Discover Worship: Every month, we like to feature an arranger from our catalog. Russell, we appreciate your contribution and willingness to talk to us today. Tell us a little of your story, what you’re doing now, and what you see for the future. How about starting out with how you got into arranging?
Russell Mauldin: My family traveled every weekend singing gospel music across the southeast. We sang at a lot of homecomings out in rural churches. We would do two songs in the worship service, the pastor would preach, and then there’d be a big dinner on the grounds. And then people would try to stay awake as the Mauldin Family sang from 2 o’clock to 3:30. It was just a wonderful upbringing. My parents are both very musical. Although my dad built homes for a living, his passion was writing songs and singing for the glory of God. My mom played piano for us, but she also taught piano lessons about 4 days a week in the afternoons in our home. My parents loved God, they loved me, and they loved music; so that’s a pretty neat place to grow up.
My dad built a recording studio for some fellas in Greenville, SC, and produced a few records. So my whole life I’ve literally hung out in recording studios. As we got older, my brother Steve and I both went to Furman University to get more classical training. He was more of a musician than a vocalist, so he did jazz band stuff. I sang more, was in the Furman Singers, and did more the chamber chorus kind of music.
As a singer, I really had an interest in learning the sensibilities of how to write for vocals and for the choir. I’m certainly no virtuoso on piano, but I’ve learned through the years that the good Lord wanted me to be limited. He wanted me to not write so far over people’s heads that you have to have a college level choir or a 300-voice “First Baptist” choir to be able to present the music He gave me.
God gave me a passion for writing music that every choir could sing and master. There’s a big difference in that. I never wanted choirs to feel limited by music that’s beyond their ability or needing amazing singers to pull it off. I’m called to help medium to small choirs sound better than they realize they can. That’s when it’s the best for me…when choirs say, “You know we sang your work last Sunday, and we just sounded so much better than we thought we could possibly sound.” So God has given me a heart through the years to help the folks that don’t have huge choirs or lots of resources to sound the best they can.
DW: We share your calling and your passion. Out of the 300,000 churches in North America, the average church attendance on a Sunday is 75. A lot of publishers write for the top 5% or 10% of the churches because that’s where the big choirs, big programs, and big money is. We can appreciate that…I go to a big church, and I love it, but there are so many wonderful churches that have limited resources, and you are writing for right where they are. We really appreciate that a lot.
RM: That’s my heart and my calling.
DW: Where did your publishing career start, in terms of publishing and arranging?
RM: Very shortly after I moved to Nashville in 1986, I wrote a musical with Dave Clark. Dave had previously published a musical for Benson Music, but they had passed on his latest concept. So he took the idea to a brand new little company called Brentwood Music. I had just started doing a little bit of work for Ed Kee there – he was one of the very first in Nashville to believe in me. Dave Clark and I first met in the lobby waiting for a meeting at Brentwood. Their leaders said, “We think you two guys can come up with something special here.” So they turned us loose with the freedom to take the pieces of the musical that Benson had passed on to create “Meet Him at the Manger,” which became their biggest seller up to that point. My arranging career really began there. Since then, Dave and I became the dearest of friends.
I worked freelance for about 30 years in Nashville and just recently – with the many, many changes of hands of company ownership in the music industry – now serve in an exclusive writing capacity with Capitol Christian, which now has Brentwood-Benson. I have worked for almost all the publishers over the years and now this just makes sense.
These days I’m walking a whole other trail as well. Three and a half years ago, I was on a mission trip to Japan and heard the Lord’s still, small voice saying that—in this season when I was not too young but not too old and have lot of experience as well as some energy—He wanted me to serve as a shepherd in a pastoral role. So I’ve gone back to seminary and this summer will graduate with a master’s in religion from Lee University. I was ordained two and a half years ago and am serving as associate pastor at Seed Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. It’s a church plant, so I’m learning so much about shepherding, pastoring and preaching. They asked me to preach the Palm Sunday sermon, and while I haven’t preached that message very often from a sermon standpoint, I have told that story about 50 times in musicals. Particularly in Easter musicals, the triumphal entry moment is your chance to have a big celebration, “Blessed Is He,” and it’s up-tempo, often 6/8 or something because we know that we’re just about to dive down into the violent days that led to the cross.
So it’s interesting that the flow for that sermon came very quickly. Even though I haven’t preached the message much, I sure know this story well cause I’ve told it just about every way you can tell the Palm Sunday story! But those are the kinds of insights the good Lord has given me even though I’m coming at the pastoral side of it later in life. He has given me exactly what I need, just as I need it, and He has proven Himself on a weekly basis.
DW: That’s a great update of what’s happening in your life and ministry. So where do you see choral music in the church today, and where do you see it going in the next 5 to 10 years?
RM: There have always been shifts in the music industry, and you know that turning art into commerce makes for really strange bedfellows. It’s always a moving target and a difficult thing to do. I know the pendulum has swung for a good while—particularly for the evangelical church—away from organized choirs and that many of today’s fastest growing and biggest churches started in high school auditoriums. This week, I seriously doubt if any of those churches thought that they’d outgrown their praise team and worship leader and that it was finally time to start a choir. They might have 3,000 people and still don’t have what we would call a classical setting for a choir.
That said, there will always be a love for the hymns and choral music. I do sense it coming back…especially among churches that are conscious of multi-generational worship settings or among churches that are comfortable having a contemporary AND a traditional service. Even among post-moderns, millennials, and teenagers who can’t remember not having iPhones—there’s a growing affection for what’s gone before. I think we’ll see that shown by a new reverence for liturgy and choral singing.
Choral music writers and publishers have all seen decreased sales over the past 10 years, but I have faith that God still works through corporate worship led by a choir, and I believe there’s value in getting the choir to be worship leaders. I think the Lord is always going to bless that. I embrace whatever is bringing people to church and to the Lord; so it’s not like I’m anti-modern worship music, on the contrary. But I am confident there will always be a place for the choir in church. I hope to write for the choir as long as I live. I would love to write music on the last day I’m on earth if the good Lord will allow it!
DW: We appreciate your orientation toward “both/and” instead of “either/or.” That’s one of our core tenets: that the diversity of the body of Christ is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Since the diversity of expression—especially multi-generational and multi-cultural—is something we’re going to see in Heaven, it’s not a bad idea to practice that now. Anything else you’d like to say in closing?
RM: I just want to encourage people. That has been my goal since day one. I just kept hearing church music people getting run over by “Sunday’s coming at such a pace…it’s coming one day a week whether we’re ready or not.” So I just want to encourage them to do work well and do good works.
This is my message to church musicians: Don’t get discouraged; God sees your effort, and we are to give Him our excellence. We are to make His praise glorious. Even though there are times it seems you’re not winning a lot and you’re weary, be encouraged because you are making a difference in people’s lives, and it won’t be until we get to Heaven that much of what is done by good folks is recognized. Just keep on moving forward. Don’t let the enemy discourage you, and let’s continue to work together for the Kingdom!
--Click here to preview dozens of fine arrangements by Russell Mauldin available at Discover Worship.
