Recording The Lord's Music

The Rev. Tom Morse came to Miami to set up a street ministry in the late 1960's. He was an idealist who was going to save the drug addicts and the prostitutes, get runaway teenagers back on track and into school, and make the world a better place for everyone by bringing Jesus to the people. He started a residential facility called Surfside Challenge just south of downtown Miami in a huge old house from the 1920's.

Tom played guitar and sang, and when Steve Ingram started working with him a piano got added to the mix. Tom took his acoustic guitar everyplace he went, but Steve's piano playing was restricted to the home's spacious living room, filled with hymm singing kids. Tom decided that a record album would be a good way to raise money. Records could be sold when he spoke to various church groups and by mail order. I went to the recording studio with them and got this shot of Steve playing the piano. That's how "Singing In The Streets" came about. I don't think that all that many were sold. I was using my Leica M4 with a 35mm lens. I still have a copy of the record but like most people I've met and worked with here in Miami I've totally lost track of both Steve and Tom. Sometime in the mid 1980's I ran into a legal secretary, Debby, who remembered me. She'd been one of the runaways that was staying there about 15 years previous. She now had an associates degree, a husband, and a couple of kids. I haven't seen her since.