Lou Fellingham


Louise "Lou" Fellingham is an English Christian worship leader, singer and songwriter from Brighton in East Sussex, England. She is a founding member of the British band Phatfish and has also pursued a solo career. In 2008, she won a Christian Broadcasting Council Award for her album Promised Land, in the category of Best Worship. She has worked alongside other Christian artists such as Matt Redman, Graham Kendrick, Tim Hughes and Stuart Townend. She regularly leads worship and performs at different venues around the world. A rendition of Fellingham leading the hymn "In Christ Alone" has had more than six million views on YouTube.

Personal background

Louise Fellingham grew up in the West Sussex village of Turners Hill in
England, where she attended the Turners Hill Free Church. In her teens, during the late 1980s and early 1990s, she sang in two local Christian groups, The Turners Hill Mob and 4th Dimension. Both gained local acclaim among the churches and youth groups of mid Sussex. In 1998, she married Nathan Fellingham, the drummer and one of the founding members of Phatfish. Together, they have three children.
The family attends the Church of Christ the King, where they are frequently involved in leading worship and musical projects. In particular, Fellingham serves the church by training and managing their 50-member church choir. Nathan's father, David Fellingham has served as one of the elders since 1979. The church is also home to Stuart Townend, Paul Oakley and other prominent Christian figures. The evangelical church is affiliated with the Newfrontiers neocharismatic church network and is located at the Clarendon Centre near Brighton railway station.

Professional background

Fellingham has been the lead singer of the British Christian band Phatfish for the last 17 years, which has played in worship conferences, concert halls, and music festivals, touring throughout Europe and around the world. She has also performed as a soloist and worship leader and has toured extensively throughout the UK, Canada and the United States.
The various music festivals and worship conferences in which she has participated include the following:

Phatfish and Lou Fellingham

In late 2005, Lou Fellingham began recording her debut solo album Treasure, which was released in January 2006. Fellingham wrote most of the songs on the album, while her husband served as co-writer. The album quickly shot to the number one spot, becoming the best-selling album of 2006 through Cross Rhythms.
In 2006 and early 2007, before work on the next Phatfish studio album started, Fellingham began performing songs from Treasure on a "Stu and Lou" Tour, with Stuart Townend, which took them to various locations around the UK. When Phatfish's Guaranteed was released in July 2007, it received positive reviews and high sales at Christian events. With the success of both Fellingham's Treasure, and Phatfish's Guaranteed, rather than embark on an official Guaranteed tour, Phatfish followed up with a series of one-night shows and a TV appearance on Premier TV, under the banner Phatfish and Lou Fellingham.
In early 2008, the band performed two more Phatfish and Lou Fellingham concerts in connection with Hope 08. The first event was in Brighton, as part of "Soul By The Sea"; the second in Gloucester on 14 March. Lou Fellingham led worship at the Kingsway's Children's Ministry conference in January, and the band gigged and led worship at New Word Alive in Wales alongside Stuart Townend. There were five more concerts in 2008; Keswick, Crawley, NEWI, Danbury and Bognor Regis Bible Week.
Since 1994, live appearances by Phatfish had simply been titled Phatfish, but due to the successful release of Lou Fellingham's debut album, along with the appearance of some of her songs in the setlist, her name was incorporated into the title as Phatfish and Lou Fellingham. Fellingham's husband, Nathan described the arrangement during an interview with Adrian Warnock.
More recently, concerts have been titled Phatfish and Lou Fellingham, with songs from Lou Fellingham's set of works and Phatfish's works being played, in addition to older songs, as well. Phatfish and Lou Fellingham have also supported Stuart Townend in Cheltenham and Wrexham, with less dynamic lighting and a more acoustic sound.
In addition to other musical projects, Fellingham continues to lead worship and head up the choir at her local church. She is still a faithful member of the band Phatfish and they have just released their latest full studio album, In Jesus. Recent appearances at Newday, Souled Out, The Cheltenham Bible Conference, Brighton, Wrexham, Soul By The Sea and Gloucester have been titled "Phatfish and Lou Fellingham". Phatfish and Lou Fellingham have also led worship at the Mission:Worship conference alongside Stuart Townend and Matt Redman in Eastbourne. Additionally, they participated on the Mission:Worship album released by Kingsway Music/Survivor Records titled A New Day Of Worship.
Fellingham is back on the latest Phatfish album In Jesus, released in June 2009. She has continued to perform on the In Jesus tour over the past year and has done many one-night events including unplugged concerts, a special event at Westminster Abbey, and the Premier Radio Woman to Woman Northern conference in Manchester.

