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Stephen Baird is an American singer-songwriter, and member of The Galapagos Mountain Boys. [1] His specialty is adapting and parodying Christmas carols and hymns, replacing their original content with scientific and secular themes and lyrics.
Stephen Miller Baird was born April 18, 1944, in Chelsea, Massachusetts. [2] He was raised in the Bible Belt before converting to rationalism as a student at Stanford University. [3]
He went on to earn his MD from Stanford in 1971, [4] specialized in research in Leukemias and Lymphoma, and is Professor Emeritus of Clinical Pathology at UCSD's School of Medicine. Dr. Baird is also past Chief of Laboratory Medicine at the San Diego Veterans Administration Medical Center. Although retired he still teaches a Freshmen seminar in the Biology department at UCSD and collaborates on prostate cancer stem cell research.
He met his wife, Carol Davidson, when he was 13 in Burbank, CA. They married in 1970 and they have two sons and four grandchildren.
Stephen Baird was forced to play cello as a child, but let that training lapse. He learned to play guitar in the 1980s and began putting medical and scientific concepts to music while teaching medical school classes. [5] His bluegrass style is applied to topics ranging from gravity to sexually transmitted diseases to false gods. [6] He released his first album of self-described "scientific gospel" [7] music in 1998. [8] In 2000 he formed the band The Opossums of Truth with like-minded individuals Dwight Worden, Mike McColm, Ron Jackson and son Daniel Baird. Upon Jackson's untimely death in 2007, the band reformed as The Galapagos Mountain Boys. [9]
First with The Opossums of Truth and now with The Galapagos Mountain Boys, Baird has been a performer at Darwin Day [10] events since 2002, [11] drawing on his stable of tunes on evolution and natural selection. [12]
Dr. Stephen Baird has released six albums of scientific gospel music: [13]
Michael Whitaker Smith is an American musician who has charted in both contemporary Christian and mainstream charts. His biggest success in mainstream music was in 1991 when "Place in This World" hit No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100. Over the course of his career, he has sold more than 18 million albums.
Jonathan Weiner is an American writer of non-fiction books based on his biological observations, focusing particularly on evolution in the Galápagos Islands, genetics, and the environment.
The Oak Ridge Boys are an American country and gospel vocal quartet originating in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The group was founded in 1943 as the Oak Ridge Quartet. They became popular in Southern gospel during the 1950s. Their name was changed to the Oak Ridge Boys in the early 1960s, and they remained a gospel group until the mid-1970s, when they changed their image and concentrated on country music.
Phillip E. Johnson was a UC Berkeley law professor, opponent of evolutionary science, co-founder of the pseudoscientific intelligent design movement, author of the "Wedge strategy" and co-founder of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (CSC). He described himself as "in a sense the father of the intelligent design movement". He was a critic of Darwinism, which he described as "fully naturalistic evolution, involving chance mechanisms and natural selection". The wedge strategy aims to change public opinion and scientific consensus, and seeks to convince the scientific community to allow a role for theism, or causes beyond naturalistic explanation, in scientific discourse. Johnson argued that scientists accepted the theory of evolution "before it was rigorously tested, and thereafter used all their authority to convince the public that naturalistic processes are sufficient to produce a human from a bacterium, and a bacterium from a mix of chemicals."
Darwin's finches are a group of about 18 species of passerine birds. They are well known for their remarkable diversity in beak form and function. They are often classified as the subfamily Geospizinae or tribe Geospizini. They belong to the tanager family and are not closely related to the true finches. The closest known relative of the Galápagos finches is the South American dull-coloured grassquit. They were first collected when the second voyage of the Beagle visited the Galápagos Islands, with Charles Darwin on board as a gentleman naturalist. Apart from the Cocos finch, which is from Cocos Island, the others are found only on the Galápagos Islands.
John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells is an American author, theologian, and advocate of the pseudoscientific argument of intelligent design. Wells joined the Unification Church in 1974, and subsequently wrote that the teachings of church founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to "destroying Darwinism." The term Darwinism is often used by intelligent design proponents and other creationists to refer to the scientific consensus on evolution. He gained a PhD in religious studies at Yale University in 1986, then became Director of the Unification Church's inter-religious outreach organization in New York City. In 1989, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology in 1994. He became a member of several scientific associations and has published in academic journals.
The Blind Boys of Alabama, also billed as The Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama, is an American gospel group. The group was founded in 1939 in Talladega, Alabama, and has featured a changing roster of musicians over its history, the majority of whom are or were vision impaired.
Larnelle Steward Harris is an American gospel singer and songwriter. During his 40-plus years of ministry, Harris has recorded 18 albums, won five Grammy Awards and 11 Dove Awards, and has had several number one songs on the inspirational music charts.
Steve Green is an American Christian music singer.
Kurt Benirschke was a German-American pathologist, geneticist and expert on the placenta and reproduction in humans and myriad mammalian species. At the San Diego Zoo, he created the world's first frozen zoo for the cryopreservation of genetic material from endangered species.
Virtue is an American gospel music group. The group currently consists of Ebony Holland, Karima Kibble and Heather Martin.
The 37th Annual GMA Dove Awards, also called the 37th Annual GMA Music Awards, were held on April 5, 2006 recognizing accomplishments of Christian musicians for the year 2005. The show was held at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, and was hosted by Rebecca St. James and Kirk Franklin. This was the last year in which the awards were called the "GMA Music Awards", since they will change their names to "GMA Dove Awards".
The Wexford Carol or the Enniscorthy Carol is a traditional religious Irish Christmas carol originating from Enniscorthy in County Wexford. The subject of the song is the nativity of Jesus Christ.
"Farther Along" is an American Southern gospel song of disputed authorship. The song deals with a Christian's dismay at the apparent prosperity of the wicked, when contrasted with the suffering of the righteous. The repeated theme is that, "farther along", the truth will be revealed.
WOW Gospel Christmas includes thirty songs on a double CD album. In 2007 it reached #78 on the Billboard 200 chart, took first place on the Top Gospel Albums chart, and 20th spot on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. In 2008 it reached 24th spot on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.
The 40th Annual GMA Dove Awards presentation was held on April 23, 2009 recognizing accomplishments of musicians for the year 2008. The show was held at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville, Tennessee, and was hosted by Rebecca St. James, Matthew West, and Lisa Kimmey.
"Better Than a Hallelujah" is a digital MP3 single released in 2010 to promote Amy Grant's album Somewhere Down the Road, which was also released in 2010. The single for "Better Than a Hallelujah" was released to radio for airplay and additionally released commercially as a digital MP3, as the same version to appear on the album. The radio single reached number 8 on the Christian charts.
Christmas Gift is Kokia's eighth studio album, released in October/November 2008. It is her first full-length Christmas album, though she had released a special Christmas EP for fans, A Piece of Christmas, in November 2006. It is the final of four albums released in 2008 to celebrate her 10th anniversary as a singer.
The 41st Annual GMA Dove Awards presentation was held on April 21, 2010 recognizing accomplishments of musicians for the year 2009. The show was held at The Opry Entertainment Complex in Nashville, Tennessee, and was hosted by Bart Millard.
Angels' Carol is a popular sacred choral piece by John Rutter for Christmas. He wrote his own text, beginning "Have you heard the sound of the angel voices", three stanzas with the refrain "Gloria in excelsis Deo". It has been part of recordings of collections of Christmas music, including one conducted by the composer.
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