Artist: Travis Cottrell
Album: “Jesus Saves [Live]”
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Label: Word Entertainment
Artist’s website: www.traviscottrell.com
Standout Tracks: “Mercy Seat,” “Praise the King,” “Jesus Saves,” “To the King”
Review:
Famed worship leader Travis Cottrell returns with his latest live album in Jesus Saves [Live]. The singer/songwriter/arranger/worship leader has been best known in recent days for leading worship during most of Beth Moore’s Living Proof conferences. Native of Boone, North Carolina, Cottrell moved to Nashville in 1990 and has not looked back. He began writing songs for artists like Larnelle Harris and musicals including Waiter: A Youth Musical about Waiting on the Lord. Most recently, Cottrell’s Ring the Bells hit #3 on the iTunes Holiday Music Chart one day after its release last year.
Cottrell recorded Jesus Saves [Live] in Atlanta, Georgia with a three hundred voice choir, seven thousand worshippers in attendance, and special guests including Beth Moore, Max Lucado, and Cindy Morgan. The album begins with the high energy To the King, a great opening to any worship service, ascribing praise and glory to the King eternal. The momentum continues with Hallelujah God is Here and Our God Saves, two other good worship songs done in typical Cottrell fashion. Two other songs to mention on the album are My Inheritance and I Am Persuaded, which follows a five and a half minute long presentation from Beth Moore. While I greatly admire the work of Moore, I found this emotionally charged address of hers to not match up with my theology exactly.
Cottrell is well-known for following in the footsteps of Chris Tomlin and others in adding new touches to familiar hymns of faith. This is seen in the tracks Victory in Jesus and I Will Sing of My Redeemer. I was not particularly fond of his rendition of Victory in Jesus, but I found the arrangement and new chorus added to I Will Sing of My Redeemer to be very effective. He also incorporated The Solid Rock into the modern Getty/Townend classic In Christ Alone and performed his powerful and moving Jesus Saves which follows in the same hymnic structure of In Christ Alone.
The two standout tracks, however, come from guest vocalists Angela Cruz and Cindy Morgan. Cruz gave her voice to the powerful worship song, Mercy Seat, which included a glimpse of the familiar Lord, Have Mercy, made famous by Michael W. Smith. The vocals are solid and the arrangement shines, however I would take out the phrase, “He’s waiting,” in describing the Lord. I would leave it as, “He’s calling,” rather than taking a chance of giving the perception of a somewhat helpless Creator of the Universe. With the exception of this, Cruz excels on this compelling track making it one of my personal favorites on the album. In addition to this great song, Morgan gives an outstanding performance of her classic Praise the King (originally from Morgan’s album, Thy Lovingkind- my favorite Christian album of all time). The arrangement of the song was even better than that of the original, and Morgan’s voice was as strong as ever.
Though it is not without flaw, the strengths of Jesus Saves [Live] outshine the weaknesses, and thus make it a definite must have on this list of the current best albums for worship.
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