Category: Albums

Will McFarlane – Right From The Start – 1982

Will’s early music career was certainly one that has to be respected. He played with Bonnie Raitt’s band from 1974 to 1980. I can only imagine the stories he must have as if you didn’t know Bonnie was quite a hard rocker in those days. Not her style so much as her life. Anyway Will left the band in 1980 on amicable terms as he wanted to settle down with his wife to a more normal life. He moved to Muscle Shoals and took up with the legendary Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. In that same year he found Christ and embarked on a new career as a Christian musician. In 1982 he ended up with a deal from Refuge Records and released this album. This album has an excellent 70’s feel and Will gave us many more albums where he showcases his talent.

Tracklist
1 – Number One Command – 3:58
2 – This Is The Message – 2:24
3 – You Call Me A Dreamer – 4:12
4 – That Your Grace May Abound – 4:08
5 – Faith Is Not A Formula – 4:06
6 – Set Your Heart On Things Above – 4:12
7 – Carry On Soldier – 2:58
8 – Where You Gonna Run To – 4:04
9 – Now That You’ve Heard The Truth – 3:26
10 – Who I Am In You – 4:50

Credits
Will McFarlane – Producer, Songwriter, Guitars, Vocals
Gary Baker – Bass
Mickey Buckins – Percussion
Carol Cabler – Background Vocals
Keith Compton – Engineer
Linda Sue Davis – Strings
Craig Duncan – Strings
Ronnie Eades – Sax
Ralph Ezell – Bass
Mark Feldman – Strings
Owen Hale – Drums
Roger Hawkins – Drums
Joey Holder – Background Vocals
David Hood – Drums
Clayton Ivey – Fender Rhodes
Lenny LeBlanc – Background Vocals
Lonnie “Butch” Ledford – Bass
Glenn Meadows – Mastered
Steve Moore – Engineer, Mixed
Steve Nathan – Piano, Keyboards
Wayne Perkins – Songwriter
Ken Perry – Mastered
Earl Spielman – Strings
Paul Tobias – Strings
Jerry L. Wallace – Producer, Fender Rhodes, Synthesizers, Percussion, Roto Toms, Background Vocals
Martha Wiggins – Strings
Kristen Wilkinson – Strings

Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Refuge Records
Copyright © – Refuge Records
Distributed By – The Benson Company, Inc.
Recorded At – East Avalon Recorders
Mastered At – Masterfonics

Kim Boyce – Love Is You To Me – 1989

It was 1989 and time for another winning album from Kim Boyce. I truly believe that Kim was better than Amy Grant but was just a little to Pop oriented so she didn’t get the worship crowd to listen to her. It was another successful album for Kim with 4 top 40 hits including 2 top 10’s. “Faith” made it to #6 and “For Every Lonely Heart” to #10. Now I do have one point of confusion on this album. Bryan Duncan was brought in to do a duet, “I’m Asking You” for the album. They did not release it as a single and it is by far the best track on the album. Maybe it was something to do with legalities or maybe just more bad decisions out of the industry but they missed a #1 song there in my opinion.

Tracklist
1 – Holdin’ My Hand – 3:46
2 – For Every Lonely Heart – 4:01
3 – Love Is You To Me – 3:37
4 – Dancin’ My Heart Away – 4:06
5 – Faith – 3:48
6 – Tender Heart – 5:03
7 – Best Friend – 3:32
8 – O Lord You’re Beautiful – 4:50
9 – I’m Asking You – 3:37
10 – It Always Comes Back To You – 4:06

