After membership turnover and an 11-year hiatus, the original line-up reformed in 2022 and, with the help of a Kickstarter campaign, re-recorded their major label debut eponymous album and performed a reunion concert at the Ryman Auditorium.
[1] Caedmon's Call was formed in 1993 with six original members, Cliff Young (whose father and brother are highly successful pastors of megachurches), Danielle Glenn, Todd Bragg, Cari Harris, Doug Elmore, and Aaron Tate.
In mid-1999, both Aric Nitzberg and Randy Holsapple left the band, while Joshua Moore and Jeff Miller (high-school friend of Buell and Webb) became official members.
Tate and Webb shared most of the songwriting duties until the album Back Home, which featured songs by a more diverse set of writers.
Well-received by critics but unable to find a radio audience, the album, which includes songs written by Goodgame, Osenga and Moore, was inspired by the band's trip to India, Brazil and Ecuador.
Founding band members Cliff, Danielle, and Aaron decided on the name "Caedmon's Call" after all three heard this story during the same week and thought it was fitting.
Over the years, Caedmon's Call have enveloped and adapted many different musical stylings, the most obvious being their folk and alternative rock roots.
On their first mainstream, self-titled release (Caedmon's Call), the band utilized stylings that ranged from straight-up folk-rock ("Lead of Love", "Coming Home"), rock ("Not the Land"), folk ("This World", "Bus Driver"), and simple acoustic guitar ballads ("Center Aisle").
The albums In the Company of Angels: A Call to Worship and Back Home came during an interim phase in which Aaron Tate and Derek Webb were mostly inactive as song writers for the band, Aaron only contributing lyrics for the song "Beautiful Mystery" on Back Home and Derek's former wife Sandra McCracken contributing music and lyrics for "Awake My Soul" to that record as well.
These albums, while still largely driven by the acoustic guitar, were characterized by simpler lyrics and melodies than the band's past material, and more of an adult contemporary feel that did not sit well with most older fans.
Many felt the source of the band's relevance to be the hard-hitting, deeply introspective lyrics penned by Tate and Webb, which often included common and obscure Biblical, historical, and popular references cast in new contexts.
Caedmon's Call decided to incorporate world music influences into the album during mission trips with Compassion International to India, Ecuador, and Brazil.
The band's newest vocalist, Andrew Osenga, sang lead four times on the first two albums he participated in; on the song "Bombay Rain" and the hidden track "I Miss You", both of which he wrote for Share the Well, and on "The Story" and "We Give Thanks", from In the Company of Angels II.
After an 11-year hiatus, the band announced via a Kickstarter campaign that they were reuniting to re-record their 1997 self-titled album, which had since fallen out of print, in commemoration of its 25-year anniversary.