Worship leading

Since their formation, and even before, Phatfish has been called upon as a worship band to lead and assist others at conferences and their local church. Fellingham serves her home church, the Church of Christ the King, as the director of their 50-member worship choir.
Throughout 2008 and 2009, Fellingham has led worship and performed at events such as Keswick Ministries, New Word Alive, Kingsway Children's Conference, Radiant, Newfrontiers, Newday, and other artists such as Tim Hughes at Mission:Worship. She appeared at The Big Church Day Out and Pentecost Festival with Phatfish. There were also appearances and engagements leading worship with Matt Redman, Stuart Townend, Martyn Layzell and others. The Newfrontiers organised conferences, Together On A Mission and Newday, gathered crowds of up to 6,000 people. The largest crowds were at the Stoneleigh Bible Week, where in its final year, there was a record 26,000 persons in attendance.
In an interview with Tony Cummings for Cross Rhythms, Fellingham was asked whether she was comfortable with the label "worship leader".
Fellingham and the band offer practical advice about Christian music and leading worship on their 2006 release Working As A Band double-disc CD. They teach this material at worship seminars and one-day events, as well as the annual Mission:Worship conference in Eastbourne.
Fellingham has also led worship at international conferences in England, Scotland and Wales. The band was the runners up at the Christian Web and Blog Awards, attended by the Bishop of London, in the "Most Original Worship Blog/Website" category. They came second to Tim Hughes' and Al Gordon's win for their website worshipcentral.org.

Collaborations

Since forming Phatfish, Fellingham travelled the UK working and collaborating with numerous Christian artists and worship leaders, in addition to performing at various conferences and events. With her breakout solo singing career, she has been involved in several collaborative projects with various Christian events including worship conferences, leadership conferences, women's conferences, music festivals, and stadium concerts, usually alongside the band Phatfish.
In 1991, Newfrontiers started the Stoneleigh Bible Week in Coventry, England. These were conferences gathering UK charismatics/restorationists to hear preaching from various apostolic figures and international speakers. The event gathered up to 26,000 people from around the world for teaching and celebration. During this time, Fellingham was featured on the Stoneleigh recordings published by Kingsway Music.
Since Stoneleigh, Fellingham has been regularly requested to lead worship at other major Christian events including Newday and Spring Harvest. She has appeared on numerous compilation albums, including the Newfrontiers live albums from Stoneleigh to the more recent, Newday. Fellingham has also been involved in training worship leaders and singers through the Church of Christ the King's worship school.
She worked with Mary Mary singer Erica Campbell and gospel singer Jason Bailley on the track "Angels" featured on the collaborative album One Voice released by Kingsway Music in 2009. The album pulled together over 200 Christian artists and musicians. The list of performers reads like a who's who of Christian music: Darlene Zschech, Martin Smith, Smokie Norful, Tim Hughes, Israel Houghton, Nu Colours, Kierra Kiki Sheard, Brenton Brown, Warryn Campbell, Tommy Sims, Muyiwa, Mal Pope, Matt Redman, Rance Allen, Bishop John Francis, Tre Sheppard and Noel Robinson.
The album is the brain child of London Community Gospel Choir co-founder Lawrence Johnson, inspired after he watched the devastation from the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004 with horror. Just a few short weeks later, and with the help of Les Moir, 150 artists answered the call and turned up at the famed Abbey Road Studios in London to begin a journey that has been four years in the making.
"One Voice, One Heart" is a charity single recorded in February 2005 and released at Easter to raise funds for the survivors of the South East Asia tsunami, as well as women's conferences up and down the UK - but her most widely viewed appearances are on BBC's Songs of Praise.
In 2007, Fellingham featured on the Songs of Praise performing songs including "In Christ Alone", "See What A Morning", "My Heart Is Filled With Thankfulness", "Knowing Your Grace" and "I Will Say". "I Will Say" was also featured on Spring Harvest albums Shine and Liz Babbs' meditative Immerse. Fellingham's version of "In Christ Alone" was used as a backing track to a radio advertising campaign by Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield on Beacon Radio, Classic Gold, Signal 1 and Signal 2 in September 2007. This version can also be found on YouTube in various videos popularising the song.
Drummer Nathan Fellingham was the driving force behind the album Trinity, released 2006. It is a compilation of tracks from many artists including Phatfish; the songs focusing on the Trinitarian nature of God.
They have also appeared at events such as Spring Harvest, Soul Survivor, Keswick Convention, Bognor Regis Bible Week, Radiant, Women Walking With God, Kingsway Children's Ministry, Cheltenham Bible Week, Mission:Worship, Festival Manchester, New Word Alive and Worship Together in the United States and Canada.
Stuart Townend has been present at some of the recordings, although Lou Fellingham performed his "In Christ Alone" in 2005 when it featured on the list of the "10 most popular hymns in Britain".