Duet: Sometimes By Step

An article by Don Quixote    2 Comments

In 1992, Natalie Cole did something unique in the music world (if memory serves me right); she did a duet with her father, Nat “King” Cole.

Now the idea of the duet, even a duet between a famous father and daughter was nothing new, what made this such a step forward was that her father had passed away in 1965 when Natalie was only 6.

Using her father’s original recordings, she sang along with his voice to one more his more “Unforgettable” songs. She repeated this technique in 1996 when she sang another duet with him on “When I Fall In Love.”

To my limited knowledge (and please understand it is limited), this process hasn’t been widely used, nor has it been employed in the Christian music market. Well that is until now.

In March, 2006 Bebo Norman released, “Sometimes By Step”. What made it so unique is that it was done as a duet with the late Rich Mullins.

For anyone who knows me, you know that Rich is my all time favorite artist of anything, hands down. I wouldn’t be me if he weren’t for his music. There have been folks who’ve done an excellent job remaking his songs (Silers Bald, Andrew Peterson, Caedmon’s Call, Jars of Clay) and folks who for me just didn’t capture Rich Mullins in their rendition (most of Awesome God: A Tribute to Rich Mullins). As you might guess, I was rather concerned to hear that someone else was remaking his song. On Bebo’s website they have a flash media player with the whole song on it, so I decided to give it a listen.

I was taken aback the first time I heard it as I had no idea that it was a duet with Rich and once again I found myself moved to tears. My hats off to Bebo and the folks at Benson Records for this wonderful remake. I liked it so much; I had to have a copy of it.

Now sure there are ways to steal music streams even from flash players, but when it comes to Christian artists I like to make sure that I always buy their music. But what to do, this was just a single from a CD that wasn’t even released yet? Enter SongTouch.com

Unbeknownst to me (see earlier comment about me and my limited knowledge), there’s an iTunes-like site for Christian music. While they don’t have a lot of the wonderful independent musicians that deserve your support (Eric Peters, Ellery, Andrew Peterson & the entire Square Peg Alliance), they do have all the mainstream stuff for a great price and ready to download.

Even better – they had a copy of Sometimes By Step.

Go check it out and give it a download.