#18 NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND? by Randy Matthews (1975)

NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND? by Randy Matthews
(1975 | Myrrh MSZ 6546 )

In the mid-70s, my pastor-father and pastor's-wife-mother said that they had heard from God. The Lord told them to sell all of our stuff, such as it was (the house we lived in was owned by the church, so we wouldn't be able to profit from selling that) and then hit the road in an RV, sharing the Good News of Jesus with churches across the land. We did "regular" revivals where my brothers and I would sing (we had formed a band, didn't every family have a band?), and Dad would preach. We also did specialized children's ministry, with games, contests, puppets, music, the whole thing. Ministered at summer church camps all summer long, every year, and traveled from church to church the rest of the time. Full-time. For seven years. Living in RVs...even a former Greyhound bus that had been converted into a "motor coach." We saw 35 states, Canada and Mexico that way. It was a weird way to grow up, but looking back, I would not trade it for anything. 

Why is he telling us this stuff? I came here to read about Randy Matthews. Hold on, hold on. I'm getting there.

It was during those traveling days in that former Greyhound bus that we acquired an 8-track tape of an album called Now Do You Understand? by a guy named Randy Matthews. We had heard one song by Matthews on a sampler album - It Ain't Easy on a Myrrh collection called Love, Peace, Joy. So this was our first real Matthews album - our introduction to the creative force and communicative genius that was Randy Matthews. And what an introduction it was. I remember spending hours...upon hours...upon hours listening to that 8-track in our darkened bedroom on that bus. Our bedroom with carpeted, leopard-print walls. 

Our bedroom that had no windows, so that when the door was closed, it was really dark. And I would listen through a pair of Koss stereo headphones. I literally cannot think of a better way to have experienced Now Do You Understand? Because with the headphones, and in that darkened room, I could visualize what I was hearing. I was drawn in. I was powerfully impacted. Now Do You Understand? was more than a concert; it was an experience. An experience that left a profound effect on the listener.

What have others said?

Long, scraggly hair and beard, John Lennon-like spectacles and a silver jumpsuit-cladded Matthews grabs just a guitar and microphone and makes his way through seventy minutes of song, story, humor and ministry. There sometimes appears to be as much talking as singing, but it works so incredibly well with Matthews. He is a master storyteller, whether in song or not. His rough-edged Joe Cocker-like voice is pure gold on this project. The intimacy and genuineness of the performance simply pulls the listener in to what is being said and sung.
-David Lowman, blogger, host & producer of Legacy: CCM's Greatest Albums podcast

Now Do You Understand?...remains an essential souvenir of the Jesus movement - such that one could hardly understand the historical phenomenon of that revival without it. It is a live album, a two-record set that preserves an apparently unedited concert featuring just Matthews' voice and guitar. The absence of a band...allows for absolute candor and intimacy. Much of the sixty-eight minutes is taken up with conversation, as Matthews tells funny stories (life on the road, his false start as a quartet singer, a childhood crush), talks to God, and wonders aloud whether Jesus ever ate a pastrami-on-rye sandwich. These musings of an unabashed hippie Christian (pictured on the cover with long, scraggly hair, John Lennon spectacles, and - for some reason - wearing a silver "space cowboy" suit) are ultimately more precious than the songs. One of the best live gospel albums ever made, [this album] provide[s] an accurate aural representation of what a Jesus Music concert was like.
- Mark Allan Powell, author, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music

And then there's Brian Quincy Newcomb, an author and music critic who wrote for CCM Magazine and for his own publication, the highly regarded Harvest Rock Syndicate. Brian, or BQN as he is sometimes known, has spent some time working on a book about Matthews and was kind enough to share some of that material with me for this blog post.

By the way, Newcomb was there. BQN was down front. 

No, seriously. He was in attendance as a Houghton College student on the night this concert was recorded.

