John Brown Bannister

petra4ever · Post by **petra4ever** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 11:17 am

separateunion wrote: Bannister wasn't really a rock producer

But he produced Whiteheart albums, and they were a rock band.

separateunion · Post by **separateunion** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 1:42 pm

Bannister wasn't really a rock producer

But he produced Whiteheart albums, and they were a rock band.

Take it up with Bob. He's the one he said it.

LexingtonPethead · Post by **LexingtonPethead** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 9:46 pm

I'm not an expert on Whiteheart, but it's my understanding that the extent of Brown Bannister's involvement with Whiteheart was that he produced only one Whiteheart album (Freedom) and consulted Billy Smiley and Mark Gersmehl while THEY produced Tales of Wonder.

I certainly don't think having produced one album is enough to credit BB as being Whiteheart's producer or even to say that having worked with one Whiteheart project categorizes BB as a rock producer. So, in my opinion, what Bob said was totally correct.

Plus, Freedom is only a mediocre album at best.

I think Whiteheart peaked with Don't Wait For The Movie from 1986.

Michael · Post by **Michael** » Wed Dec 31, 2003 8:29 am

Brown Bannister credits

(Interesting... see if you can spot the familiar name on this page!)

Corval · Post by **Corval** » Wed Dec 31, 2003 8:34 am

Louie??????????/

Shell · Post by **Shell** » Wed Dec 31, 2003 8:41 am

That was many years ago, LOL. Yep, Louie helped out on other albums.

Marty McCall went on to be in First Call, I liked a lot of their stuff. And Bonnie Keen sings like an angel.

petra4ever · Post by **petra4ever** » Wed Dec 31, 2003 9:05 am

I didn't realize BB only produced 1 Whiteheart album. When WUC came out, it was mentioned that BB was the producer and that he was known for producing WH albums.

LexingtonPethead · Post by **LexingtonPethead** » Wed Dec 31, 2003 9:38 am

Well, according to the BB credit link that Michael provided, Brown also "produced" a few of Whiteheart's compilation CDs. That's probably why his name at least surfaced along with Whiteheart.

However, if the songs were already written and the orginal CDs were already produced, then where's the so-called "production"?

Basically, it sounds like Brown may have only been responsible for picking which songs made the cut and which ones didn't (for the compilation CDs), but didn't necessarily have anything to do with the real production of those songs.

Michael, you came through for us again!

executioner · Post by **executioner** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 7:47 am

FREEDOM was by far White Hearts best album. BB only offically produced Freedom, but it's been known that he has worked closely with Smiley as a consultant on others.

LexingtonPethead · Post by **LexingtonPethead** » Thu Jan 01, 2004 9:19 pm

My problem with the Whiteheart recordings is that the sound mix is always out of whack. I can never get their music to sound right... regardless of who the producer was.

But just the same, while Freedom has a few good songs, most of them are just okay in my opinion. Plus, the sound quality isn't that great on this CD either.

TerryB · Post by **TerryB** » Fri Jan 02, 2004 11:48 am

Man, even that list above is not exhaustive of all what Brown Bannister has produced. For most of the early to late 90's he was THE producer in the CCM industry. I can recall numerous albums and songs that he was apart of. On many albums he did not produce necessarily the whole album, but he would produce for a few songs.

The biggest name he was tied to was obviously Amy G.

I for one think that White Heart's Freedom album was one of the best they did. Songs like the River Will Flow and Eighth Wonder were terrific in lyrical imagery. Bob Hartman mentioned in past interviews that it was one of his favorite CCM rock albums and that's another reason he chose B Bannister to produce Wake Up Call. I would agree though that I was not entirely happy with the mix on Freedom. Not enough low end kick, but that seemed to be an issue with a lot of White Heart albums. For me they seemed to finally get it (the mix) right with Highlands album.

TerryB

TexMetal4JC · Post by **TexMetal4JC** » Sat Jan 03, 2004 11:57 pm

Brown Bannister also has been named the Dove Awards' Producer of the Year for the last four years (I believe), for whatever that's worth. I don't put much stock in the Doves either, but I think a category like producer probably has less politics than say... Best Male Artist... Maybe I'm just defensive because Brown Bannister and I are both from Abilene Christian University's journalism department (hehehe)

But anyway, Brown is one of the two men who essentially discovered Amy Grant, and we have to give her credit for being one of the most prolific/influential/important Christian pop-inpirational artists of the 1980s, before she decided to... well, we won't get into that...

But I didn't realize he had produced Wake-Up Call... That's neat info! I got him to autograph Freedom a couple months ago when he received the Gutenberg Award from our department (for alumni who have excelled in professional work). I'm trying to do a feature story on him for the ACU paper, so I'll let y'all know if he says anything interesting about Petra, WH or AG...

Btw, I also think Freedom is one of the best Christian rock albums ever made... It was also the first C-rock CD I ever owned...

executioner · Post by **executioner** » Thu Jan 15, 2004 4:24 pm

I really liked the vibe that Wake-Up-Call brought, but in the long run was I disappointed. It rocked, but it rocked like Chicago rocks, not like what Petra rocks like.

The Petra Zone

John Brown Bannister

BB

Oh

....

Oh!

wh

Brown Bannister - Big Time CCM Producer

Brown Bannister

wuc

Who is online