#22 SONGS OF THE SOUTH by the Pat Terry Group (1976)

SONGS OF THE SOUTH by The Pat Terry Group (1976)
Myrrh Records - MSA 6566

I grew up in the deep south. 

I lived most of my first fifteen years in Phenix City and Eufaula, Alabama (with a short stint in Evergreen). It was in southeastern Alabama that I learned to love riding a bike and listening to records. It was in Alabama that I first dreamed of being on the radio, learned the importance of college football (Roll Tide!) and owned my first electric piano. It was in Alabama that I surrendered my life to Jesus.

Our Dad was also our pastor, so we lived next door to the church and we took our places on the 2nd pew every time the doors were opened. It was a much slower existence, and a much safer world in those days, a world that revolved around faith and family. I wouldn't trade my southern upbringing for anything. We lived in Alabama, but I was actually born just across the mighty Chattahoochee River, on the other side of the state line, in the city of Columbus. Columbus was just about an hour and a half (as the crow flies) from Pat Terry's hometown, a suburb of Atlanta called Smyrna. 

In 1976, the Pat Terry Group recorded and released a record called Songs of the South. Here was a trio of Georgia boys who made good music, loved Jesus and talked like me! It's an album that left an indelible impression on this southern preacher's kid.

"A lot of time has gone by, hasn't it?" Pat Terry asked, rhetorically. "When I think about how long it's been since we were doing these songs back in the 70s, it blows my mind. And I'm surprised after all these years that I'm still doing this, that I'm still able to do this."

Pat Terry

I had a chance to speak to Pat again recently for the first time in a long time. We talked about songwriting, about Pat hitting the road again this year, we even talked about the first "contemporary Christian music" concert that I ever attended - which featured the Pat Terry Group opening for a group called Andrae Crouch & the Disciples. 

But mostly we talked about Songs of the South.

I mentioned that it was pretty obvious that the group sort of leaned into the whole "southern thing" on this album - from the cover to the title to some of the lyrics. Pat said that was by design.

"It was kind of a thing that we always felt strongly about because there weren't that many southern Jesus Music groups that were nationally-known during that time period," he said. "And most of the groups that came out of the south were Gospel quartets and those kind of things. We wanted to be known as a southern group. Because that was something kind of unique that we brought to the table, you know? We all grew up down here and the south kind of permeates who we are. So yeah, we definitely wanted to do that."

Most people familiar at all with this record will smile when they think about that iconic album cover. "It's one of my favorite covers of that whole era, really," offered Pat. "I just think they did a great job with it." The front cover is a very memorable illustration of a pleasant-seeming, older southern gentleman on his front porch, wearing a white suit with hat in lap and fan in hand. There's a country church across the way...a blooming magnolia tree with a ladybug...Spanish moss hanging on some trees out in the yard...a bluebird that's just happening by...and, of course, the headphones. 

Pat Terry said that Randy Bugg came up with that concept. "Randy was visually gifted as well as being a good bass player," Terry said, "and he had kind of an idea that something like this would be great. So he worked kind of alongside Bill Weaver who was a friend of ours here in town. Bill had a group called Noah's Art which was a graphic arts firm. So Randy and Bill worked together on getting that concept going. And there was another fellow named David Gaadt, and I think he was part of Noah's Art as well; he was an illustrator. And David actually did the illustration." Bill Wages took the photo on the back cover.

I asked Pat what he thought of the final product. "Oh, I think it turned out great," he said. "I still like it. It's still my favorite cover that we ever did."

Songs of the South was the second national release on Myrrh Records for the Pat Terry Group. The band's self-titled debut has already appeared earlier on our list and it contained some songs that turned out to be quite popular among the Jesus People - especially the prayerful Meet Me Here, a wedding song titled That's the Way, and a Second Coming-inspired sing-along called I Can't Wait.

"The way that first album came about, there was a marketing guy over at Word Records," explained Pat. "This guy would go around to the Christian bookstores and record stores, marketing and promoting the different projects. And he's the one that heard about us through some of these places where we had placed our custom album. 

