Marsha Stevens

Marsha Stevens-Pino (born 20 August 1952^[1] in Pomona, California) is a singer, musician, songwriter and recording artist of Christian songs.^[2]

For Those Tears I Died and "Children of the Day"

Shortly after professing to become a Christian in 1969, Stevens-Pino wrote "For Those Tears I Died (Come to the Water)", a song that was to become widely known and sung in charismatic Christian churches and youth-groups across the United States. Utilizing her songwriting and singing talents with sister Wendy Carter and friends Peter Jacobs and Russ Stevens, the Contemporary Christian Music group known as "Children of the Day" was formed. An entry in The Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music states:

If Larry Norman is to be called the father of Christian Rock, then Marsha Stevens certainly deserves to be known as the mother of contemporary Christian music...She was the leader of what is considered to be the world's first contemporary Christian music group, Children of the Day, and she has continued as a solo artist to produce albums of worship-oriented and edifying adult contemporary pop. As such, she remains the progenitor of what, by 2002, would become the single most popular genre in the contemporary Christian music market.^[3]

Albums

• Songs of Praise in a Strange Land
• Is this the real you?
• In Retrospect
• The Waiting's Over
• The Gift is on the inside
• UP (Unashamed Praise)^[4]

References

• Stowe, David W. No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Rock and the Rise of the Religious Right, The University of North Carolina Press, 4/25/2011, ISBN 9780807878002

External links

• BALM Ministries
• Vintage footage of Marsha Stevens and Children of the Day performing "For Those Tears I Died" on the Kathryn Kuhlman television program, c. 1971 Video on YouTube
• Christian Century Magazine, March 17, 1999 by Mark Allan Powell; Marsha's tears: An orphan of the church
• Children of the Day History