Glenn Lehman, director of Harmonies Workshop of Leola, Pa., is the producer of the re-released album. In orchestrating the project, he cleared all music copyrights, chose the recording engineer and CD cover design and is marketing the disc. Glenn\u2019s son, Joel, was recording engineer, and Jay Messina, a recording engineer on the original album, was technical advisor on the digital re-mastering.<\/p>\n
\u201cHarmonies\u2019 primary focus is promoting and performing church and choral music, live and recorded,\u201d Lehman said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t want to be tunnel-visioned. Bringing back Rebirth seems like a good way to acknowledge and celebrate the group\u2019s contribution to the broader church music arena.\u201d<\/p>\n “They were first and foremost excellent musicians,\u201d Lehman added. \u201cThey believed in and respected the music they created and the audiences they performed it for.\u201d<\/p>\n Elaine Warfel Stauffer, a 1973 EMC graduate who lives in Hinton, Va., and has operated Warfel\u2019s Sweet Shoppe at the nearby Dayton Market for 23 years, remembers well how Rebirth got started.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in a music theory class with Dean Clemmer, who invited me to do some folk songs at a school social with him and another student, Harley Derstine. We hit it off immediately, she said. \u201cWe heard Jim Krabill perform his song, \u2018Into the Light,\u2019 liked what we heard and he wound up joining what became Rebirth, along with Mel Lehman and Rob Eby. We ended up playing together more than two years.\u201d<\/p>\n Eby, a 1971 graduate currently living in Scottdale, Pa., has spent the last 20 years in the behavioral health counseling field. He played electric bass and occasionally lead guitar and brought a background of 1960\u2019s rock and roll musicianship and energy to the group. Other Rebirth members brought backgrounds in folk, country, gospel, classical and contemporary Christian genres.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of us were steeped in the four-part harmony, a cappella tradition,\u201d Eby noted. \u201cThat amalgamation seemed to provide something for nearly everyone in audiences.\u201d<\/p>\n Gwen Stamm, Rob Eby\u2019s spouse, calls the Rebirth phenomenon \u201ca Kairos moment … it all happened at the right place at the right time.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople were ready for Rebirth; they fulfilled a desire for something different in musical expression,\u201d Stamm said. \u201cMennonite young people drank in their on-the-edge music. We felt an affinity with them, especially with their coming from a Mennonite college. They pulled young audiences, Mennonite and beyond, together, creating lasting memories.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDean Clemmer was the quiet, behind-the-scenes group member,\u201d Glenn Lehman stated. \u201cBut he was the musical brains who helped shape the group\u2019s distinctive sound.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLyrically, we combined the sacred and secular in our music,\u201d Clemmer said. \u201cI think that earlier for most Mennonites it would have been either\/or, not both\/and. Rebirth, along with Jerry Derstine\u2019s Colorado-based Hallam Street Band, was among the first folk-rock groups to gain exposure to a wider audience, Mennonite and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n The group played on Court Square, Harrisonburg, during the \u201cmiracle fund drive\u201d of Dec. 4-7, 1969, when EMC students worked to raise $111,000 in four days to rescue a threatened library project. Mel Lehman wrote a musical narrative of the event, \u201cThe Ballad of the EMU Library,\u201d which they performed at groundbreaking ceremonies on Dec. 17 for what would become the Sadie A. Hartzler Library, completed and opened the fall of 1971.<\/p>\n Rebirth recorded its first album, \u2018Into the Light,\u201d in early 1970 in Harrisonburg. It contained mostly original selections, several classic folk songs and Ralph Carmichael\u2019s meditative \u201cQuiet Place.\u201d Their second and third releases, both self-titled \u201cRebirth,\u201d were recorded late 1970 at state-of-the-art studios in Atlanta, Ga., and spring of 1971 in New York City. The latter album omits three secular numbers, \u201cPeople Gotta Be Free\/I Wanna Be Free,\u201d \u201cProud Mary\u201d and \u201cSummertime.\u201d<\/p>\n The group went on two tours, the first to the West Coast the summer of 1970, playing to church youth groups of many denominations, high school audiences and Jesus people coffee houses. The winter of 1971, they toured through the Midwest under the auspices of Youth for Christ national youth ministry.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Mennonite Church was in major transition during this time, emerging from rather closed communities to more engagement with the world,\u201d James Krabill stated. \u201cRebirth became somewhat of symbol, I think, of what that engagement could look like.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were essentially a ‘Christian’ band, doing a large percentage of faith-based songs and sharing rather openly how our faith intersected with the contemporary world and music we were performing,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Krabill noted that during the group\u2019s second tour in 1971, EMC helped them design an independent study curriculum with required readings on the early-70s \u201ccounter culture\u201d along with keeping daily journals of personal reflections of their experiences on the road and their studies.<\/p>\n \u201cIn retrospect, this was an extremely creative and cutting-edge initiative on EMC\u2019s part, and, I believe, helped hold us accountable to the church and to the educational institution we rather publicly and openly represented,\u201d Krabill said.<\/p>\n When graduation loomed for some band members, the group concurred, \u201cLet\u2019s quit while we\u2019re on a roll.\u201d And, they did.<\/p>\n James Krabill attended EMC 1969-71, spent a semester in Germany and finished at Goshen (Ind.) College. He and spouse Jeanette Neff Krabill live in Elkhart, Ind., where Krabill serves as senior executive for global ministries at Mennonite Mission Network<\/p>\n Mel Lehman, a 1971 EMC graduate, does peacemaking work with Common Humanity, an organization that seeks to help Americans building understanding, respect and friendship with the Arab and Muslim world through art.<\/p>\n Dean Clemmer graduated from EMC in 1972 and has been a psychotherapist for almost 35 years in Lancaster, Pa., currently with the Samaritan Counseling Center.<\/p>\n For three members of Rebirth \u2013 James Krabill, Dean Clemmer and Rob Eby \u2013 the periodic gathering, concerts and recordings of the Reunion Vocal Band, a group of Mennonite musicians having roots in the music of the 1960s, has in some ways replaced the need to get Rebirth back together.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we ever do anything in the future, it probably makes most sense to do a small set of songs in the context of a Reunion Vocal Band concert,\u201d Krabill said.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2019Rebirth\u2019 brings back such excellent memories \u2013 the great friends I performed and traveled with and of course all the wonderful audiences \u2013 hours of Mennonite love, joy, peace and happiness and music-making,\u201d Mel Lehman said. \u201cI\u2019d do it all again in a heartbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n The CD recording is available at\u00a0www.rebirthforsale.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Any proceeds after expenses will benefit the Sadie A. Hartzler Library<\/a> at EMU.<\/p>\n Portions of this article were published in the June 6, 2016, issue of the Mennonite World Review<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"Rebirth](\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/06\/Rebirth-Elaine-Warfel-232x300.jpg\")
<\/a>Singers bring a capella tradition<\/h3>\n
![\"Rebirth-court](\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/06\/Rebirth-court-square-300x178.jpg\")
<\/a>First album recorded in 1970<\/h3>\n
Second tour becomes independent study course
![\"rebirth](\"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2016\/06\/rebirth-bw-300x300.jpg\")
<\/a><\/h3>\n‘Hours of Mennonite love, joy, peace…’<\/h3>\n