I hope all of you enjoy this recording as much as I do. Robert Shaw is easily my favorite conductor of the 20th century. This album was one of the most influential albums for me as a child, and the songs were permanently burned into my psyche many years ago. My brother Eldo says this album also had a profound impact on him, and on future Kansas Youth Chorus selections. The longing for Heaven crying out from them moves me in a powerful way. I hope they provide you with comfort and pure musical enjoyment.

I looked high and low on the internet to find a CD of this album, but to no avail. Eventually I just decided to buy a record off of eBay and attempt it myself. I’m currently using Audacity free editing software and Windows Movie Maker for my recording projects. I'm an unabashed novice, so someone with a better skill set may have been able to do more.

I tried to clean up this recording without destroying the audio quality. I could only take off the top layer, so to speak, of the extraneous noises that vinyl creates. Multiple attempts to filter out more unwanted frequencies from the initial recording simply stole too much of the audio quality to make it worthwhile. The final result has that obvious vinyl “scratchy-scratchy” sound, but I’m just sentimental enough to love it and not care. I just didn’t want anyone to think that I turned on the record player, hit record, and said “good enough.” I really did try!

Here are all 16 tracks, in order:

1. Deep River
2. Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel
3. Every Time I Feel The Spirit
4. I Wanna Be Ready
5. Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
6. This Ol' Hammer
7. This Little Light O' Mine
8. Who Is That Yonder
9. Lord, If I Got My Ticket
10. Soon One Mornin'
11. There Is A Balm In Gilead
12. Soon-a Will Be Done
13. My Lord, What A Morning
14. Dry Bones
15. Ain'-a That Good News
16. Set Down, Servant