Credits
Ken Allardyce – Assistant Engineer
Margaret Barnett – Choir Vocals
Paul Boone – Choir Vocals
Dave Boroff – Saxophone
Denny Bouchard – Songwriter
Kim Boyce – Songwriter, Vocals, Background Vocals
Nicole Bruce – Choir Vocals
Sharon Burton – Choir Vocals
Spencer Campbell – Electric Bass
Kristina Clark – Background Vocals
Claire Cloninger – Songwriter
Denny Correll – Songwriter
Bryan Duncan – Guest Vocals
David Ebensberger – Engineer
Angie Ebensberger – Choir Vocals
Dan Garcia – Engineer, Mixed
Keith Green – Songwriter
Michael Hodge – Guitar
Imperials – Duet Vocals
Win Kutz – Mixed
Rhett Lawrence – Producer, Arranger, Engineer, Songwriter, Keyboards, Bass, Drums, Fairlight CMI, Background Vocals
Brenda Marshall-McClure – Choir Vocals
Mark Maxwell – Executive Producer
Oscar McClure, Jr – Choir Vocals
Carrie McDowell – Background Vocals
Craig Miles – Choir Vocals
Tim Miner – Producer, Engineer, Songwriter, Vocal Arrangements, Keyboards, Background Vocals
S. O’Brien – Songwriter
Becky Pearce – Choir Vocals
Jimmie Pearce – Choir Vocals
Cindy Cruse Ratcliff – Background Vocals
Dona Robinson – Choir Vocals
John Andrew Schreiner – Arranger, Songwriter, Keyboards
Phil Sillas – Songwriter, Arranger, Synth Bass, Keyboards
Tommy Sims – Bass, Guitar, Background Vocals
Luis Chi Sing – Assistant Engineer
Jimmie Lee Sloas – Songwriter, Arranger, Keyboards
Brian Tankersley – Producer, Executive Producer, Mixed, Songwriter, Background Vocals, Drums, Percussion, Synth, Bass, Keyboards, Arranger
Don Wallace – Vocal Arrangements, Background Vocals
B. Weaver – Songwriter
Kirk Whalum – Saxophone
BeBe Winans – Songwriter

Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Word, Inc.
Copyright © – Word, Inc.
Distributed By – Word Records Limited
Distributed By – Word (Uk) Ltd.
Manufactured By – Word, Inc.
Recorded At – GBT Studio, Hollywood
Recorded At – Oakshire Recorders
Recorded At – Knightlight Studios
Mixed At – Bill Schnee Studios
Mixed At – Knightlight Studios
Mastered At – Bernie Grundman Mastering

Agape – Agape – 1971

This was one of the first Jesus music bands. They started inn 1968 and got their start by touring around California in their cliche Volkswagen van. In 1971 they went into the studio and this album was the result. They self released it but it was very popular as they had attained a strong following of christian youth. Their movement became a church of sorts and they kept reprinting this album. They did have a second album that I haven’t listened to yet but if it’s anything like I this one I can’t wait. This is a solid 70’s blues rock album and may actually be one of my favourites from that era. Fred Caban keeps the memory of the band going with a strong web presence and his own Facebook group. I’m guessing most people missed this one back in the day so give it a listen. You won’t be disappointed.

Tracklist
1 – Blind – 3:36
2 – Happy – 2:41
3 – Believe – 2:56
4 – Man – 3:32
5 – Trust – 4:01
6 – Freedom – 4:56
7 – Choose – 4:01
8 – Blood – 1:57
9 – Rejoice – 5:08

Credits
Bass – John Peckhart
Drums, Organ – Mike Jungkman
Guitar, Vocals, Lyrics By, Music By – Fred Caban
Producer – Marlin Jones
Producer, Engineer – Wally Duguid

Companies, etc.
Recorded At – Abbey Sound Ltd.

Daniel Amos – Songs Of The Heart – 1995

The story goes that the band while in their rehearsal hall saw an album hanging on the wall released in the early 1960s and entitled Songs of the Heart by Bob and Elsa Beckendorf. The album cover was a simple picture of the two artists. The concept was a trip down Route 66 with the couple they renamed as Bud & Irma Akendorf. They actually used the original album cover with their name as the artist. This is the concept of the album track;

Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You – We look back to the time when Bud first fell in love with Irma

The Glory Road – Bud, now retired, takes Irma on vacation

Get Into The Bus, Aloha – The Akendorf’s witness a strange occurence at a rest stop