We had a little solo album that we'd done on our own and we had put them in some of these stores. So he kind of found us through that and ended up introducing us to some people at Myrrh Records. And so we made our first record there."

You hear a lot of horror stories about record labels. Was the experience with Myrrh a good one? "To be honest, from the get-go they were just so supportive and behind us," Pat said. "So after we released that first album with them there was a fair amount of momentum as far as they were concerned, with what was going on with the group. So they were very supportive and I think the first album in their estimation had done well. So they put a little more money into this next one and gave us some leeway about who we wanted to work with and that kind of thing. We were just real hands-on with almost every aspect of what we were doing in that time. Even the cover art; we were really involved in everything. But we were fortunate to have a lot of support from the record label." 

A producer is so important to the success of a recorded project. From choosing musicians to coaching the band, from helping arrange the songs to supervising the sessions, there's a lot to the job. A producer can make or break an album. Pat Terry knew that. He told me that once it was time to start thinking about recording the sophomore release, the most important consideration, for him, was finding the right person to sit in the producer's chair.

Billy Ray Hearn

"Our first album had been produced by Billy Ray Hearn," Pat recalled, "and Billy Ray was one of the guys who actually started the Myrrh label for Word, Inc. Billy Ray came from a church music background, he was a church music director and we always loved him; we got along great with him. But he didn't really come from much of a rock background or anything like that. So on this next thing, I really wanted someone that we could kind of relate to on a level of guitar playing and things like that."

Enter Al Perkins.

Al Perkins

"So I had heard that Al Perkins was going to start doing some producing for some of the Christian labels," Pat offered. "And I was a huge Al Perkins fan. You know, right before this he had been playing with Flying Burrito Brothers and Stephen Stills' Manassas - I was such a huge Stephen Stills fan and loved what he did. But I thought man, if there's an opportunity for us to work with Al, I would love that. And so we talked to Billy Ray Hearn about that and Billy Ray said, 'Well, as a matter of fact, I  recently met him and we've been talking about doing some things, so if you guys would like to meet with him, let's get together and see what possibilities there might be.'"

Al Perkins

So Billy Ray Hearn arranged a meeting and got everybody together in the same room. "We played a few things for Al, I think, and he responded really well to it," Pat remembers, "and he wanted to do it, so we just kind of jumped in. I just feel like he was an ideal person for us to be working with because he really understood that we were a guitar-oriented group. And he spoke the language because he was a guitar player. I always felt that the Pat Terry Group's sound had an element of church music influence in it, because we all grew up in church and it naturally found its way into our music. But the foundation of it was all the pop and rock music that we grew up listening to, which I think was true of a lot of the Jesus Music people in those early days. So Al just clicked and we got along just great and just fell in love with him."

Sometimes the chemistry between producer and artist isn't quite right. When that happens, it can spell trouble. But not in this case. Things worked out great with Mr. Perkins, from the relationship dynamic to the studio experience.

Al Perkins

"He was and is one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet, easy to get along with," Pat reports. "But he was a hard worker. He kept us in a disciplined state of mind when we were working but, on the other hand, he was a lot of fun. We recorded this out in LA and of course he lived out there so he knew where all the great Mexican restaurants were! He would take us to all of his favorite haunts and that kind of stuff, so that was fun."

This was the first time our trio of talented troubadours had ever been to the Golden State. "It was a real experience for me," admits Pat. "Culturally, it was just such a huge difference from where I lived in Smyrna, Georgia. When we were there we stayed in a hotel right in the heart of Hollywood, right there on the Sunset Strip, which was fascinating but a little spooky for a guy like me. I had never been outside my hometown much! But so much music that I loved was made out there. And was being made out there. It was really exciting for me to be there making music."

Songs of the South was recorded at the legendary Sunwest Recording Studio in Hollywood. Barry McGuire, Neil Young, Phil Keaggy, Alice Cooper, The Second Chapter of Acts, Crosby, Stills & Nash and Quincy Jones had all recorded there, among others. Al Perkins was familiar with the place and enjoyed recording there. 

