My music is inspirational and tends to be pop country, ballads, and pop rock; many of my songs have a message and I have written them based on my personal experiences.

16 MP3 Songs in this album (68:55) !
Related styles: SPIRITUAL: Inspirational, NEW AGE: Healing

People who are interested in Anne Murray Amy Grant Karen Carpenter should consider this download.


Details:
Iâve been singing ever since I can remember, but for so long it was OTHER PEOPLEâS songs. I never dreamed the day would come when I would write my own! But it did, and thatâs what is on Journey to Joy. Sixteen of my OWN songs and I am singing them all!

But how did I get here? Born in Seattle, I was the oldest which must be why I am so bossy. I ended up with two brilliant younger brothers, John and David and a half sister, Tiffany.

I was âon stage earlyâ. When I was a young girl my Grandma Ginny bought me a little piano and my mother taught me to sing hundreds of songs. Evidently, I was quite the little entertainer when guests would come to see us. My mom had a piano before I was born, but they had to sell it to put my Dad through law school.

When I was four, he got her a new one! I can still remember how she cried. She later gave lessons to kids around the area. My Mom entered me in the Seafair Princess pageant in Seattle when I was eight years old by sending in my picture. If I didnât win, she was afraid Iâd feel bad and she didnât want that. But I DID win and with the other three members of the Seafair Royalty I got to meet Danny Kaye. We even had our picture in the newspaper with him! I was thrilled beyond belief that they got my age wrong and listed me as NINE years old. Today, the same kind of mistake would not be so welcome to me.

That same year, I started piano lessons with a very distinguished older man, Mr. Woody. He would tell me sharply to lift my wrists and that I didnât practice enough. I just didnât like the songs he was choosing. Finally, my mother let me quit and taught me to play herself. She was a piano teacher but thought that perhaps I wouldnât listen to her since I was ⦠well rather obstinate. She even taught me to play the Partridge Family and Archieâs Here songs. I was in heaven. Mom tells me that I had an excellent memory and could recite whole television episodes from Gilliganâs Island by heart. For refraining from doing so, I used to earn 25 cents an hour on vacations.

When I was about ten, Grandma Ginny went to Hawaii and brought me back my own ukulele, and she taught me a few chords. I quickly learned to play âRock a My Soulâ and had a great time with it. My mother, Laurel Redecker, who plays the organ, took all three of us kids to perform at her Organ Guild concerts: I was on the ukulele, my brother, John, on the guitar and little David played the tambourine. When I was in seventh grade, I got a drum for Christmas. My favorite thing was to sit in the living room in my peace-sign pants and "too short" bangs like Karen Carpenter and singing Close to You and Weâve Only Just Begun. Her music influenced me a lot, and Iâve been told that I sound something like her. The fact that I spent literally hundreds of hours singing with her as a child could be why. I was devastated when Karen passed away at such a young age.

I also lost my biggest hero, my Dad, Jerry Bangs, when I was seventeen. He was so full of life and only 42 years old. When I was a child, Iâd go to sleep hearing my mother on the piano and the sound of Dadâs hydro engines revving in the garage. We knew that racing unlimited hydroplanes was very dangerous, but it was something he loved to do.

Iâll never forget that day when I came home and watched them say he had been killed in the Seafair racesâ¦they showed his picture. That was before they would notify the family first. I remember when he used to scare me taking me up in his Cessna and going upsidedownâ¦and once he took us all the way to Disneyland. Never a dull moment with my father. Thanks to him, I was able to go to college.

While studying for my bachelorâs in Psychology at Seattle Pacific University, I was so excited to be accepted into a group of singers called âManna.â We would tour around Washington State to various churches, and once we got to fly to Colorado to the Estes Park convention for young artists! There I met Kathy Lee Johnson, who was soon to become famous as Kathy Lee Gifford. I still have the picture. In my twenties, I entered the Miss Northshore Pageant and won the talent award singing âWeâve Only Just Begun.â It was so exciting being a âprincessâ again and supporting the Northshore area in Bothell, Washington where I had graduated from High School.

The next year I was a runner up again with âIn a Little While,â an Amy Grant tune. I did get a band together around that time and we sang at a local restaurant called âThe Dove Sign.â Not long after the pageants, I went away to teach at a boarding school in Kentucky and this was before I got my teaching certificate. I thought I would like to be âChristyâ but found out it was NOTHING like the television show and came home after a year and went back to college. I majored in Russian Linguistics and got my Masterâs Degree. It was there that I met my husband, Bob who was finishing his teacherâs credential. He often calls me his âlittle song bird.â

For our honeymoon we toured all over Europe. We DID go to Russia in those days of the Iron Curtain, and we had all kinds of adventures in places like London, Paris, Istanbul and Moscow. Then we moved to Bremerton, WA where my husband, Bob, taught History. We had three beautiful children , Katie, Daniel and Michael. I worked as an interpreter for Russian refugees at World Relief before settling in to teaching Russian at Bellevue Community College for 13 years. It was a nice job for me because it was part-time and left lots of space for the kids. As for singing? Well, that kind of got put on the backburner for awhile except for occasional weddings and funerals. I did learn to play the mandolin and went to lots of Bluegrass Concerts as a family. It was my husbandâs favorite music and he got my daughter singing in all the contests.

After my husband's retirement, I went back to school and got my teacher's credential and my Masters in Education from Old Dominion University. For this period, studying WAS my life.

About four years ago, I had some real challenges in my life and it was during that time that I started to write songs. I was inspired by Stephan Plummer, because she was MY AGE and had just finished her first CD. I went home right after hearing her perform and wrote You Are the Great I Am. I started performing it in churches not long after that. Before a couple of years had past, I had over twenty songs. Then I met Gil Yslas, a wonderful musician who had made many CDs. He agreed to be my producer, and now ,two years later, we have finished! Each song has a special story and comes from my life or someone close to me. For example, just last year, Andre Kobets, 35, a Ukrainian man who had been my volunteer aide when I was teaching Russian passed away from the cancer he contracted in Kiev, at the age of 14, during the Cherobyl nuclear accident. This is when I wrote Itâs Raining. When I find myself wishing that something could be different, I just thank God that all of my experiences together have made me who I am today. I am very grateful for my life and want to share what I have learned with others through music! I pray that my journey will be a blessing to you.

At this time, I am doing performances locally and teaching elementary school as a substitute. I am really looking forward to doing a lot with my Music. Indeed my own life has been a Journey to Joy.