BQN (Brian Quincy Newcomb)

"Matthews is my hero," Newcomb told CCM back in 2001. And that's because it was a Randy Matthews coffee house concert in Wellsville, New York in the early 70s that actually gave Newcomb hope that he could enjoy authentic rock and roll and also live a Christian life. His conservative upbringing and denominational experiences up to that point had a crippling and confusing effect on him; Randy turned much of that around over the span of one evening. "To say that that night changed everything for me would be an understatement," Brian said. He bought a copy of Matthews' Son of Dust that night, took it home and devoured it. 

"At some point," Brian recalls, "that next year, the folks who promoted concerts on campus contacted some of my musical friends to see if we thought it was a good idea to bring Randy Matthews to our school. We were told he wanted to record a concert in our chapel auditorium for a double live album. Somehow, and I'm not sure why, but I ended up having a long phone conversation with Matthews' manager, Wes Yoder, before that concert. On the day of the concert, my friends and I had planted ourselves down front, cheering on Matthews as he recorded the live concert that would become Now Do You Understand?"

As for the album itself, BQN has said, "As artful as it was groundbreaking, these songs, poetry and stories shaped my early faith in profound ways."

Randy's dad, Monty, is on the far right

As for Randy Matthews' musical upbringing, his Christian conversion and his designation as a true pioneer of Jesus Rock, we've covered all of that in previous posts. You can check them out here and here. We won't go over all of that again, except to say that Randy came from a privileged musical pedigree and was a very different animal, if you will, from those "unwashed hippies" who came to Jesus out of a life of sex, drugs, and eastern religions out in California. Matthews almost did it in reverse. He went from clean-cut to scraggly. He went from hangin' out with the Jordanaires and being a student at a Christian seminary to playing on street corners and wondering where he was going to get his next meal. 

Larry Norman is billed as the Founding Father of Christian Rock, and for good reason; but for many young Christians who grew up east of the Mississippi, Randy Matthews holds that distinction.

I suppose I should mention the fact that live albums rarely make lists like this one. First, they often capture a sub-standard musical performance compared to studio albums. Even with overdubs, a one-off performance usually can't compare with a project that is built piece-by-piece and labored over in a state-of-the-art recording studio for weeks or even months. Secondly, live albums were often recorded as a way to fulfill an artist's obligation to the record company; oftentimes less love and care was devoted to those projects. But an artist like Randy Matthews makes those arguments irrelevant. What made him so special was not musicianship. He won't be mentioned in a discussion of the greatest-ever guitar players. While his singing style and the sound of his voice was a crucial part of his success, he's not usually mentioned as a great vocalist. So capturing a flawless musical performance is not really what Myrrh set out to do with NDYU. In fact, a flawless and jaw-dropping musical performance would probably have hurt this album. And that's because what makes this 2-record set so memorable is Matthew's vulnerability, authenticity and his ability as a communicator. 

Larry Norman and Randy Stonehill were blessed with those abilities as well. As was Keith Green and Barry McGuire. These were men who could walk onto a stage in the 70s, in a dark auditorium, armed only with a guitar (or piano), and have an audience enthralled for ninety minutes or more. No fancy light show, no fog, no video screens, no stage set. 

Larry Norman

Norman did it with mystery and, let's face it, a certain degree of weirdness. He made you feel uncomfortable...and you loved it. I saw him live three times, and I was always on the edge of my seat, wondering what made him tick and what he would say next. He made a string of brilliant albums from 1969 through the end of the 1970s, and Bootleg contained glimpses of what I'm talking about...but Larry never made a full live album that landed like NDYU.

Barry McGuire

Barry McGuire was amazing on To The Bride. Although he did benefit from the backing of A Band Called David, at times it was just Barry, the guitar, and those wonderful stories. After Cosmic Cowboy and Bullfrogs and Butterflies, he tried his hand at another live album, this time without a guest artist. Lightning did not strike twice.

Keith Green

Keith Green dialed back the humor but turned up the passion and the zeal. I saw him once - in Seattle, Washington in the fall of 1980. I will never forget it. But he never gave us a proper live album.

