Randy Stonehill ‘Lost Art of Listening’

Randy Stonehill
Lost Art of Listening
(RB MacNeel Music)
Release date: November 24, 2020

Mainstream Christian music radio is filled with bold, percussive spiritual anthems. You feel, as much as hear, the gospel truth while experiencing this music. Lyrics are oftentimes simple and straight to the point, with little room for subtle humor or the poetic turn of a phrase. This is not so much a bad thing, as it is the most popular sound/style right now. Randy Stonehill’s excellent Lost Art of Listening is—for the most part—all the things typical Christian music is not, bless his heart. It is, instead, singer/songwriter music at its best.

Stonehill’s latest effort reflects the mindset of a man who’s accumulated a little wisdom over the years, instead of, say, the feelings of a youth that’s bravely chasing the big wind blowing out on that wild frontier. “Sometimes you’ll dance with the wild wind at your heels,” Stonehill considers quietly on “Coyote Moon,” a song he wrote with Terry Scott Taylor. He then adds, “Sometimes you’ll hang your head at the lonely way life feels.” To support this lyric’s point, Stonehill then addresses both the good and the bad of life with this collection of smart, emotive songs.

Although he’s not as zany as he was back when he still wore patchwork jeans and did big leg kicks while banging on his acoustic guitar, that familiar Stonehill humor still shows through on “This Old Face,” where he self-deprecatingly admits that he may not have the same movie star looks of a George Clooney or Brad Pitt. The album includes a few love songs, as well as “Billy Frank,” Stonehill’s heartfelt acoustic tribute to the late Billy Graham. The album’s toughest stretch is its three-song father trilogy, where Stonehill confessionally describes the troubled relationship he had with his father. Songwriting this honest is rarely ever easy listening music. “Age to age the dysfunction carries on,” Stonehill tells us on “Leonard’s Toaster,” “like the passing of some toxic baton.”

Randy Stonehill’s Lost Art of Listening, which is largely acoustic and stylistically Americana, is especially designed for those with ears to hear. Lend him an ear, won’t you?

—Dan MacIntosh

Track Listing:
1. Mercy in the Shadowland
2. This Old Face
3. Beginning of the Living End
4. Thinly Veiled Threat
5. She Loves Me
6. Coyote Moon
7. Still Not Over You
8. Billy Frank Father Trilogy:
9. Leonard Has a Toaster
10. Where Are You
11. Goodbye Old Friend
12. Worry About Money
13. Angel of the Highway
14 Dance Beyond the Laughing Sky

*Available on the Randy Stonehill Store
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