www.chrismedway.com

www.kidspraisesongs.com

Young children are very lucky to have such artists as Duggie Dug Dug, Dave Godfrey, and Ishmael to point them in the right direction where Jesus is concerned. Well, now, there’s a new kid on the block.          Say “Hello” to Devon’s Chris Medway.

An Ishmael for the 21st Century

About the dude who brought you “All Aboard the Heaven Express”

Chris is a songwriter, composer, musician and music producer living in the coastal town of Dawlish in Devon, UK. He is married to Sharon (sorry, girls!) and they have a son, Joshua (b.1999) whom is taught at home. The Medways’ church home is Mars Hill Church in the neighbouring coastal town of Teignmouth. They have a pet Giant African Land Snail called Billy who says 'hello' to you and a Hamster, Nibbles who gives you a wave.

Chris' music is often described as creative, colourful and theatrical and his diverse recordings feature very eclectic instrumentation with various synth sounds, guitars, panpipes, whistles, toy instruments and sound effects, plus tribal and chromatic percussion whizzing through the speakers giving his music vibrancy and energy.
 

Since 2006, Chris strongly felt led to write praise and worship songs for children, putting aside ambitions to compose for theatre and film. Chris comments that “being involved in Children's ministry often means bouncing around clutching a guitar trying to generate enthusiasm amongst kids who stare back at me blankly. Coming from Devon means I can do convincing pirate impressions (ahhaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrr - see, told you) which sometimes helps in that sort of ministry (although it wrecks my throat)”.  

The first widely available result of Chris’ years writing and perfecting his recordings is the adventurous yet catchy concept CD “All Aboard the Heaven Express” aimed at “kids aged 0-200”.

Musical Timeline - the journey to “All Aboard the Heaven Express”

1994 Chris married Sharon in April and lived in a house in Gloucester.

A friend, Trevor Howard, asked Chris to arrange some songs from a musical Trevor was writing called “Visions of Daniel'”. For the next 3 years, Trevor and Chris met up weekly and made basic home recordings of these and other songs by both artists, with Trevor on guitar and Chris on keyboards. The cassettes of these sessions still exist today but are locked away to save embarrassment to both artists!

1995-96: Chris began to write his own songs for “Visions of Daniel” to compliment Trevor’s songs, and the musical soon became a joint project. Inspired by the hit musical “Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”, Chris adopted a more theatrical approach, including the idea of having lions singing throughout the show, and Chris envisioned a Christian musical playing in mainstream theatres. Chris’ highly energized (and quite complex) compositions included “Come on Down”, “Cunning Plan”, “Belshazzar (The Great?)” and “Superiority Complex”, plus the beautifully mournful yet uplifting “By the Waters”.

In June 1996, members of Chris’ church performed Chris’ hymn “We are a Chosen People” at a local Baptist Church conference, written by Chris for the occasion. This was also Chris’ first time at conducting a choir.

1996-97: Trevor and Chris performed some songs from the musical to some appreciative audiences. However, by the end of 1996 it was clear that the ambitious, yet unfinished, project was not going to be performed on stage and the project was shelved in favour of writing congregational worship songs. Trevor and Chris continued to meet up every week to record songs by both writers, some of which were used by local church groups.

Chris, like many budding congregational songwriters at that time, was very inspired by Graham Kendrick and wrote a diverse array of congregational praise and worship songs during this period. However, at that time, Chris was not confident at leading these songs in services and could not play guitar which meant that many of the songs were virtually unused. Therefore, Chris taught himself chords on the guitar by practicing over and over (at the same time as watching television) and introduced songs to house group and to the congregation. Whilst gentler songs like “May the Words of My Mouth” and “Soaring like an Eagle” were very popular, Chris’ personal favourite was the witty, quirky, yet congregation-friendly “Why Worry” (1996), which, 13 years later, would feature on his debut CD  “All Aboard the Heaven Express”. At that time, Chris, who aspired to be a hymn writer, had not envisaged that this less-conventional style of congregational writing was the style he should and would later adopt.

1998-2000 Chris and Sharon moved from Gloucester to Dawlish in their home county of Devon. Chris continued to pen several hymns and songs including the children’s songs “If you know God’s love”, “O Give Thanks to the Lord” and the rocky “On and On and On Forever and Ever” that remained unheard until its release 11 years later on “All Aboard the Heaven Express”.

In May 1999, Chris and Sharon’s son, Joshua, was born. Chris’ music was put on hold in order to adjust to the his parenting role.

2001-02 Kingsway Music, in conjunction with veteran children’s songwriter, Ishmael, began to produce a series of Children’s Ministry albums containing brand new, catchy, simple songs written by comparatively unknown writers. The songs were chosen by Ishmael who also produced the series of 6 CDs, each titled “New Children’s Praise Songs” Vols. 1-6. For this, Chris sent Ishmael a tape of a few songs including a simple song, tagged on the end, that took 5 minutes to write called “If You Know God’s Love”. Ironically, this simple song was chosen for the next CD (Vol.2) rather than (what Chris considered to be) ‘superior’ compositions. For the CD, Ishmael gave the song a hornpipe arrangement and it was sung by Dave Bilbrough.

Meanwhile, Chris’ old Gloucester buddy, Trevor was using Chris' calypso song “O Give Thanks to the Lord” for kids worship. Chris had not envisaged this song being used with children so sent it to Ishmael who chose the song to be included in “New Children’s Praise Songs” Vol.4. It was sung on the CD (in more of a ballad style) by Geraldine Latty.

This step forward should have been confirmation to Chris that God wished him to use his musical gift in children’s ministry. However, Chris had not worked with children before, his son Joshua was only a toddler and Chris had bigger plans...........

TO BE CONTINUED....