"Al was the one that guided us over there to work," Terry said. "And it really was a great studio. It was extremely well-outfitted; it had anything and everything you'd want for recording. And they had some great engineers. It was just a perfect place for me, especially during that period in my life." Sunwest has since closed.

Let's drop the needle on side one.

The record opened in an interesting and unique way...with a short title track that served as sort of a prelude, setting the stage for what was to follow. 

We got some songs of the Southland

Messianic melodies

Macon and magnolia trees

And we got to let it all out

"I really wanted to open the album with something like that," said Pat. "And to be honest with you, we didn't have that song when we went out there. I had been trying to write something for a month or so before we went in to record the album, that could kind of help to define that a little bit, and I could never land on it. But when we got out there, for some reason it just clicked. And I wrote it one night before we were supposed to go into the studio the next day. So we went in and cut the basic thing the very next morning."

There's a memorable synth part on that song...as well as a very interesting backstory regarding just where that keyboard came from. 

Pat Terry: "When we finished cutting the basic tracks I told Al, 'Man, I just wish we could have some synthesizer stuff on here.' And we didn't have one. I didn't really know anybody out there that played or that had that kind of gear. And Al said, 'I know a guy that plays in Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and he has tons of stuff!' And he said, 'I don't know that we would get him to play, but he might have, like, some kind of little Moog or something that we could borrow.' So Al took me over there and for a little southern guy like me, it was quite an experience! It was a real hippie crash pad, man, you know? But the place was just filled with synthesizers. 

Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention

I mean, he had big, modular Moog systems that took up whole walls of the house - just all kinds of stuff. And back in that day, that was really before synths had caught on to where everybody was traveling with them in their bands. This was kind of a unique thing. So the guy showed us a few things but to be honest with you, everything that he had was just - I mean, most of them were, like, big modular things and there was no way we were going to take anything like that and get any music out of it. So we thanked him for showing us around but we left and Al said, 'I've got one other idea.' He said, 'Let me call Buck Herring. Because I think Buck might have some kind of little Moog or Arp or something. 

Buck and Annie Herring

So he called Buck, and Buck said, 'Yeah I've got one.' I think it was one of those Arp 2600s that were popular. He said, 'Yeah, I'll be glad for you guys to use it, just come by and pick it up. So we went over to Buck's place and picked that up." 

"I took it back to the hotel that night and I stayed up half the night just trying to figure out how to get any noise out of it," Pat laughed. "I didn't know anything about synthesizers! And frankly, Al didn't either. I was just trying to figure out - I didn't need to get much out of it - I could kind of hear in my head what I wanted it to do, I just had to see if I could figure out how to get it to do it! By the time I got to the studio the next day I had worked out a very rudimentary way to get some music out of it and that's what you end up hearing on that opening song that goes into the rest of the album. Years later I bought a Mini-Moog and I learned how to program that, and I could do most anything I wanted to do. But that Arp was like a mystery. I'm still surprised that I got anything out of it." 

Songs of the South segues directly into the uptempo You Got Me. Pat Terry had some nice things to say about both the song and PTG guitarist Sonny Lallerstedt.   

"You Got Me is still one of my favorite recordings that the group ever did," Pat revealed. "I think Sonny's solo on that is the best one he ever cut. Occasionally when we get together to play, and that doesn't happen very often anymore, I always make sure we play that song and that he plays that solo. Because I love that, I just think he did an amazing job on that."

Pete Townshend

"But the inspiration for that song, believe it or not, came from The Who," Pat admits. "If you listen to those chords, it's basically Pete Townshend chord changes. Kind of a Baba O'Riley kind of thing, you know? I mean, certainly, it sounds like us, a folky rock group; it doesn't really sound like The Who. But structure-wise, that is what inspired me to write that song. But that's still one of the ones I like a lot."

