Discography

This is actually a discography as well as a summary of our road years.

A lot of people may not realize that Steve and I have spent fifteen of our twenty-nine years of marriage living full time on the road in RV’s. When I say full time, I mean that we had no other house to go back to; we literally lived (and raised a family) on the road.

We started out living as newlyweds with my two younger sisters (who were also fellow band members) in a 31-foot camper.  After a couple years, we graduated to a 40 foot camper, which gave us a grand 275 sq. feet of space.  We shared that with my (by then) married sister, her husband, Randy, and our newborn gypsy, Nathan.

We lived that way all the time.  Every day.   It was an interesting way of life—to put it mildly.

After a whole lot of years, a bunch of hard work, and more miles than I care to count, we were finally able to purchase this custom built rig which was our family’s home for seven years.  (By that time it was just Steve, Nathan, Sarah and me.)  We thought we were living in a veritable castle since we had a whopping 475 sq feet of living space!   And by the way, I often drove the whole rig down the freeway--I always got lots of stares from truckers.

The semi that pulled the rig was the only vehicle we owned so that's what I drove to the grocery store with a toddler in tow.  Not exactly a normal family car.
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Here are a few pictures of the interior.

The living room/dining room.

May 2, 2003 006  (4)Liv Rm and Dinette

Nathan and Sarah's room; there are bunk beds on the left.

May 2, 2003 006 Back bed rm.  (5)

Our bedroom.  I loved this bed because it was on springs and we could lift it up for lots of extra storage. In an RV, storage is king!

May 2, 2003 006 Master Bedroom

Looking out of our room to the living area.
May 2, 2003 006 Bath (1)

Kitchen--looking from the living room and the kid's bedroom.
May 2, 2003 006 Kitchen(3)

Another shot of our room.  


May 2, 2003 006 Master Bedroom 008

Steve designed the three storage bays to hold all of our musical gear and CD’s.
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Please note that it says, “Residential Suite,” not “Presidential Suite!” When we traveled, all four rooms would slide back inside the trailer on hydraulic, um, thingies.  (I'm not really clear on all the mechanical language; I just knew it was a really wonderful feature.)
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During those years on the road, we wrote a lot of songs and did a whole bunch of recording projects.  In fact, when I look back over just how many projects we did, it makes me feel, well, sort of . . . old!  And  it also makes me feel just a little bit proud that we were able to stick with a demanding lifestyle that long and have the chance to do our dream.
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After we stopped traveling with a live band, we had to rely on studio musicians to provide most of our instrumentation.  We worked with this group of guys on several albums and were always amazed at the way they could sit down and just make great music happen!  They were so incredibly gifted.
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After Sarah was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 6, we left our traveling/musical lifestyle behind and went on to new chapters of life.  We will never forget, though, those younger days of life when we traveled America’s roads and saw its wonderful sights while raising our little family.
Here is a brief synopsis of those years, AKA The Heartsong Discography






From His Heart To Yours     1984
Yes, we are actually old enough to have recorded a real LP!  You know, that
antique-ish kind of recording medium that’s made out of vinyl?

Also, that recording was done so long ago that I remember our engineer physically cutting and then re-taping pieces of the recording tape in order to do edits. No fancy electronic editing equipment back then!

This album featured Steve, me, and my two younger sisters.  (Ruth, 19, played bass and keyboards and sang; Debbie, 17, played drums and sang.)
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Morningstar Song 1990
This  recording was done by Steve, me, my sister Debbie and her husband, Randy. This was the foursome that comprised
Heartsong for the following seven years.   CD technology wasn’t widely available yet; however, we still thought we were pretty cool 
to have upgraded from albums to cassettes.
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Time To Get Right  1991
This was an unusual recording for us in that only two of the ten songs were original; usually, it’s the exact opposite. The cover was an original drawing by a friend of ours, Marc Dale, based on the skyline of Charlotte, NC.
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Rain of the Refreshing    1992<

We were back to mostly original music on this recording.  Debbie and I
were sporting our trendy “big hair.”   It was such an attractive look.
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Place of Peace   1993
Finally!  We arrived!  We recorded an actual, real CD!  
Hooray! (Unfortunately, the big hair still prevailed.)
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Double Dose     1994
After seven years on the road full time, Randy and Debbie accepted a
position as associate pastors. Steve and I invited Dan and Lynn Franck,
from Onalaska, Wisconsin to join us.  Dan played the drums and bass, 
Lynn played keyboards, guitar, and they both sang. They traveled with us about 18 months and did an excellent job.
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Joy For The Journey  1995
From that point on, it was just Steve and me--and the kids.)  It took us a little while to adjust to doing concerts without the live band we were used to; however, our producer mixed tracks from our recordings that left out the bass guitar and keyboard so that we were still able to play some live
 instruments along with the soundtracks.

I must say it was nice as a duo to no longer have to load 3,000 pounds
 of music gear in and out of buildings several times a week.  I think Steve and I got all of our sound gear whittled down to about 700 pounds.
(Which I usually loaded and unload with a baby or toddler on one hip.)
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Inside Out    1995
This was recorded just a couple months after Sarah was born.  She was up multiple times a night so I wasn't resting well; plus, I didn't have all the songs written so I was under pressure to do that.  We were recording in Thurmont, MD, and our RV froze up so we had no running water for several days.  We took our showers at our producer's house (where the studio was) and dragged our dishes over there to wash, too.   Plus, I was cooking dinner for everyone each night because none of us could afford to go out to eat.  Oh yeah, we were also recording an album at the same time.     

The great part of this recording is that we added a full choir to several tracks.
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Tablets of Time   1997
I think this was my least favorite CD cover; I looked like a
deer caught in the headlights.  
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You Listened To My Heart  1998
This was our 10th anniversary recording; it was our first recording where we didn't play our own instruments.  Instead, we hired pro musicians and background vocalists which made quite a difference!  And what fun to hear songs I had written blossom in the hands of such talented people.
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Angel Fingerprints   2000
This is Steve’s and my favorite CD of all--writing-wise,
 production-wise,  and performance-wise.   Several of the best songs
 I’ve ever written are on this CD.
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Sweetwater   Early 2002
We had no idea when we recorded this CD that we would only have about two months to sell it before we had to permanently leave the road following Sarah’s cancer diagnosis.  We were able to add a live brass section to several songs which was a dream come true. 
Sweetwater Cover


Like A Blanket      Late 2002
This was recorded just a couple weeks before Sarah’s bone marrow
 transplant.  About half the songs were compiled from previous CD’s
 and the rest were recorded fresh. 

And may I add that several of the pro studio musicians we'd worked
with on earlier projects donated their time (about $500 a day) when they
heard we’d be giving free copies out to cancer families.
(We’ve now given away about 2000 copies of this CD.)

Here’s Sarah with Jeremy, our incredible studio guitarist who was one of the musicians who donated his time. Sarah thought it was pretty hilarious that both of them were bald and thought that maybe he should have
her hat as a cover up.
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The idea for this particular  project was given to us by Carolyn Stephenson,
our dear friend and pastor’s wife.   She said, “Why don’t you make a CD
with restful, peaceful music on it and focus the message on people
who are hurting?”
   
And so we did.

I really love this CD and it’s extra special to me since it was the last
studio recording we did. 
This is the photo of the cover before the
title, “Like A Blanket” was added.
Like a Blanket Back Cover-1
                 So there you have it.  The life and times (and recordings)
of Heartsong Ministries.

Ever since I was a little girl, my dream in life was to travel
and sing with my family;

I’m so thankful that I had the chance to do my dream.