Kyle Boreing
Mar 17, 2009
Observations|Odds and Ends|audio
Recording Oddities – “Noah Found Grace In The Eyes Of The Lord”
In October, 1999, I saw what would be my first and only Cathedrals concert at Rupp Arena in Lexington, KY. Glen Payne had recently passed away, and there was an undeniable feeling of sadness that night, but like true professionals, George, Roger, Ernie, and Scott pressed on and gave a wonderful show. Afterwards, the line at the product table was incredibly long, but I managed to work my way up, talk to Roger for a couple minutes, and buy a copy of their “hot-off-the-press” video, A Farewell Celebration.
I had been hoping that they would have this video at the concert. It wasn’t due to be released in stores for another couple weeks, so I wasn’t sure if it’d be there or not. I had spoken to Joe Bonsall (also a die-hard Cat’s fan) just a few days prior to the Rupp Arena show, and he said that the video had been printed, so the odds were in my favor. Sure enough, they had it at the show, so I forked out my money and got my copy. I watched the entire video all the way through that night after I got home from the show (which was probably close to 1am). It was then, and still is now, one of my favorite Gaither productions.
One of the guest artists on that video was the Statler Brothers. They performed two songs, “Noah Found Grace In The Eyes Of The Lord” and “The Other Side Of the Cross.” The version of “Noah” on this show was notably faster than their original recording from their “Holy Bible” set done back in the 70′s. Also, Jimmy Fortune held his “high” note as long as he could at the end of the song, which Lew DeWitt did not do on the original record.
I noticed on that video that Jimmy went almost a half-step sharp on his big note. Not a huge deal, and completely forgiveable after a performance like that. I didn’t think anything of it….until I got the CD version. On the CD, Jimmy’s note has been tuned, and stays right on pitch.
Why would Gaither tune the CD and not the video?
Later on, we were showing the same video on one of the TV’s at the bookstore I worked at. This was about a year later, and sure enough, the video I put in also had the note fixed. So, now we have both the CD and the video of the concert fixed. Perhaps someone at Spring House caught the mistake after the initial pressing, and all future printings of the video were edited. When the concert was released on DVD, the note was again fixed, so it appears that the master has been edited accordingly.
That leaves anyone who bought the original video when it was first released with a one-time mistake that was caught and fixed for all future consumers.
NOTE: If I get a chance and can find my original VHS copy in storage, I’ll upload the unedited clip, compared to the later printing/DVD version, but for now, I don’t have access to it.