Evangeline – The Akendorf’s get a surprise when they visit a Faith Healer our of curiosity

Uneasy Liews The Head Of The Confidence Man – Bud and Irma discuss faith and flim-flam

The Organ Bar – Meanwhile, in L.A., we encounter a mysterious stranger

Donna Nietche And Her Super Race Of Kick Boxing Uber Parrots – The mysterious stranger offers us a questionable proposition

Our Night To Howl, Time To Go Dancing – Bud gets frisky

Sins Of The Fathers – Back home, Bud has coffee at his favorite diner and is tempted to offer some words of wisdom

Turn This Off – Bud complains about today’s music and the state of the world

Loveland – Relieved to be back home, the Akendorf’s find a better view of the world from their love seat

When Everyone Wore Hats – The Akendorf’s reminisce

My Hand To God – The mysterious stranger reappears as Bud says his last goodbye to Irma

I’m not the biggest fan of concept albums as they always seem to concentrate too hard on the concept rather than the songs but if you’re a DA fan you’re gonna like this one anyway.

Message – Sailing Home – 1974

There’s not much info out there on Message but it was a project by Allan Butt and Pat Merchant. It was self released and as such there aren’t many copies out there and if you have one it’s worth a fair amount of money. None of the artists involved ever did another project that I can find. This is rather surprising as it’s a really good album. It’s easily as good as most albums from the 70’s that I have listened to. But this isn’t really surprising as I’ve always thought that the record companies really were confused with what to do with music from the Jesus movement of the 70’s. If you like 70’s stuff I suspect you’ll love this one.

Tracklist
1 – I Dreamed I Saw Jesus – 2:40
2 – Highway 45 – 5:07
3 – Changing Up My Lines – 2:43
4 – Coming Soon – 2:23
5 – Should’ve Followed Jesus – 2:43
6 – Thank You Jesus – 4:22
7 – He Was A Carpenter – 4:17
8 – Crucify – 3:17
9 – It’s Hard To Be A Christian – 3:16
10 – Sailing Home – 4:31

Credits
Allan Butt – Guitar, Vocals, Recorder
Pat Merchant – Harp, Vocals, Lead Guitar, Slide
Robin Barnett – Drums
David Dealfe – Bass
Rick Cagle – Backup Vocals
Buddy Philen – Producer

Daniel Amos – Doppelgänger: The “¡Alarma! Chronicles” Volume II – 1981

This is volume 2 of the ¡Alarma! Chronicles. Between volume 1 and 2 of the Chronicles they switched record labels and got a new bass player. Terry Taylor’s guidance clearly held things together though. This release is peak 80s culture. It fit the model of what was happening in music at the time, even if nothing of the sort was happening in CCM outside of DA. This visionary album was on par with everything else in the scene at the time, but limited by being marketed to the CCM audience.

Tracklist
1 – Hollow Man – – 2:15
2 – Mall (All Over The World) – 3:13
3 – Real Girls – 2:57
4 – New Car! – 2:00
5 – Do Big Boys Cry – 2:05
6 – Youth With A Machine – 2:42
7 – The Double – 3:50
8 – Distance And Direction – 2:48
9 – Memory Lane – 3:48
10 – Angels Tuck You In – 2:38
11 – Little Crosses – 2:35
12 – Autographs For The Sick – 1:40
13 – I Didn’t Build It For Me – 2:48
14 – Here I Am – 3:18
15 – Hollow Man (Reprise) – 0:43

