I'm having so much fun today catching up with some of my old friends I haven't talked to in ages. I just wrote this comment on my friend Denise Gayle Westmoreland Liles' Facebook page in response to a comment/story she wrote for me. She writes beautifully. We met in the late 1980's in Nashville. Her husband, Dwight Liles, produced my first two Contemporary Christian Music original music albums at what must have been one of the earliest home recording studios, pro-level, that my engineer husband, Robin Isaacs, built for me in our home we called "Chapelgate." It is known as "Evins Mill" in Smithville, Tennessee. I just visited it last month when I drove from Texas to Tennessee for the "Dinner with Dreamers" 3 day festival at Johnny Cash's farm in Bon Aqua. I have cherished my two albums for decades. Dwight arranged all the music to the tunes I had created and performed most of it and Denise programmed the drum machine. Dwight and Robin recorded my vocals. I played my guitar and so did Dwight plus we had Robin's grand piano and Dwight's keyboards. Denise and I just reconnected (thanks God!) Here's what I just wrote to her... (I think I'll go turn this into one of my short-stories!)
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Did I ever tell you the story about how and why you and I and Dwight met? Of course I'd been going to Koinonia in Nashville twice a month for quite awhile after we moved from Houston to Chapelgate. Once per month Chuck Whiting hosted a Christian open mic. Two weeks after that he hosted a music industry speaker. Every month. He told our group there was going to be an FCCM Fellowship of Contemporary Christian Music weekend Conference in Mount Eagle, Tennessee. Robin and I decided to go. We took our 3 little children. There were so many talented musicians there that weekend, signed and independent, mixed. We had a room there at some sort of on site motel and Robin was mostly taking care of our kids so I could watch and perform. When I met him back in our room, I don't know which day, he told me he had noticed a guy on keyboards. "It doesn't matter who gets up to play what, this guy just joins right in with them like he already knows the song, any song. It's amazing." That was Dwight, of course. THAT's how and why we all met. Robin was smart enough and observant enough to discover Dwight without knowing anything at all about him, other than watching his skill.
Copyright 2023 Angel Isaacs All Rights Reserved Written September 14, 2023 at 9:30 pm
My first album, Produced by Dwight Liles and Engineered by Robin Isaacs at Chapelgate is HERE
