Singer-songwriter Lennox set to release first album
Lennox Roger Fleary doesn’t read music, nor does he know the names of most of the guitar chords he plays. He doesn’t even expect his songs will change listeners—that’s God’s job, he says.
Writing music, says Fleary, who goes by “Lennox” as a performer, is much like maneuvering Old Howell Mountain Road, a winding mountainside drive in California’s Napa Valley. As a performer, he can’t predict what the next bend—or measure of music—will bring, but faith, he says, keeps him driving.
The Caribbean-born Seventh-day Adventist acoustic guitarist and singer-songwriter who next month will release his first album, My Father’s House (Walkin’ On Water Records, ‘07), says the only “guitar” he owned growing up on the island nation of Grenada was a cricket bat he’d drawn six “strings” on.
But in 1986, Lennox moved to the United States to attend Adventist-owned Pacific Union College. There, he taught himself bass and guitar by watching other musicians and befriended the owners of Eye-Appeal Media, a video production company where he still works.
While in college, Lennox says he first felt God steering him toward a career in music—one he says he wouldn’t have chosen were the decision his alone.
“I’d have picked something steady and reliable ... [but] when I ask God to tell me who I am and what he expects of me, music is always a part of that answer,” Lennox says. “I have so little to do with the whole thing—I just quit fighting it.”
Lennox may, as he puts it, “just work here,” but listen to a couple tracks and it’s clear he clocks plenty of overtime on the job.
Gethsemane Blues is a good example. Acoustic guitar riffs and vocals—by turns mellow and urgent—play against reggae-inspired rhythms. But lyrics that articulate the constant tug between human desire and divine compulsion make My Father’s House more than a soundtrack to a summer afternoon spent in the hammock.
Lennox talks plenty about being “congruent”—or how lyrics and life should intersect. “If you’re singing one thing and living another, that’s a lie.” And when he sings of Jesus’ agony the night of His betrayal, you get the feeling he’s wrestled with passing up the “cup” a time or two himself.
“I remember trying it my own way [and] failing horribly,” Lennox says, referring to a painful divorce that left him broke and homeless. Much like the prodigal son, Lennox says at his lowest he remembered the comfort of his “Father’s house.” That God welcomed him back, he says, not only stirs gratitude, but grounds his ego.
Lennox doesn’t like to use the word “inspire” when describing how he writes his music. “God just tells me stuff and I write it down,” he says.
Like the time he showed up at Kohala Adventist Church in Hawaii without his accompaniment tape. Slated for special music that Sabbath morning and with 20 minutes to spare, Lennox sat in the parking lot and reflected on a passage of Scripture he’d read earlier that day. The result, “My Father’s House,” is the title track of his album.
Dan Bumstead, pastor of the Open Door Community Church in Oregon, says unlike some musicians who offer little more than a few glib lyrics and lots of hype, Lennox turns his listeners into participants.
Walkin’ On Water producer Tom Macomber says Lennox’s reliance on Scripture and his keen connection with the audience struck him when the two met at a music marketing class Macomber taught at Adventist-owned La Sierra University.
Lennox says ownership is exactly what he hopes his music encourages. “Everything has a pulse to it, and music taps that pulse and connects [us],” he says.
“It’s not about me singing to you. It’s about us singing together.”