#79 SEEDS by Barry McGuire (1973)

SEEDS - Barry McGuire (1973)
Myrrh (MST-6519-LP)

Barry McGuire was smokin’ dope and searching for Truth in all the wrong places. He knew one thing: he did not want to be a Christian.

“I was just about to give up, and one day I went over to a friend's house,” Barry recalled in an interview with washedred.com. “Eric Hord used to be the lead guitar player for The Mamas and Papas, and he always had a big bowl of marijuana under his coffee table. And man, I had this bowl out that morning; I had three papers glued together. I figured he's only gonna lay one joint on me, so I'll make the biggest one I can roll. And I look down on this particular day, there's a little paper back book layin' on the table next to the grass, and it's called Good News for Modern Man. And I thought, 'Hey, I'm a modern man. I could use some good news.' I mean, everybody was dyin' all around me. So I took the book home with me, didn't know what it was. I got by myself, opened it up, and right on the first flyleaf page in the book it says, 'The New Testament in Modern English.' I got so angry. 'Ah, look at this! Them Jesus Freaks, man! They're diguisin' the Bible!' Threw it on the floor, I didn't wanna read the Bible! Give me a break! And it laid there for days. It laid there for weeks and months, actually.”

Barry McGuire (Left), recording with the Mamas and the Papas

McGuire continued: “One day, just out of bored, sarcastic curiosity, I picked up The Life and Times of Jesus Christ. And for the first time in my life, I stopped looking at Christians; I stopped looking at denominations, organizations, Catholics, Protestants, ya know, all this stuff that goes on in His name. And I took a look at Him, examined what He had to say. And everything that Jesus had to say, as I put it to the test against what I knew to be true through my own life experience, I couldn't find anything wrong with His words. There's no double meaning, no hidden agenda. It was all out front. And I wanted to be like Jesus. I thought, 'Man, this is my guy!' But I didn't wanna be a Christian, see. I wanted to be like Him, but I didn't wanna be like all them. I thought if I said yes to Jesus I'd have to get a powder blue leisure suit -- remember those? -- white shoes, ya know, walk around smilin' a lot. I couldn't do that.”

"But then I wrestled with it for nearly a year,” remembered Barry. “And it happened in 1971. I fell on my face on the floor of that house. I said, 'God, I don't know why, how; if I wake up alive tomorrow I'll follow You wherever You lead me.' And within a week I was on a Greyhound bus out of Hollywood, and I've never looked back, except in awe and wonder at how He revealed Himself to me in my state of mind at that time."

The journey from gruff ‘60s protest singer to lovable, hairy ‘70s Jesus freak had lots of twists and turns. 

Barry McGuire was born on October 15, 1935, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. After his parents’ marriage ended, Barry and his mom relocated to California. His mother married a construction worker and the family moved frequently, forcing Barry to change schools often. As a 14-year old boy, he was working on fishing boats in San Pedro; at 16, he lied about his age and joined the Navy. The lie was eventually discovered and he was given a discharge. For the rest of the 1950s he worked as a journeyman pipefitter. In the early ‘60s, McGuire got a job singing in a bar. He met Peggy Lee and she helped him get his start. Now this was more to his liking. Duos were common in those days, and he soon became one half of Barry & Barry, a folk duo he formed with Barry Kane. Barry & Barry played clubs from Pasadena to Hollywood, and both eventually got an offer they couldn’t refuse: they were invited to join a group called the New Christy Minstrels.  

Folk music fans loved the Christys. Barry McGuire wrote the group's first and biggest hit, Green Green. But the Folk Revival couldn’t compete with the British Invasion. The Beatles made the Christys seem old-fashioned and outdated. McGuire left the group in 1965 with no clear plan of what to do next. He began to look for deeper answers about life and social problems. "I left the Christys really in search of some answers," McGuire told Richie Unterberger in Turn! Turn! Turn! "If something is real for me, then I can do it. But I can't really pretend I can do it if it's not." 

For the next several months, he found himself out of work and broke, when a chance encounter with Lou Adler (who later managed the Mamas and the Papas) in April of 1965 led to another opportunity. Adler was looking for a singer to record new songs written by his in-house composer, P.F. Sloan.

