The Cricket and Seagull Fireside Chat

From the hundreds of song submissions they receive, the producers of each year's Especially for Youth album winnow out the best for recording and sharing with the tens of thousands of youth who attend the annual summer camp.

Producer Russ Dixon talks about the process of creating this year's album, "Believe. Hope. Endure."  He's found some new diamonds-in-the-rough like "The One," plus Stephanie Mabey's "He Knows Me Better," the contemporary Christian hit "What Faith Can do," and more.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

In this remarkable DVD shot on location in the Holy Land, beloved LDS scholar and educator Ann Madsen uses the land itself to introduce us to the images and poetry of Isaiah like few others could.  The cinematography is often breathtaking and the computer-generated visit to Solomon's temple and the description of Isaiah's call to prophesy are worth having all by themselves.

Her decades of teaching the subject at BYU and in Jerusalem have prepared Ann Madsen in a rare way to start us on our own journey into Isaiah knowing what to look for to discover for ourselves why Christ himself said, "Great are the words of Isaiah."  Indeed, it is Christ himself and his atonement we will find revealed in powerful ways in the words of this prophet among prophets.

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.

Whether it's a monumental heartbreak or child with a mouthful of Mac 'n Cheese, songwriter Hilary Weeks seems to take her inspiration from every part of her life.

On this new album recorded in Nashville, TN, you'll hear ten new songs from tender to jubilant -- like "Living Proof" and "Past the Point," and a bonus remake of one of her classics, "All My Days."

That's this week on The Cricket and Seagull.