Credits
Arranged By [Keyboards] – Jerry Chamberlain, Terry Taylor, Tom Howard
Backing Vocals – Ed McTaggart, Jerry Chamberlain, Terry Taylor, Tim Chandler
Backing Vocals [Occasional] – Derald Daugherty, Dori “Game Show Girl” Howard, Emelia Emulator, Janet McTaggart, Mark Cook (2), Randy Stonehill, The Three Women From Istanbul, Tom Howard
Bass Guitar – Marty Dieckmeyer (tracks: 1), Tim Chandler
Bass Guitar [8-string] – Tim Chandler
Bass Guitar [Fretless] – Tim Chandler
Drums [Skins, Tubs, Traps] – Ed McTaggart
Engineer – Thom Roy
Engineer [Second] – Derald Daugherty*
Keyboards – Jeff Lams (tracks: 3,13), Mark Cook (2) (tracks: 8), Marty Dieckmeyer (tracks: 1), Rob Watson (tracks: 2,3,5 to 7,14), Tom Howard (tracks: 4,7,9 to 11,14)
Lead Guitar – Jerry Chamberlain
Lead Vocals – Jerry Chamberlain (tracks: 11), Terry Taylor
Mastered By – Steve Hall
Percussion – Alex MacDougall, Ed McTaggart, Jerry Chamberlain, Terry Taylor, Tim Chandler
Performer [Da Is] – Ed McTaggart, Jerry Chamberlain, Terry Taylor, Tim Chandler
Producer – Jerry Chamberlain, Terry Taylor
Remastered By – Doug Doyle
Rhythm Guitar – Terry Taylor
Saxophone – Bill Colton

Companies, etc.
Produced For – Rebel Base Productions
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Alarma Records
Copyright © – Alarma Records
Distributed By – The Benson Company, Inc.
Distributed By – Lawson Falle Limited
Recorded At – Whitefield Studios
Recorded At – Rebel Base Studio
Mixed At – Whitefield Studios
Mastered At – MCA Recording Studios
Lacquer Cut At – MCA Whitney Recording Studios
Published By – Twitchen Vibes Music
Published By – Paragon Music Corp.

Johnny Markin – The Call Home – 1991

One of my favourite parts of this project is that sometimes I am introduced to artists I didn’t know anything about and this is one of those artists. The reason I have never heard of him is because his 5 albums were only released in the U.K. I have no idea why his albums weren’t picked up by a North American label but they weren’t. It was insinuated to me that this was due to ICC Records not playing nicely with others but I don’t know if that’s true. Anyway this is a great album. It has a solid 80’s feel and I quite enjoyed it. Unfortunately it was released in 1991 which leaves it a little late for it’s style but that wasn’t that important in the CCM genre. If you only have time for one track listen to “Battle Lines” which is actually a pretty good Rock & Roll track.

Tracklist
1 – Hold On To The Love – 5:13
2 – Runnin’ Hard Tonight – 3:45
3 – Hardened Heart – 4:12
4 – Must Be More – 4:19
5 – The Call Home – 5:25
6 – The Master’s Voice – 4:41
7 – Be My Guide – 4:24
8 – Only To Be My Servant – 4:38
9 – Small Price To Pay – 4:11
10 – Battle Lines – 4:14

Credits
Coordinator [Project] – Peter Martin
Engineer, Mixed By, Sampler – Matthias Kaufmann
Producer [Assistant], Engineer, Organ [Lezly Speaker Operation], Sampler – Mike Newbon
Producer, Guitar, Keyboards, Sequencer, Drum Programming, Sampler – Johnny Markin

Companies, etc.
Copyright © – Daybreak Music Ltd
Published By – Daybreak Music Ltd
Published By – Rare Bear Music
Recorded At – ICC Studios

Larry Norman – Roll Away the Stone – 1980

After Larry was convinced to close Solid Rock Records he made his way to England with his father and started Phydeaux records. This was either the first or second album he released on that label. It’s a live album but were not really too sure where or when it was recorded and I don’t think even Larry knew. He printed on the album cover “This album contains ten songs from a three hour concert. It is reproduced exactly as the audience heard it, with no studio overdubs, no stereo enhancement, noise gates, etc. It is raw, real, and electronically unretouched.” As much as he tries to make the lack of production a selling point for the album I sincerely doubt the source material was capable of being remixed. I’m willing to bet it was a single track recorded right out of the mixing board. Anyway this is a great opportunity for us to hear some early Larry in his live environment.

