I used to attend Britain's major Christian music festival, Greenbelt, to do interviews during my DJ years, and sometimes did on site radio. In 1990 I was accosted by a journalist who wanted to know what music I was doing. I told him none, but he said "Music is in you" so I admitted I had written some music, but not for public consumption! A while later, when he guested on my radio show, I let him hear the acoustic songs I had written, and he eventually persuaded me to record them for an album. However, the budget would be less than I used to spend on making just a single – I really didn't know if it could be done but thought I'd give it a try! With hindsight, I think the production quality of the LOOK AT CHRIST album does not compare favourably with usual professional albums, but some people consider it my best. There certainly was a spontaneity and freshness about it which would be impossible with albums which take several months to produce. Sorry, it's no longer available!

When the album came out on a Christian label, I made a shocking discovery – in the UK, there is really no promotion for Christian records! So although it was technically ‘released', nobody knew about it – no publicity, no TV, there were no Christian radio stations at that time. So the only way anyone could get to hear about this record was if I went out on tour. This posed a problem, as I really didn't want to end up dancing around in the spotlight again, as I had in the world of commercial music. If the point was to "look at Christ" then the people should not be looking at me, and I developed the idea of projecting pictures on a giant screen, while I would sing in the dark.

To this day, the only people who ever objected were a couple of Christian musicians – maybe it hit a nerve as regards what they were doing?

By 1992 I had started going to a Pentecostal church full of enthusiastic young musicians and from there, I formed a band for the first tour, mostly of churches and cathedrals. It was a lot of fun, and so we all decided to continue beyond the tour. Also before the end of the first tour, I heard of one man who was converted to Christ, and realised this was to be more than just playing music.

SAL SOLO BAND (1992)

SAL SOLO – guitar and vocals

TIM WRIGHT – drums

MARTIN CASSON – bass

PAM TAYLOR – keyboards

PAUL HEYMAN – violin

MARTINA LALLY – backing vocals

DAWN COZMA - backing vocals

DIANE EDWARDS - backing vocals

GWEN CLARKE - backing vocals  

look at christ