Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest

Carl Tuttle’s exuberant song is dated 1985 and became well-known through Songifts (1986), closely followed by Let’s Praise 2, MP, and then a wide range of collections in the USA, Britain, Ireland and Australia. It is the bestknown of the author’s compositions, well suited for all-age Palm Sunday events, among others. Its roots are scriptural, its structure simple, its repetition frequent, and its tune (by the same hand) HOSANNA, HOSANNA. Because of similar first words and/or tune names, it is sometimes indexed as HOSANNA (TUTTLE). It may have been written in subconscious (?) imitation of, or for improvement on, the earlier 341.

b USA 1953. He became a Christian as a teenager c1967; in 1976 he began to meet for informal worship with friends, a fellowship which later became the Vineyard Church at Anaheim under the oversight of John Wimber (1934–97). With Danny Daniels he then helped to establish ‘Vineyard Music’ and within that circle became ‘a seminal figure in the development of contemporary music’. In 1995 he became senior pastor, appointed by Wimber, of what had by that time become the mother church of some 550 other congregations. He currently leads services at Faith Community Ch in Thousand Palms, in the Palm Desert area of La Quinta nr Los Angeles, California, with added responsibility for outreach. A composer of ‘worship songs’ since the 1980s, at least 18 of which have appeared in print, in many books and recordings in the case of the one included here. He has also performed in Brighton, UK, along with Andy Park, Brian Doerksen and others. The annual Spring Harvest collections have featured more of his work. He still describes himself as a housepainter. No.298.