"Call me Ishmael" are the opening words of the book "Moby Dick". Now I don't go back quite that far, but the name Ishmael has been around music for a long time. I was born and raised in the sand hills of northeast Oklahoma. I can remember countless Saturday nights listening to the grand Ole Opry on a battery radio. It faded in and out and the battery would sometimes go dead, but it was my favorite time of the week. From the time I was a young man, I entered the world of secular music and played in bars, clubs, and dance halls all across the country. I accepted the Lord as my savior in 1967 and my life changed as well as my music. The first gospel group I sang with was the Crownsmen Quartet out of McKinney, Texas. My next group was "The Ambassadors" and then a family group called "The Sounds of Freedom". My wife Janis, has always been an important part of my music. In the fall of 2008 we resigned a church where we had been pastors for 20 years. We organized a group and traveled for the better part of 2009. The picture on the home page is "The Ishmaels" with a full live band. Late in 2009 The Lord spoke to us to take a new church and get it established. After a combined total of 35 years of Pastoral work, we are once again available for churches, concerts, or special events. We hope to see you somewhere this year. Our Ministry is not just to sing, but to carry this gospel to the world around us. our purpose is and has been to point people toward Jesus. One of our favorite saying is "It is not about us, it is about him".
Telling the story of Jesus