - they seemed more impressed with my 'sound'...and this solo I played under the composer's own baton during the year is a slow melody. This is the beautiful 'Donegal Bay'...and, dad, I'm sorry I clipped that one note but, you know I always said that if I was completely happy with a performance I'd retire...where else could I go after that?

So, dad, this is for you - with thanks to Kevin and the guys at Woodfalls for letting me blow along with you for a year. Sorry it wasn't to be much, much longer...

Donegal Bay (composed by Paul Lovatt-Cooper - played by Marc Harry)

Last year I gave away three Christmas songs here on Soundcloud - in fact they are still here to be heard.  As original copies of the CD 'My Christmas Wish' are now becoming quite scarce I don't mind another track making it to Soundcloud this year too!

This version of  Mary's Boy Child is based on an arrangement we did with Blood & Fire back in the 1980s (I think we only played it once - in a Christmas gig in Grantham) - then I resurrected and changed it for the CD in the late 1990s. It was also used (at least twice) by Portsmouth Citadel Singing Company in the annual Civic Carol Service at the Guildhall and again by Shirley Singing Company at The Glory Of Christmas 2011.

It's a 'rocked up' MBC - kind of  Harry Belafonte meets Van Halen (with the Jump keyboard idea)
I wish I'd put a proper (shredding) guitar solo in the middle now, rather than the cheesy synth...but we're never happy with our work, are we?

If any other group wishes to use it I have a backing track (a bit lower than is - in A rather than C) that I'd be happy to send along if you contacted me :)



Mary's Boy Child

I often tell people that Harry Nilsson is my favourite rock/pop musician of all time - there is a massive section of my personal website all about him. Harry was a much under-rated musician whose failure to be a mega-star was due, largely to a) his refusal to perform live in concert and b) a self-destructive, irreverent personality that meant he was more often than not a figure of controversy.

I collected Nilsson's LPs from the age of 13 or 14 right up until I had them all, searching basement stores in Oxford Street, picking up imports in Debenham's bargain-bins...wherever I needed to go until the collection was complete. 
When I discovered the Internet I found many friends around the world who shared that love for Harry - and I was privileged to co-organise Harryfest 2001, a weekend in London's prestigious Hotel Russell where we gathered together to celebrate his life and work. I met Zak, Harry's son, there as well as Harry's discographer Andrea T Sheridan and Curtis Armstrong the American actor (Booger from the Nerds films, Bert Viola from Moonlighting and now Snot in American Dad). Curtis became a friend and I later visited both he and Zak in LA.

Nilssonweb - a gathering of Nilsson fans on the Internet put together a CD of cover versions just as I discovered them - sadly, I was too late to be a part of that - but I recorded 2 Nilsson songs and shared them with others in the group. Curtis, probably the world's greatest authority on Harry Nilsson sent me an email  in reply to me sending him this song which reads simply,

"Marc, I am speechless - that is the best cover version of a Nilsson song I have ever heard!"

I printed that email out and framed it!

This version uses Nilsson's original song but with some re-harmonisation to suit a chordal, piano backing rather than the polyphonic bass, cello and flute original and I played the solo on the euphonium. This was recorded on my old Tascam 244 Portastudio.

Harry died 19 years ago today (15th January, 1994) at the tragically young age of 53 and to mark that anniversary I am sharing this song today. The picture shows me, in Zak's former Glendale home, playing Harry Nilsson's own piano! Wow!

Without Her (Harry Nilsson)

I found this tape just a few days ago.  It was recorded in a school concert at Stanfield High School, Burslem in 1979 when I was just 16 years old with my wonderful music teacher Bertram Capey on the piano. 

Having spent the last 40 years or so playing in The Salvation Army this was one of the very few occasions when I was requested to play an 'encore'.

Very happy memories of a great school, superb teachers and so, so many lifetime friends!

Grandfather's Clock (Marc & Mr Capey 1976)

Although this song was originally written in the early 2000s it was revised and the lyrics edited and added to in 2016 for a service at Lincoln SA.

Further changes to the Intro and 'extra' chorus have been more recent and the song is now finished.  I have been preparing a weekly 'online' church service over the last few months, during the Coronavirus pandemic - and this recording was made for an online service broadcast on May 31st 2020.

Simply Marc Demos

Make My Life Complete

Composed in 2004 this song is very special to me and will be released officially on 'Simply Marc', a collection of self-penned songs I have used to minister over the past 30 years. I hope this CD can be released in 2014.
This one came about as a result of a phone call from my CO (at the time) Major Glad Thompson. She rang me one Saturday afternoon and asked me if I had a song on this subject (something she did quite often!). My reply was "No...but I will have by tomorrow morning!" 
I had faith to believe and God provided! Within days my mum also asked me if I had a song on the same subject.

What amazes me is that the poetry of the song is actually not bad! It seems when God wants me to write a song not only does He confirm the musical gifts I know He gave me - but He makes me a poet as well!  If I sit at the piano and simply try to write a song - I may get a few decent chord progressions/melodies...but the words are trite and useless to say the least!

I shared the words of this song earlier this evening but the requests for the music as well were rather overwhelming. Thank you for your support in my musical ministry.

©HarryMusic 2004/2013

Heart to God - Hand to Man (demo)

A friend asked me last week if I had a recording of a song, published by the SA in 1995.  Surprisingly, not only didn't I have a recording but I had never even heard the song at all!

As it was needed for the funeral of a family member I offered to record the song myself - so I did with piano, strings, bass and backing vocals.

This, then, is 'Come, Lord, I Wait for Thee' by Steven Masson

Come Lord I Wait For Thee

I am a musician, composer and former music teacher born in Wales but now living in the beautiful City of Lincoln in England with my wife, Sarah, our two beautiful daughters and my youngest son, Ieuan.

Although these days most people see/hear me as a pianist/keyboardist/singer I am primarily a euphonium player and have played solos all around the UK, Europe and in the USA since the age of 12. I was the principal euphonium with Championship Section Woodfalls Band throughout 2012 and, prior to this, I was solo euphonium with Portsmouth Citadel Salvation Army Band from 1986 until 2010.  I feature as soloist on their CDs 'Victory' and 'Journey Through Time'. I have also featured as soloist with SA 'composite' band 'Fuoco' ( http://www.4barsrest.com/reviews/concerts/con202.asp?l=in ).  I was also vocal soloist and, later, pianist for the acclaimed Portsmouth Citadel Songsters, singing solos on 3 CDs, playing keyboards on 5, euphonium on 2 and was the main pianist on the most recent CD 'Take My Life' ( https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=take+my+life+portsmouth ).  I am Bandmaster of the Lincoln Corps in The Salvation Army and travel around the country with my 'One man Variety' show that includes singing, piano, euphonium solos and comedy.

I was lead guitar and a songwriter for 'Blood & Fire', one of the leading Christian Rock Bands in the 1980s, and later singer/guitarist with 'Cross Purposes' and singer with 'The Big Picture'.  I have written 313 songs (to June 2020) including 4 full-length musicals.  One of these, 'Gethsemane' was successfully revived recently and it is hoped a CD and tour will follow in the coming years.

A solo CD of Christmas songs 'My Christmas Wish' was released in 2001 and recordings are now ongoing (June 2020) for a 2nd CD of original songs  which will be released on completion and also a 2nd CD of songs I sang in the Singing Company (Junior Choir) as a child - updated and rearranged.

Marc Harry

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