Ishmael's Website

With the idea of ‘Training up the troops’ came some of the most exciting days in the Glorie Company. When I released this first Troops album I asked all my team to come to Spring Harvest dressed in army fatigues. The idea was to teach children that we are all in God’s army and in a battle against the evil one who wants to wreck the lives of both young and old. Pretty heavy stuff for 8 to 11 year olds maybe, but I believe they not only took it onboard, but also became a lot Spiritually stronger after learning (in a child friendly way of course) about Spiritual warfare.…

With Scripture Praise Party I seriously got down to putting simple little tunes to Bible verses. My main aim was to help children to learn Scripture. I deliberately wanted the tunes to be annoyingly catchy and would aim to write each song in 10 minutes max. I would then test each song out on an audience and if they were not able to whistle the tune after I’d sung it through twice, i’d drop the song. To this day I still cannot remember what possessed me to put a nagging wife is like a dripping tap on a children’s album! For many wonderful years I was a member of Gerald…

I updated the title and cover of ‘Antique Collection’ to Sting in the Tale’ but kept the recording exactly the same. I don’t think I’ve ever had such fun recording an album. I dragged a load of ‘the lads’ from our Church into a recording studio and we recorded lots of the most popular and crazy Ishmael and Andy tongue in cheek, parable songs that had never been recorded before. Far too mad for the rather serious Christian music scene of those days! This is the very best (probably only) Christian ‘Pub’ singalong you’ll ever hear, and of course I had to have the good old ‘honky tonk’ joanna rattling…

I was now getting more confident in writing praise / worship style songs and on ‘Ishmael’s Children’s Praise party Vol 2’ I decided to risk using mostly my own compositions. At this stage I must make mention of my buddy Mick Gisbey who was later to join me touring. Mick was writing some fantastic songs and I not only included a couple on this album but also included many more of his songs on albums to follow. Ishmael’s Children’s Praise Party Vol 3 was in many ways a breakthrough album for me. Again, the majority of songs were my own and now I had also started to put a few…

I’m thrilled that many of you seemed to have enjoyed my ‘stuck indoors’ and ‘stay alert’ twice weekly ‘live’ video’s that I posted on Facebook but due to lockdown restrictions being lifted, I feel that it’s right that next Monday (June 1st) I will be posting up my finale on Facebook. But…as they seemed to have given so many so much pleasure, I have decided to open a Youtube channel called Ishmaels Songs where I am posting up loads of new videos and singing loads & loads of individual songs for you to watch, learn and maybe use in your churches. Please subscribe and tell others so they too can…