Joe Henry
I have written two articles on this philosophical song, the last on May 15, 2008. In that post I asked readers to contact me if they had any information about the artist.
Last night, I checked my publocc email address before leaving the office. I had three emails from someone unknown to me, "Larry." I opened the emails.
Last night, I checked my publocc email address before leaving the office. I had three emails from someone unknown to me, "Larry." I opened the emails.
Mr. Larry Young of Mu Eum Music Productions, had written to say that he had remembered the song from an old Mutual of Omaha television program in 1987. The song had stuck with Mr. Young as it had with me, he read the articles here and decided to contact me. Then, as Mr. Young expressed it, "curiosity got the best of me" and damn if he didn't do some research, found out the names of the artists, Joe Henry and John Jarvis pictured above, and sent the information to me.
I asked Mr. Young to tell me something about himself and why he had remembered the song. With his permission, I reprint his email below: (emphasis added)
Ben, I am from Colorado and am now retired from an aerospace company. Music (tenor sax) is now my profession and I play in a blues/rock band and have a music production company which recently released a CD to support yoga practice and meditation, Transition to Tranquility.
I am a long time white water boater and have always been interested in the stories of difficult river descents. The Yangtze is probably the roughest river in the world. When the film was aired in 1987 on Mutual of Omaha’s Spirit of Adventure program I watched it and taped part of it. The tune We Rise with our Dreams was played near the end to honor the failed attempt at the descent and the people who tried. The tune is certainly appropriate for that. Unfortunately I did not record the credits and I did not know the name of the composer, singer, nor the title of the song. I replayed it many times and wrote down the lyrics. Since that time, I have had a urge to find out the name of the tune and the performer. It dawned on me recently that I could use modern technology (the internet) to find a copy of the film and I bought what looks like the only copy available out there. When I received the film, I watched it and saw Joe Henry in the credits for the tune and its proper title.. I used that combination of information to search for the rest of the publication information about it.
One of the primary search results was Public Occurrences which talks about the tune relating to an old TV series and I saw your request for composer/performer information.
The reason the song stuck with me so long is because the lyrics, as well as the melody, had a profound impact on my life and taught me important lessons about goal setting around my dreams and aspirations. It has been a goal of mine for the past 22 years (somewhat behind other life priorities) to find out the publication information of the tune so I could get the proper lyrics and even find a recording of it. I still have not been able to find a recording. All the lists of albums and CDs by either Joe Henry or John Jarvis only go back to around 2000. I have emailed a Joe Henry who could be the one to help.
At least I now have the VHS tape and can play it into a recorder from my TV.
Thanks for your interest.
Larry Young
Mu Eum Music Productions
Occasionally (less occasionally now thanks to the Chinese government), as with Mr. Young, readers send me things. Chinese people have sent me original documents from the Cultural Revolution era; others have sent me their articles on Islam, a subject that dominated here early on; A Million Drops of Blood is entirely reader-written, and recently Dr. Wang Yi has contributed several meaningful articles. Now, Larry Young.
Writing this blog is a humbling experience when I receive writing like I have received, writing that is more eloquent than anything that I write.
So this post is a tribute to Joe Henry and John Jarvis who created the poetic, lyrical We Rise With Our Dreams. And it is also a tribute to Larry Young, who found an article written here sixteen months ago and reached out across cyberspace to me. And also to Dr. Yi, Professor Ye Weiyou, Bei Su Ni, Michelle Smith, Big Dan, and all the other readers who have sent me their writing. This is Public Occurrences.