In July of that year Barry McGuire recorded a song called Eve of Destruction. It sold over a million copies and became “the most successful, and notorious, folk-rock-protest single of all time." Barry McGuire was now a household name. But he never had another hit.

Barry talked about his sudden fame with characteristic frankness: “‘Eve’ was just one spoke in the wheel. It came around and I did the song and it became number one. I was always amazed when people asked me ‘What's it feel like to be a star?’ I'd say, ‘A star?’ I felt just like I felt last month, only now I can pay the rent. I couldn't pay the rent last month. That's your term. You put a label on me, calling me a star. Where were you last month? I'm the same person today that I was then except now I have this entity that is commercially valuable that is making people money, so now in your eyes I have value because I'm making money for people. So now you think I'm something that you didn't think I was last month. So, it all kind of revealed itself to me. It was just a bunch of noise. Like my wife says, a storm in a tea cup. And pretty soon the storm blows over. The superstars gradually sink over the horizon and die.”

After Eve of Destruction, McGuire dabbled in acting, landing parts in a couple of movies that were never in danger of being nominated for Academy Awards.

HAIR (L-R): Steve Curry, Diane Keaton and Barry McGuire

So…after being dropped from the Dunhill label as a music artist, and a less-than-impressive film career, what to do next? Why, Broadway, of course! Barry landed the male lead in the original Broadway cast of Hair. Reflecting on that experience, McGuire says, “To me, Hair was like a spiritual statement. I read the script, heard the songs and thought, ‘Oh man, I like what this is saying.’ It said something that I felt was true in my heart, that we are all spiritual beings in biological envelopes and the spirit is neither rich, poor, black, white, old, young, left, right. To me, that's what I saw in the Hair show. So I did the show until I blew my knee out one night. There was a lot of leaping and dancing. I came down on a microphone cable and it exploded my right knee. It looked like a watermelon. So, I left the show and came back to California.”

But by this time, he was pretty entrenched in a partying lifestyle that threatened to take over. Barry began to re-evaluate his life and seek answers to spiritual questions that had long dogged him.

“The very lifestyle that we were promoting was killing us all,” remembers Barry. “I looked around me I saw my friends, one, two, three at a time goin' down: drug overdose, suicide, sexually transmitted diseases. I was the right age at the right time in the wrong place, you might say. I got me a ton of books and a truck load of marijuana and just read and smoked and meditated and watched the sun go by. I was in a spiritual search.”

But after reading about the life of Christ, he realized "that was the answer to the whole thing. I discovered the Truth I’d been looking for. It was Jesus!" Barry McGuire was baptized on Father’s Day, 1971, and quickly became one of the Jesus Movement’s most visible and recognizable exponents.

He signed with Myrrh Records and released Seeds in 1973.

Seeds has been described as “fun,” “enthusiastic,” and “all about the joy of the Lord in a new believer.” Barry’s gruff vocals came across as downright jubilant in spots.

Seeds also introduced the family trio known as the 2nd Chapter of Acts to the world, as they applied their trademark harmonies as backing vocals (Seeds was released a year earlier than the 2nd Chapter’s debut album With Footnotes). And so began a productive collaboration between Barry McGuire and the harmonizing siblings that would also result in a must-have live album in 1975. [More about that album a little later in our countdown.] Producer Buck Herring, keyboardist Michael Omartian, and guitarist Mike Deasy all helped shape the sound of Seeds. Other notable players on the album include keyboardists Howard McCrary and Larry Knechtel, guitarist Dean Parks, and David Kemper on drums. The album was recorded and mixed at Sunwest Studios. A smiling McGuire sports a beard on the album’s cover that would make Phil Robertson proud.

The 2nd Chapter of Acts with Barry McGuire (Right)

Barry McGuire had a hand in writing 5 of the album’s 10 tracks. One of the record’s most notable songs was penned by Andy Davis and Dan Hart – a “testimony song” called Peace. McGuire sings it with conviction and a joyful abandon:

Sometimes when I am thinkin’
Just kind of halfway sleepin’
One thought is always the same
It’s all about how rich I am
To have a hold of my Savior’s hand
That’s why I’m praising’ His name

He gives me peace
Wonderful peace
Holdin’ on to my Savior’s hand
I found peace
Wonderful peace
Holdin’ onto my Savior’s hand