We'll come back to Lord of All; first let's talk about the most rock and roll song on the album, What Good's It Gonna Do Ya. As I listen to the song again, I am struck by the prophetic nature of the third verse. It was as if Pat could see into the future and was describing Instagram models, content creators, influencers, and the comparison dynamic that has caused a lot of depression and anxiety as a result of our collective social media addiction:

I've got some friends who can set the styles

Buy all their friendships and sell their smiles

Sometimes they're happy, sometimes they're not

Always a-wantin' what the other man's got

But what good's it gonna do ya

If you don't know the One who made you 

The boys got some background vocal assistance on What Good's It Gonna Do Ya from a young kid with an other-worldly talent. "Matthew Ward came out and hung out some at the studio while we were out there, just to hang," Pat recalls. "One afternoon he came over and was just hanging around and we said, 'Hey, would you be up for singing on something?' And he said, 'Yeah.' So we just kind of dragged him out in front of a mic and said, 'Try this. This sounds like something you'd be great on!' So he did that, and it did sound great. He was, and still is, an amazing singer. 

Matthew Ward

He was so young! I mean, we were all really young, but he was younger than we were. And he could just sing like nobody's business. He and his family - they were one of my favorite groups. The Second Chapter of Acts - I just thought they were amazing. They made records that, to me, were head and shoulders above anything else out there during that time period. 

2nd Chapter of Acts

What Good's It Gonna Do Ya gives Songs of the South some rock and roll street cred. To the Jesus people, that was great. To conservative pastors in the deep south...not so much. "We were constantly up against the wall," Pat recalls, "trying to be as creative as we knew how to be, yet not alienate people. And usually it wasn't the audience that had a problem with things, it was generally your concert sponsors or the churches that you went in to play for that would have concerns about those kinds of things. We always tried to be respectful of people but we pushed it as far as we could." 

The Pat Terry Group never had a full-time drummer, never traveled with a drummer. "It was easier for us to play music where people could actually hear the lyrics and where you didn't have to fight the sound systems," said Terry. "Because the sound systems were never that good, either. I mean, we traveled with our own. But I don't think we ever felt like we could mic up a whole drum kit and keep that all balanced and everything out in the house. So we just became an acoustic trio partly as a result of that." 

But there was another reason Pat never hired a full-time drummer: he wanted the lyrics to land, to be heard by the audience. 

"As the writer of the group," he said, "I didn't want the bombast of a big, loud, rock and roll band to overpower people being able to hear the lyric. Because that's kind of what we were about. So it was fine. I never felt like I really missed having drums. At this point, I love having drums on things that I record, of course, and occasionally when I go out and play live, I might put a band together. I've done it a few times through the years, and it's fun. But just to sit down with an acoustic guitar and play for a crowd of people is still my favorite thing to do."

In the 70s, Pat, Sonny and Randy played quite often at a Bible study in the Smyrna area. Known as the Ellis Bible Study (or Metro Bible Study), it drew people from all around. "That place played a huge part in the formation of the band," Pat said. "We played there every Tuesday night for years, whenever we weren't on the road. If we were home, we would play there on Tuesday nights."

Pat told me that several of the songs on this album were written for that Tuesday night meeting. "A lot of these were songs that I wrote to play for that Bible study and we kind of used that as a platform to try new material out, you know? Because we had a built-in audience of people that we knew. They were a very friendly audience to play for because they were actually friends of ours. So You Got Me, Nothing That You Can't Do and probably What Good's It Gonna Do Ya, some of those, they were written to have something new to play for that Bible Study." 

"Back in that era," Pat said, "from '75 through about '78 or so, I was writing every single day. There wasn't a week that went by where I didn't have two or three new songs. I reflect on that now and I get exhausted just thinking about it! But back then, it was just fun to me. It was just what I did."

"All I Ever Need, and Nothing That You Can't Do would probably fall into this category, too, some of the more confessional songs were songs that I just wrote for myself. They just came out of my heart and just felt like something I had to express. Almost all of the songs on this record had an element of that in them. I've always kind of written from that place."

Lord of All is almost certainly another song written for the Ellis Bible Study, sounding like a prayerful worship song (well before we even had the term worship song). It probably wouldn't be sung in church today because it's not about me and how God makes me feel...and it's not about wind and mountains and oceans, etc. It doesn't jump an entire octave for no particular reason and it doesn't have two bridges and a pre-chorus. It's just a simple song about ascribing honor, glory and worth ("worth-ship") to God...