Randy Stonehill

Randy Stonehill is the one that I would say compares most favorably to Randy Matthews. They both show up armed only with an acoustic guitar. They both have the ability to have an audience laughing one minute and crying the next. And they both delivered a powerful representation of the gospel message without anything approaching a heavy-handed preachiness. However...I have seen Sir Stonehill live many times, and it's my opinion that his powers were not fully harnessed nor properly demonstrated on that (half) live album that he released back in 1990. And that was the only proper live recording we ever got from him.

Matthews was the real deal. And he gave us Now Do You Understand? as proof. "He was a compelling live performer," says Brian Quincy Newcomb. "His songs were great, but the stories he told to introduce them made them all the better. He would hit the stage with that acoustic guitar strapped to his chest, long reddish-blond hair, full beard, and a big smile on his face. He would tell jokes, quote poetry that he'd written, and tell stories of his life as a traveling troubadour for the Lord. He was funny, literate, culturally aware and connected, and he knew how to play to an audience."

Randy Matthews absolutely nailed it on NDYU, making it part of a handful of essential live albums from the Jesus Music era to be included on lists like this. Like I said earlier, live records usually don't make it onto these blogs. But I don't think the CCM of the 1970s could be properly understood without records like How the West Was One..."Live" at Carnegie Hall...Imperials Live (1973)...Feel the Love...Live in London...To the Bride...and, of course, Now Do You Understand?

SIDE ONE

"Ain't that a beautiful voice?"

The concert kicks off with the classic, rhythmic Holy Band, the audience enthusiastically clapping along. Brian Quincy Newcomb regards Holy Band as an important song and a great way to kick off NDYU. "The song," he writes, "besides having a great rock and roll energy, combines two very important concepts: the 'anyone' was an affirmation of the John 3:16 promise that 'whosoever' believed would be welcomed, and the radical idea that that band - presumable a rock and roll band - could please God, could be holy. That is something my young heart wanted to believe, that there was room for a hippie wannabe/Jesus freak in God's community." 

Matthews gives the audience a biographical sketch, laden with humor. He talks about the tension that existed in the early 70s between young people and the established Church, especially around music. But instead of being angry or defiant, Matthews gives a hilarious account, complete with a demonstration of his unsuccessful attempts to fit in with southern gospel music. The moral of the story? "Only you and God can work out who you're supposed to be in the body. Don't try to be something that you're not..."

Randy reveals that at the time of this recording he had only been traveling the country with his "Gospel rock and roll" for four years. After talking about his 1963 Triumph, living on the streets, and surviving on dill pickles, he treats us to a performance of The Bad Has Made It Better that is just perfect in its tone and execution. Through it all, well, I walked with my head held up high. In Your love, I did it in Your love. 

After the brooding, minor-keyed Guiding Light, a song that doesn't appear on any other Matthews albums, he takes an abrupt left turn into the "Jesus, was there a delicatessen in Jerusalem?" dialogue, an early indication that this wasn't just a standard concert. 

"On the day of the concert, my friends and I had planted ourselves down front, cheering on Matthews," Brian Quincy Newcomb recalls. Well, that paid off in a shoutout from the bearded troubadour himself. "Why is it the weird ones always sit in the front?" Matthews asked. It's always nice to get a mention from the stage on a live album, right? That little interaction came during the set-up for Sunny Day, a song with lighter lyrical content originally recorded on 1972's All I Am is What You See. 

SIDE TWO

"Important things are God. And peace. And love. And you."

Side two of NDYU, at first listen, seems to begin with Randy delivering some random thoughts about the difference between childhood and manhood. Important Things turned out to be a pretty profound, spoken word poetry piece, over guitar, on what truly matters in life. 

What follows is a memorable and fairly lengthy stand-up comedy routine on puppy love and childhood crushes. You know, the bit about Madeline Roper, age gap romance, Big Chief tablet paper, love notes, Crayola crayons, rejection, and, um, self harm. Matthews' comic timing is impeccable; he could easily have been a stand-up comic had he chosen to go that route. But just when he has the audience LOL-ing, he turns a sharp corner and delivers a very serious point to a wacky story. That guitar comes in underneath, and Randy warns the audience that getting hurt could cause them to build walls of protection to keep the pain away. The problem with that is that those walls will also keep love at bay. "I had to hire a Carpenter to come in and tear down my walls," he says, borrowing a line from the opening song from his Eyes to the Sky album. "Don't be afraid to love. God wants you to love." He then segues seamlessly into Darling I'll Be There, a tune that promises faithfulness and devotion to a lover. This one appears only on NDYU. 