Tracklist
1 – Jonny’s Blues – 3:03
2 – Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus – 4:53
3 – The Rock That Doesn’t Roll – 3:28
4 – I’ve Seached All Around The World – 3:34
5 – Watch What You’re Doing – 6:31
6 – Soul On Fire – 6:33
7 – Shot Down – 1:56
8 – Song For A Small Circle Of Friends – 3:09
9 – Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music – 2:51
10 – Let That Tape Keep Rolling – 5:24
11 – I Wish We’d All Been Ready – 5:45

Credits
Bass Guitar – Dave Coy
Drums – Alex McDougall
Electric Guitar – Jon Linn
Guitar – Mark Heard
Piano – Tom Howard
Vocals, Written-By – Larry Norman

Companies, etc.
Copyright © – Phydeaux/Solid Rock Records

The Alarm – Electric Folklore Live – 1988/2000

This album was released in 1988 as a 6 song live EP recorded at the Wang Center for the Performing Arts in Boston on April 26, 1988. There had been a lag in the bands popularity so some record executive though the answer would be a live EP. I don’t quite understand why they didn’t just release a full length concert album but more on that later. The EP did not have any of their early hits and had songs that the public were probably less familiar with. Strangely a 2000 re-release had 14 tracks from the concert. Re-issues before and after this one are only the 6 original tracks. We have uploaded the full 14 track version for you to enjoy here. Live is where The Alarm really shined and while the album did not do that well I think it is some of their best work.

Tracklist
1 – Strength – 6:41
2 – Knife Edge – 4:54
3 – Newtown Jericho – 5:17
4 – Permanence In Change -5:08
5 – Dawn Chorus – 6:48
6 – Blaze Of Glory – 5:02
7 – Bound For Glory – 3:23
8 – Hallowed Ground – 3:52
9 – One Step Closer To Home – 5:34
10 – Shelter – 3:30
11 – Rain In The Summertime – 6:05
12 – Rescue Me – 8:35
13 – Spirit Of ’76 – 8:42
14 – We Are The Light – 3:44

Credits
Art Direction – Nick Egan
Bass – Eddie MacDonald
Design – Tracy Veal
Drums – Nigel Twist
Guitar – Dave Sharp
Keyboards – Mark Taylor
Mixed By, Engineer – Elliot Scheiner
Photography By – Cary Lander, Ebet Roberts
Producer – Gary Katz
Vocals – Mike Peters

Companies, etc.
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – International Record Syndicate, Inc.
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – I.R.S. Records
Copyright © – I.R.S. Records
Manufactured By – Cinram
Manufactured For – MCA Records Canada
Distributed By – MCA Records Canada
Marketed By – MCA Records Canada
Recorded At – Wang Center For The Performing Arts
Mixed At – Sorcerer Sound
Mastered At – MCA Pressing Plant, Gloversville
Pressed By – Cinram

Bryn Haworth – Blue And Gold – 1989

This album was recorded right when Haworth started worked with the SW London Vineyard developing their worship and prison ministry. I always consider artists who do prison ministry to be one notch above others. Prison ministry is very difficult and just getting into a prison to play music is very labour intensive and requires a level of dedication few artists have. As for the album well it can best be classified as a rock album with some blues tracks but Haworth is really one of those artists that is difficult to pigeon hole into a genre. The album may also have the best version ever of Joy, Joy, Joy. Yes the one from Sunday School. The album was released on Edge records but strangely it was picked up and re-released by Refuge Records in 1991.

Tracklist
1 – We’re All One (’89) – 4:04
2 – Cover For Me – 3:26
3 – I Serve A Risen Saviour – 3:27
4 – Two Worlds – 4:11
5 – Give Me Your Heart – 5:04
6 – Joy, Joy, Joy – 3:27
7 – Word Of Our God – 4:24
8 – Waiting – 4:18
9 – Is This Love ? – 4:45
10 – Hurt People – 4:25
11 – Love, Acceptance And Forgiveness – 6:29