"With My blood I bought you

Mighty and the small"

Stand amazed

Sing His praise

He is the mighty King

Crown Him Lord of all

 

Terry is known as a master craftsman when it comes to songwriting. I asked him which comes first, the music or the lyric?

"Generally, I try to get some chord changes and a melody happening and then start to fit lyrics into it," he explained. "Because most of the time the musical aspects of it will kind of suggest lyrics to me. So that's kind of the way it goes. I really can't think of a time that I've ever just written a lyric or even collaborated with someone where we had a complete lyric and then just, you know, adapted a melody to it. It's like the melody always suggests the lyrics to me."

Side one closes with Nothing That You Can't Do, which is a PTG classic, and Home Where I Belong, which is an all-time classic.

Home Where I Belong was also famously covered by a guy who'd had a ton of success in the mainstream pop market - a man by the name of B.J. Thomas. Thomas had recently surrendered his life to Jesus and was miraculously delivered from a massive drug dependency, and Home Where I Belong served as his announcement to the world that the old B.J. Thomas wasn't around anymore; all things had become new. I wondered if perhaps Pat had pitched the song Home Where I Belong to Thomas. "No, I didn't have anything to do with it," he said. "B.J. had signed a deal with Myrrh to make some contemporary Gospel records and if I remember correctly, I think Billy Ray took Home Where I Belong to him and just put it in a stack of tapes for him to listen to and I think they both really liked it. So it ended up being on his radar. I still just love what he did with it. When I think of that song, his version is the one that I think about. To me, that's the definitive version of that song." 

They say that heaven's pretty, and livin' here is, too

But if they said that I would have to choose between the two

I'd go home

Goin' home where I belong

Sometimes when I'm dreamin' it comes as no surprise

that if you'll look you'll see the homesick feelin' in my eyes

I'm goin' home

I'm goin' home where I belong

While I'm here I'll serve Him gladly

Sing Him all these songs

I'm here, but not for long

When I'm feelin' lonely and when I'm feelin' blue

It's such a joy to know that I am only passin' through

I'm headed home

I'm goin' home where I belong

One day I'll be sleepin' when Death knocks on my door

And I'll awake to find that I'm not homesick anymore

'Cause I'll be home

I'll be home where I belong

"You know, B.J. was very heart-felt in making his Christian albums that he made and he ran up against some folks who gave him some hassles about embracing his pop career along with a Gospel career," Pat said. "Some of these people felt like, 'Oh, he should just leave all that pop stuff behind.' So he took some criticism. But for a person who was very young in his faith, he handled all that pretty well. 

Pat Terry with B.J. Thomas

The few times that I was able to spend some time around him, I really appreciated his heart. He was a good guy and I will forever be grateful to him for recording that song. That was probably the first song of mine that got recorded that really kind of landed with an audience. So that was good. And then he went on to do Happy Man, too. And I thought he also did a great job with that. I was sorry to hear that he passed away not long ago. Very sorry to hear that. He meant a lot to me, creatively, in my life."

This would be yours truly having a "fan boy" moment, first with Pat (above)
and then with Randy Bugg (below) following a PTG reunion show
in Atlanta several years back...

The Pat Terry Group had the same three members for the entire duration of the group's existence: Pat Terry on guitars and lead vocal, Sonny Lallerstedt on lead guitar and vocals, and Randy Bugg on bass and vocals. Sonny would sing a lead vocal here and there (usually on about one song per album) and Randy would sing an occasional harmony part every now and then.

I asked Pat how the vocal parts were determined and arranged. "Sonny and I would just come up with parts," he answered. "Randy would sing a third harmony, but he would tell you that he wasn't really a singer. So we would just create little vocal arrangements and Randy would take one of the parts, and then Sonny and I would experiment with our parts until everything kind of gelled. I always wanted us to have more vocal stuff going on, but really, Sonny and I were the two primary vocalists and it wasn't written as a duo kind of thing. So when we did have some vocals, they kind of needed to be three parts and we just weren't exactly wired up like a vocal group."