Were You There? is a somber, spoken-word piece followed closely by Wounded Warrior, a song that appears on Eyes to the Sky. Pretty much without exception, Randy's songs fare better here on NDYU than they do on the studio albums. For my money, the official versions suffer from being over-produced and lack the emotion and immediacy of the live versions. 

By the way, Side Two of NDYU contains only 5 minutes and 10 seconds of actual songs. That's not a complaint, just an observation.

SIDE THREE

"You gotta get it up there in your sinus cavities and make it twang..."

"It's a sing-along thing, and I want you to sing-along thing with me," Randy says, leading into a 10-minute audience-participation version of Country Faith. Appearing first on All I Am is What You See, Country Faith is a harmless, fun, simple song with lots of strumming; it's also biographical, talking about Randy's Christian, middle-class American upbringing. Randy grew up long before the days of feminism, gender confusion, cutting, no-fault divorce, the new atheists, gay pride, faith deconstruction, (anti) social media, and blue-haired, tattooed girls with enough metal in their faces to set off alarms in airports. So he sings of good old, country faith... every Sunday we'd go to church, Mama'd bounce me on her knee... I remember Mama's chicken and dumplins, made with tender lovin' care, I remember how we'd bow our heads, Daddy'd lead us in a prayer... The studio version contains a verse that doesn't appear here on NDYU. It talks about how Matthews was baptized by his grandfather, who'd been a preacher since age 19. The last verse recounts the importance of faith not just to his own family, but to the wider community: Sometimes in the evening, the neighbors would come and sing / The children would laugh, old ladies would cry / We'd praise the name of the King. The "woke" among us might say that Matthews was exalting and romanticizing a fictitious version of America that never existed. I know better. Because he's describing the childhood that I, too, enjoyed. I'm not pretending that America was perfect in the 50s and 60s. There was a lot of racial strife in those days that we had not yet reckoned with. But man, looking back, it sure seems like the kind of devotion to faith and family that Matthews describes in Country Faith would be a cure for the many things that ail us here in 2020s. Country Faith was basically a mid-70s update on the old chorus that said, Give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me.  Matthews had the audience singing, clapping, even stomping exuberantly; he also had them howling with laughter when he imitated "city dudes" and mocked the guys in the crowd for wanting to appear too cool because of "the chick" sitting next to them. 

Christmas (White House Shuffle) was another poetry reading. Who does that anymore? Looking back, it seems like reciting poems to an audience was a neglected performance art by most Jesus Music artists (insert sarcastic face emoji here). It may have been underutilized by most musicians, but Matthews sure was effective at it. 

Side three of NDYU ends the same way Son of Dust ended - with a mesmerizing song called Pharaoh's Hand. Pharaoh's Hand was dark...honest...disturbing. It was as haunting as it was beautiful. It was also a wake-up call...

With no beginning
There is no end
Without a center, friend
No circle ascends
Oh, we're decaying
From deep inside
We lost the roots of the family tree
And there's no place to hide

Some of you live in fantasies
Others live in dreams
Some of you live in lies
You say, I see no disease
But what is happening
Has long been foretold
Close the door
Lock the latch
Let the story unfold

Been too long underneath this Pharaoh's hand
Been too long underneath this Pharaoh's hand
And it's time we made our stand


Three tracks. Fourteen and a half minutes. That was it for Side Three.

SIDE FOUR

"Did Your boy have big hands? Is that why they nailed Him to a tree?"

"I know it's called the Second Coming by a lot of people. A lot of people like to call that day the Rapture. I like to call it Evacuation Day." And with that, Matthews launches into a joyous, forward-looking view of the End Times. Evacuation Day is fun and upbeat. Every Jesus Music artist sang about Jesus coming back. This song was Randy's contribution to that genre.

