Just listen
to him talk about what was on his heart in 1983, and see if Russ Taff doesn’t
touch you too with a plea for unity. That’s what he was trying to do when he
and two others penned some words that collectively say “We Will Stand”. He and the others must have been talking and sharing
about some difficult moments, and what instead they thought should be the focus
of all Christian believers. After all, if
powerful leaders of nations, from opposite faith systems, can hold hands (as
President Bush and an Arabian Prince Abdullah showed here in this April 2005
picture), shouldn’t people of the same
basic faith be able to?
Russ Taff was
30 years old at the time, and probably still looking back at his upbringing, examining
his circumstances at the time, and looking forward to what could be. His family roots in Pentecostal worship and
Gospel music made his choice of a singing career a natural outcome by his teenage
years. He took his parents’ spiritual background and some of the popular secular
music he heard and fused them to form his own sound with a band called Sounds
of Joy. He sang with another group, the Imperials, in his mid-20s, and then
went solo after a few years, so that by 1983, Russ had sung with various groups
and with an eclectic style to match. Perhaps
that was the incubator of what his wife Tori, their friend James Hollihan, and
Russ would write in “We Will Stand” – there is variety, but stay focused on a
main unifying force. Based on the joint attribution, one can imagine the three
of them sitting and mulling over their faith, each chiming in with their own earnest
words to fill out the song’s potential, and dreaming about what it would mean
if every believer stuck together. Russ speaks passionately about it during a minute
or two of a performance of “We Will Stand” in 1983, probably while the song’s
genesis was still fresh in his memory. Russ felt that no denominational wedges
should block the message of what ‘Christian’ means – togetherness in Him.
Another video testimony, many years later, shows Russ Taff being very personal
and vulnerable about his life in a conversation with his friend Bill Gaither,
and telling from his own standpoint how he has been able to endure – to stand. He
sounds like a very indebted person, compelled to repeat what’s been in his
heart for several decades.
With so many
musical memories and friends to share them, Russ Taff keeps going back to the
well of “We Will Stand” to re-drink from its contents. There was a concert with
his musical friends in January 2015 that was punctuated with the song, and the
previous year Russ’s handwritten words to the song were used to raise funds for
a mission work in Ecuador. So, it’s not just any song. Unity is not a casual
expectation. He himself prayed for this in a garden, just before He was to die.
You think this is important? He’s not a God I want to disappoint.
Lotsa
information re: the song and its meaning today are here: http://www.russtaff.com/?s=We+Will+Stand&submit=Search
Russ talks
about what the song means to him in this song link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJZGQVSMsSU (between the 1:18 and 2:55 minute marks)
Here’s an
interview with Russ Taff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTYddNynmHU
Biography
of Russ Taff here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Taff
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