Chet McCracken played drums on this album, while David Diggs arranged the strings. Boris Menart served as an engineer; the album was mastered by Lanky Linstrot at ABC. Songs of the South was pressed at Keel Mfg. Corp. 

On the topic of "Nashville vs. SoCal"... "I still remember having a long conversation with Billy Ray Hearn that was slightly contentious," Pat said. "It wasn't really contentious, but we did butt head a little bit when we were talking about making this album. Billy Ray said, 'Pat, I don't see why you can't just come up to Nashville and let's just do it here.' And I didn't want to be rude about it or anything, but I did feel like what was going on in Nashville, production-wise, was different from what we were trying to do. And Billy Ray had a little bit of a difference of opinion with me on that. He just didn't see it that way. But the Gospel music - and even the contemporary Gospel music - that was being made in Nashville was really informed by Southern Gospel. Even if it was sort of contemporary, it still sounded like it came out of the Gospel quartet tradition or something. And I just felt like we were trying to do something kind of different. And I still remember Billy Ray saying, 'Well, Pat, Nashville musicians are the best musicians in the world. I don't understand why you're hesitant to want to work with them. They're the best in the world!' And I'd say, 'Yeah, they're great...' I just had a hard time getting it across to him why it was different for us." 

Side two opens with a toe-tapper written by Bob Farrell (of Farrell & Farrell) that featured Sonny on lead vocal. Bob had previously worked with both Sonny and Randy in an early Jesus Music group called Dove.

L-R: Randy Bugg, Bob Farrell, Pat Terry,
Radio DJ Paul Logsdon, and Sonny Lallerstedt

Next up was a song that has been tremendously meaningful to me over the years. I describe it as a worship song being played and sung in a bluesy piano bar. 

Precious Jesus, hold me tight

The more I see You the less I fight

You know I love You

Help me love You more

When I'm blinded and I can't see

You are there to comfort me

When I'm lonely and feeling blue

You're with me, Lord

I'm with You

"Help Me Love You More was certainly written as kind of an outpouring of the way I felt about my faith in those early years," Pat revealed. "I really wanted to write something that sounded kind of bluesy and jazzy, that kind of thing. And I didn't really know much about that kind of music. But I just tried to approximate something and it just came out that way. And I still like the way that song turned out." 

All I Ever Need is another one that has given me peace and comfort at various times. I've recently (over the past three years or so) had to walk through an unwanted...um...we'll just call it an unwanted change in life circumstance. This event was, for a good while, fairly debilitating and demoralizing. It was either give up on life...or turn to God. It's when we are forced to walk through deep and dark valleys in our lives that we realize just how much we take the Lord's presence for granted. Songs like All I Ever Need sort of went in one ear and out the other when I was a teenager. It was just a pretty folk song. But having lived a lot of life in the meantime, having been both on the mountaintop and in the valley, several times each...today All I Ever Need serves as a poignant reminder of what's truly important. 

Sometimes we fail to realize that God is all we need...until He's all we have left.

You are all I ever want

You are all I ever need

Sometimes I just fool myself by thinking I want more

You are all my heart desires

You are all my soul requires

Sometimes I just lose myself in thinking more of You

Sometimes I think the world can bring me joy

Soon I'm crying and You touch me

You touch me

You are all I ever want

You are all I ever need

God of glory, Lord of might

You are my all in all

Holy Spirit, Son divine

Father, hold me as Your child

Sometimes I just lose myself in thinking more of You

Pat's humor is on display in Daniel, a musical re-telling of the story of Daniel and the lion's den. This one is just fun. CCM writers and artists were pretty adept at this genre for a good while. It doesn't seem to happen so much these days, as Christian radio has become so formulaic and is pretty much all-worship-all-the-time. But as I listen to Daniel, I'm reminded of other similar offerings from Pat's contemporaries back in the day...Jonah by Mark Heard...He'll Take Care of the Rest and So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt by Keith Green...Mary and Martha by Honeytree...Lazarus from Carman...He's Alive by Don Francisco...Abraham by Phil Keaggy...Noah by David & the Giants...Man of the Tombs and Carpenter Gone Bad by Bob Bennett...Where Are the Other Nine by Geoff Moore...any number of songs by Michael Card...and many, many more. I Got to Go Down was another example from the PTG on a later offering (Final Vinyl). The Bible-Story-Set-to-Music is an overlooked art-form today.