From here on in, things take a serious turn. As Randy brings this ship in for a landing, you can tell that by this time he is holding the audience in the palm of his hand, so to speak. The Communicator has 'em right where he wants 'em.

Hands begins as a dialogue with God that brought tears to my eyes as I listened again in preparation for this blog post. Then it turns into a rather pointed mini-sermon, directed at the audience and, by extension, at all of us. "Jesus doesn't have any hands and feet now except for the hands and feet of His people." Randy laments the busyness of the religious...that we spend so much time in Sunday school and Bible study and prayer meeting and fellowship group, staying separated and sanctified, but are unwilling to get our hands dirty ministering to the unlovable, the unsaved, the hurting. Well, we don't even spend that much time in church anymore. At least most of us don't. Randy quits preachin' and goes to meddlin' when he asks the audience when's the last time they stopped their big, fancy, "$7,000 car" (it was 1975) to invite a "wino" over for food and a place to sleep. The room got so stone cold silent, you could've heard the old, proverbial pin drop. He asks the crowd when's the last time they sat up all night with someone who was high on drugs or struggling with "an emotional problem" (what the kids today would call a "mental health" issue). "When you love through Jesus, you have to love the unlovable just like you love the lovable," he said. "I think you have to get your hands dirty."

The Hands rap is a perfect lead-in to Oh My.

You know, this concert was recorded at Houghton College in New York state, and much has been made of the fact that the college administrators did not want the school listed in the album credits. Of course, they've come under heavy criticism for that; usually, when people learn of that little fact, they write Houghton off as a bunch of narrow-minded religious bigots. And it is a bad look, to be sure. But if you could place yourself in a time machine and travel back to 1975, you'd be reminded of just how new and controversial "Gospel rock and roll" was. And then, in addition to the cultural seismic shift necessary just to accommodate the music, you also had Randy Matthews challenging the audience in a very pointed way...accusing them of being too religious and not wanting a drunk to throw up on the carpet of their car. Then, in the song Oh My, he sings...

I talked with junkies, Lord
And I ate with whores
I put Your stickers on barroom doors

Oh my
Oh my, my
If hell is any hotter, then I don't want to die

Maybe it was all a little too much in 1975? Maybe they just feared blowback from alumni and parents. I don't know. With the benefit of 48 years of hindsight, I can understand it. I don't agree with it...but I understand them being squeamish. I'd be willing to bet that Hands and Oh My played heavily into the decision.

Matthews flows right into In the Morning, a song that goes to some dark places, shining a light on an often seedy underbelly of society, but offering hope...

It's your choice
You're either up or down
Lift your voice
Make a hallelujah sound

Now Do You Understand? concludes with a spoken word piece called The Picnic and the classic song Didn't He. I'm struggling with whether I should even say much about how this record ends...because I feel like all I could do is cheapen it. I'll just say that a clearer, more effective presentation of the Gospel has seldom, if ever, been captured on tape. From the maple tree metaphor to the sound effects of the hammer falling into Jesus' flesh...it's just highly moving. CCM historian David Lowman called Didn't He "mesmerizing and painful." "This is one of those songs," said Lowman, "where artist and message collide to create something that will always be remembered. Simply stunning."

Didn't He belongs on any short list of iconic songs from the Jesus Music era. It was later covered as a wonderful show of respect by Geoff Moore. It was also featured on First Love, a Gaither Homecoming-style DVD set featuring first wave Jesus Music veterans, recorded and released in the late 90s. The fact that Randy Matthews was included on that project, even though his ministry most often took place far from Southern California, was another show of respect for what he accomplished and the place he occupies as one of the most powerful communicators of the Jesus Movement.

The unplugging incident of 1974 has already been well documented on this blog (click here). That unfortunate event and the rumors it spawned led to Randy Matthews having a somewhat uneven career as a recording artist in Christian music. He released some fine albums (the self-titled effort in 1980 and 1981's Plugged In come to mind), but they were too few and far between. 