Another memorable song – Enter In – introduces us to Jack Campaign, John L. Jones, and C.T. Studd, and tells the story of how each of these gentlemen fared on Judgment Day:

Well, Jack Campaign he was a wicked man
Stole from friends as well as foes
And Jack Campaign he never cared for anyone
Well Jack Campaign was all alone

Then came his day to stand before the Lord
Give an account of his life
Said, "I'm sorry, I don't want to die"
Well Jack Campaign began to cry

The Lord said, "Sorry, I never knew you
Sorry, but it's too late, too late
Sorry, I never knew you
Depart from me, you've sealed your fate"

John L. Jones was considered a good man
By all the people throughout the land
John L. Jones he had the good book 
on his shelf
But John L. Jones lived for himself

Then came his day to stand before the Lord
Give an account of his life
"I went to church you know I paid my tithes"
All the Lord said was, "Why?"

The Lord said, "Sorry, I never knew you
Sorry, but it's too late, too late
Sorry, I never knew you
Depart from me, you've sealed your fate"

Well C. T. Studd he was a humble man
Served the Lord both night and day
Well all his life he lived to honor Him
And at His feet he learned to pray

Then came his day to stand before the Lord
Give an account of his life
With tears of joy streaming down his face
Said, "My King died in my place"

 The Lord said, "Enter into the kingdom!"
"Enter in my friend," he said it again
"Enter into the kingdom!"
"For now your life will never end"

"Enter into the kingdom!"
"Enter in my friend," he said it again
"Enter into the kingdom!"
"For now your life will never end!"

The standout track on Seeds is Love Is, a classic musical treatment of the “love chapter” in I Corinthians. Barry and co-writer Tim Buttram bounce back and forth between a paraphrase of Paul’s description of love in I Corinthians 13, and Jesus’ instructions in Matthew chapter 22 regarding the two greatest commandments:

Thou shalt love the Lord Thy God
With all thy heart
With all thy soul
With all thy mind
And all thy strength
And love thy neighbor as thyself

Well, love is gentle, love is kind
And love is giving, but it’s not blind
And love is choosin’ for the right
Rejecting the wrong

Well, love is keepin’ His command
Greater love hath no man
Than he lay down his life for a friend
Love never ends

Well, love is quiet, love is strong
And love is patient, suffering long
Where love lives, there is no fear
Now, can you hear?

The song isn’t hurt at all by the use of King James language – the ‘thous’ and thys’ in the chorus. In fact, that language really adds to the timeless quality of the track. The ending is perfect, by the way. Very memorable and very ‘70s. My personal introduction to this song came via a Myrrh sampler album called Love Peace Joy.

Railroad Man is a nod to Barry’s folk past. Mike Deasy’s hard-rockin’ David and Goliath and Annie Herring’s Use the Crosswalk were favorites as well. The album closes with another personal testimony set to music in Shauna’s Song.

All of the popular themes from the Jesus Movement’s early days are here: the second coming of Jesus, new life in Christ, evangelism, Scripture songs, and the retelling of famous Bible stories. Even better things lay ahead for Mr. McGuire, as we will discover later in our countdown. But Seeds was an important statement of faith for Barry McGuire. It’s been called “a true gem.”

Barry McGuire today

McGuire later followed his friend Billy Ray Hearn to the Sparrow record label where he continued to record albums, and churned out huge hits like Cosmic Cowboy and Bullfrogs and Butterflies. He relocated to New Zealand for a number of years, played a series of folk concerts with Terry Talbot, and ended up in a folk music revue called "Trippin' the Sixties." Due to a health scare in July of 2014, Barry has announced that he is officially retired from playing live music.

“Today, I'm living one day at a time,” Barry said in a recent interview. “I'm just as hungry for life as I ever was. I've discovered who I am in life and I've discovered the secret of life for me. Everybody has to find out for themselves because it's an inside job. Nobody can tell you the answer. You have to keep asking questions until you find the answers.”

Fun Fact: The front cover photo was taken in the home of Buck and Annie Herring (of the 2nd Chapter of Acts). It was a hillside mansion in the heart of Hollywood, built by a silent film actress in the 1930s. Three 12-foot stained glass pillars adorned the entryway, beautifully depicting grapevines. That stained glass is visible in the cover photo. The house has long since been torn down.