HOW apt. The North Wales man who perhaps made the biggest contribution to recording religious music was also the producer who set the Voice of an Angel on the road to stardom. Gordon Lorenz was the first producer to record Welsh pop princess Charlotte Church when she was just 12 years old and says: "She was one of the most amazing people I've worked with. You knew she was going to be a special talent". The Llandudno man has just produced The Best Gospel Album In The World... Ever, which hits the shops on Monday. It adds to a list of credits that includes 1980's million-selling Ivor Novello-winning Christmas Number One There's No Quite Like Grandma. Two years later he produced Your 100 Favourite Hymns - a series of five albums that are still the biggest-selling religious recordings in history. Lorenz's Cardiff-born protegée Church isn't the cherub she used to be, but the 52-year-old dad-of-three says he's happy to see her succeeding in the altogether sexier market of commercial pop. "I still feel she's a part of my life, and she probably always will be," he says. "I can see why, when the record company first asked me to record Charlotte Church, they wanted to call her the Voice of an Angel. She wasn't fazed by the studio, she sang without any nerves, and even at 12 years old she knew her own mind. "The unfortunate thing is that because of her lifestyle - which includes smoking, the last thing any singer wants to do - and the late nights out on the town, she's needed to change the style of her voice," he adds.. "But it's a measure of her talent that she's been able to carve out a new niche for herself." His current project was recorded at Liverpool's Abbey Road studios and combines top choirs from across the UK, including Liverpool Philharmonic Gospel Choir and Manchester's Urban Voice. Lorenz grew up wanting to be a minister and was a member of the Salvation Army in his native Liverpool before going into the music industry. He says even the likes of Church have gospel to thank for most of today's pop. "Gospel started with slaves picking cotton in the states we're hearing so much about at the moment - Mississippi,, Alabama, Georgia." he says. "Songs like Swing Low and Steal Away were about them dying and being released from the awfulness of their lives. "But songs by Carole King (You've Got A Friend) and Bill Withers (Lean On Me) prove gospel isn't just a thing of the past - in New Orleans it became jazz, and that went into rhythm and blues, and that went into rock 'n' roll. We've got a lot to thank gospel for - we wouldn't have pop music if it wasn't for gospel." Lorenz also recently recorded Worship Songs: The Top 20 Anthems with the choir of St John's Methodist Church in Llandudno, which set modern hymns to guitars, keyboards, bass and drums. "One of the most tiring, arduous things you can do as a singer is make a record," he says.. "All the retakes, all the times you're asked to sing it again. "But one of the most amazing things about the St John's singers was even though none of them had recorded in a studio before, they maintained the strength and the quality of their singing right through the session." * The Best Gospel Album In The World... Ever is released on EMI/Virgin on Monday. Worship Songs: The Top 20 Albums is out on EMI/Virgin. | 