Songs of the South wraps with a classic called Happy Man. It's a tender ballad and another one of Pat's songs that became the title track for a B.J. Thomas album.

So I asked Pat how he and his mates felt about the album, once it was finished and in stores. "Oh, we were really psyched about it," he said. "I still feel like it's our best album. We felt really good about it when we made it - the energy of it and what all went into making it. I think it got infused with a certain spiritual element that was going on in our lives at that time. I really love it. If anybody says to me, 'I've never really heard the Pat Terry Group,' I'll say, 'You need to listen to this album.' Because this is what we were about. I think it kind of defines us. And I like some of the other things we did after that, but I think the material on this album and just the way it was recorded and everything - it just ended up my favorite." 

Pat Terry

Our conversation turned to what's happening these days, and Pat said he's looking forward to playing music in front of live humans again. "I haven't played live in almost two years and I'm booking some dates now," he said, with a bit of excitement. "I was sitting out here this afternoon, just kind of rehearsing and running through some things, trying to get my chops all back together and everything."

We talked a little bit about the nostalgia that exists for the Pat Terry Group, the way that the PTG albums and songs still strike an emotional chord in the hearts of listeners all these years later. "I don't take that for granted," Pat said. "I really appreciate it."

But as we continued to talk, I got the sense that Pat almost had to lay the group down (if you will) and sort of place a barrier between himself and the music of the PTG era before being able to go back and pick it back up again.

"I've been through some periods of my life when I didn't want to be blocked in by the past," he stated. "I was always wanting to push a new envelope. It was hard sometimes to go play a concert when I knew that people really wanted to hear Pat Terry Group stuff. But Pat Terry Group was something I had done fifteen years earlier or something, you know? I never looked at our more popular songs from that era as 'hits' so I never related to them as something I would be singing thirty years later. We were trying to communicate what it was like to have a vital faith, and I always played and wrote about what was going on in my life at the current time. 

I wanted it to be vital. And I didn't want to just turn my back on everything I'd done before, but I also didn't want to be limited by it. So I went through some years where I just didn't want to do much of it anymore. I just felt like, what I'm trying to say, people would hear and then try to interpret it by music they'd heard me do ten years earlier. And that's just not how this works. I was talking about some different things by that time. Because in my own personal life, I'm working out my own salvation. I hope I'm growing in the Lord and I hope I'm learning new things and you don't get on down the road by staying where you were ten years earlier. So I was always trying to keep moving ahead. But I've kind of learned to embrace - I mean, there are things that we did in the Pat Terry Group that I still love and I do pull out and play in my concerts now and they kind of fit in a context that works for me. And I think people appreciate it. They seem to."

I jokingly told Pat he's just going to have to come to grips with the fact that there's always going to be people in the world who love the Pat Terry Group...and there's nothing he can do about it! He chuckled and said, "I'm always grateful that there are people out there for whom that music really meant something. You know, music is something that you continue to carry with you through your life. Music that I listened to when I was sixteen years old is music that still means a lot to me. So occasionally I do meet people who tell me, 'Man, I listened to you when I was in high school and I loved that music and I still do!' And I don't think songwriters can ever ask for anything better than that." 

Here's what I know: this particular collection of "Messianic melodies" known as Songs of the South has really stood the test of time and remains meaningful today to those of us who've been privileged to hear it. Even if you didn't grow up in Macon, around magnolia trees...

"Hey, if someone connected with something that you wrote, and it really meant something to them and they're still carrying it around with them...it's like, wow," Pat said. "You can't ask for anything better than that."