Winnipeg Christian singer/songwriter going strong

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This article was published 26/10/2024 (350 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For Winnipeg Christian singer and songwriter Steve Bell, the release of his 23rd album this month is surprising for a few reasons.

For starters, Bell — who will be 65 next year — is surprised to still be recording and touring more than 45 years after starting in the music business.

“When I started in my late teens, I never expected to still be playing all these years later,” he said. “I’m actually shocked to still be making music at my age.”

He’s also surprised at an unexpected aspect of touring with the passage of time: People don’t know who you are.

“There’s been a turnover in the clergy since I started out,” he said. “In the past, when I phoned a pastor about playing at their church it was never a problem. People knew me and knew my music. Now when we phone up pastors, it’s not unusual to be asked: ‘Steve who?’”

Now, Bell said, he needs to build new connections. “I’m not complaining. Time marches on. It was just a surprise to me.”

Another surprising thing is how polarization in churches is affecting where he can perform.

“Many churches are so polarized they are wary about bringing in people from the outside,” he said. “Those who don’t know me think they need to take time to vet me to make sure I won’t make things worse in their churches. It’s just easier to say no.”

Also surprising was the way the first song he wrote for the new album came to him during the pandemic.

“That was such a difficult time emotionally for me,” he said of the isolation experienced due to COVID-19. “I found it hard to write anything. The words just wouldn’t come.”

But one song seemed to come unbidden out of nowhere.

“I wrote it at a particularly low point of the lockdown,” Bell said. “And it surprised me because it was a happy, bouncy little thing. It was out of step with the experience of the pandemic and how I was feeling at the time.”

It was as if the song had a point to make, he said, that “even in the midst of anxiety and despair, like during a pandemic, there is joy to be found.”

Since the song was surprising and reminded him there is joy even in the hardest times, he titled it This Too, Is True. It’s the only song he wrote during the COVID-19 lockdown.

“The rest of the original songs on the album were written as the pandemic dissipated,” he said, adding “but that one came when it needed to have its voice heard.”

The other songs are tinged by the pandemic, reflecting on the anger, polarization and meanness that surfaced in the world during that time — and in churches, too.

“Despite all that has happened, I believe that God is still about mercy, pity, peace and love,” Bell said. “It’s a message we need to internalize today. I can hand this album to people and honestly say ‘I think we need this. There is medicine in it.’”

Through that musical medicine, Bell hopes listeners will find healing, hope and challenge as they listen to songs like The Glad Surprise, The Divine Image, One Can Hope, A Lovely Longed-for Blue, This Dark Hour and his unique cover of Bruce Cockburn’s classic 1984 song Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

“Something tells me these songs need to be heard now, a time when things seem heated, whether that’s about vaccines, politics, theology, issues like LGBTTQ+ or climate change,” he said. “Many have their dukes up, ready to take a swing at things they are afraid of or that challenge the way they view the world.”

The album’s name comes from a quote from African-American author and theologian Howard Thurman. In his book Meditations of the Heart, Thurman said a glad surprise is one that proclaims “that life cannot ultimately be conquered by death, that there is no road that is at last swallowed up in an ultimate darkness, that there is strength added when the labours increase, that multiplied peace matches multiplied trials, that life is bottomed by the glad surprise.”

That thought comforted Bell, and it is the kind of surprise he wants to share with his audiences.

“My goal is to try to lower the temperature,” he said. “And once the heat goes down, maybe we can have a dialogue. At least, that’s what feels true to me. I don’t write many songs with my fists up. There is a serenity to my music. That’s how they come to me. And I think people trust what I have to offer, that they will feel calmer after hearing my songs.”

As for how long Bell will keep writing and performing, he’s open to more surprises.

“I’ll keep going as long as the songs keep coming,” he said. “They are a gift to me personally, but they seem to be for others as well. I feel a certain obligation to give them a fighting chance at being heard.”

Bell’s new album is available at www.stevebell.com

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