The Kingsway Mixes – An Update

In September 2003, a person living near or in Strasburg, PA sent me a CD with The Kingsway Mixes (supposedly recordings the band made at Kingsway Studios in New Orleans) and another set of songs recorded by the Innocence Mission back in Lancaster, PA. Today, however, I’d like to share what I know about the mixes and where things stand as of today.

When both CDs arrived in the mail, they were sent by an unknown person who referred to himself/herself simply as B. The note said, “These recordings were done in New Orleans and it was after listening to these that the decision was made to “finish” the album in Seattle that would become Glow. Of note is the exclusion of JOY and LIFT from the final release of GLOW (probably 2 of my alltime fav IM songs!!!!)“. The first CD contained 16 tracks all of which are listed below:

“Bright As Yellow”
“Everything Is Different Now”
“Happy The End”
“Our Harry Sails”
“Goodnight Margaret Wissler”
“There”
“Brave”
“Heyday”
“Spinning”
“Joy Comes to The House”
(inst.)
“Lift You Up”
“Following You”
“Joy Comes To The House”
“Wave”
“Spinning”

Of the 16 recordings, you’ll notice two of them are repeated twice. They include “Spinning” and “Joy Comes To The House”. Each song boasts a slightly different version from the other and the quality of the recordings substantially differ as well. You’ll also notice “Our Harry Sails” may have had a title change or possibly it was incorrectly written down.

Some of the tracks, however, were abandoned in the 90’s and did not appear on Glow and those are the ones I will provide updates for starting with “Goodnight Margaret Wissler”. This track was only recently released on 12″ vinyl, CD and digital on the album Geranium Lake which came out in October 2022. The song “Wave” was re-titled “Film For My Sister” and subsequently re-recorded in a more modern style and also released here. The original Kingsway mix of “Wave” remains unreleased.

The instrumental track, now titled “Recital”, was completed (string parts added to the original Kingsway mix) and released in 2007 by Don Peris on his solo album Go When The Morning Shineth.

The remainder of the songs, “Heyday”, “Joy Comes To The House” and “Lift You Up” all remain unreleased to this day, however “Heyday’ was performed live during the band’s Umbrella tour back in 1992.