Bob Bennett has been known to complain (gently) that the industry moved away from him when he no longer fit the image of what was 'new' and 'current.' The same was true for Randy Matthews, I think. He acknowledges that he "fell out of fellowship" for a while somewhere in there, and that didn't help. Matthews was given an opening slot on a national White Heart tour in the 1990s. I saw that tour when it stopped in Greenville, SC. 

Even though most of the people in the audience at that arena didn't know who Randy was...I did. And it did my heart so much good to see him standing up there on that stage.

Randy eventually settled in Florida and took a regular gig performing frequently as Redbeard the Pirate for a couple of resorts. Some people have seen the photos of Matthews dressed as a pirate and they scratch their head and wonder about the direction his career has taken. Hey, I get it. If anybody gets it, it would be me. Let me explain.

I mentioned earlier that my family traveled in full-time ministry for seven years in the late 70s/early 80s. What I didn't mention is that we had a highly effective, energetic, specialized children's ministry with a circus theme. We were communicating with kids 5 nights a week. We used puppets, music, games, stories...you know, presented the Gospel on their level, in a way that was exciting for them. The fact that I dressed as a ringmaster and my family members wore clown suits every night? That was just part of the gig for us. Well, ole Redbeard down there in Florida...he's a communicator. He's communicating with families and children, on their level, sharing songs and stories that, I'm sure, knowing him, thrill and delight. I get it.

My mind flashes back to 1979. Our family arrived on a Saturday at the First Assembly of God church in Dothan, Alabama. We were going to start our "Circus Fun with Jesus" program, beginning on Sunday night. But the pastor's son excitedly announced to us that the church had a concert taking place on that Saturday evening with - you guessed it - Randy Matthews. We were thrilled to see Randy perform that night, still at the height of his powers, if you will. 

At some point during the concert, Randy asked if anyone had a request. My then-10 year old younger brother raised his hand and asked, "Can you please do Holy Band?" Imagine Matthews' surprise, receiving that request from a 10-year old kid. 

Randy's reply was classic: "What, have you got a museum in your house or something?" And then he invited my brother Drue to come up on stage and help him sing the song.

The concert that night was great. We laughed, we cried, we enjoyed the music. The Communicator did his thing. He communicated that night.

I don't know if I'll ever make it down to Florida again, but if I do, I hope to drop in on Redbeard the Pirate and let him know that I love him, I respect him, and I'm thankful for the influence that he had on my life.  

 

#19 BREAKIN' THE ICE by Sweet Comfort Band (1978)

BREAKIN' THE ICE by Sweet Comfort Band (1978)
Light Records LS-5751

They call it a "sophomore jinx." Sometimes it's referred to as the "sophomore slump" or "sophomore curse." This phenomenon can refer to athletes, students, films and television shows, etc. But when applied to music, the sophomore jinx is often invoked when a band's second album noticeably under-performs their first. It's when the sophomore release fails to live up to the high standards set by a band's debut album. 

Let's just say that the Sweet Comfort Band had no problem whatsoever with any such slump, jinx or curse.

The group's initial offering, 1977's Sweet Comfort, was a fine album. It even appears earlier on this list. But Breakin' the Ice did not just match the debut record, it exceeded it in every way. A lot of copies of Breakin' the Ice were probably sold on the strength of the iconic, gate-fold album cover alone. But once the listener took the album home, got inside that cellophane wrapper, and dropped the needle on that wax disc...well, he or she was in for a real treat. 

All these years later, when Sweet Comfort Band aficionados discuss SCB albums, many will point to Hearts of Fire or Cutting Edge as the band's all-time best. Those who prefer their music with a little less polish and a little more muscle will often point to Perfect Timing. But when asked which is their favorite, SCB fans will often smile and answer, "Breakin' the Ice." It occupies a soft, warm spot in the hearts of the group's fans. But it's not loved just for sentimental reasons; it's a darn good record.

The super-talented, hyper-gregarious Mr. Bryan Duncan agreed to be interviewed for this post (God bless him). I asked how the band ended up leaving Maranatha for Light Records. "Well, since we started at Calvary Chapel, playing there first, Maranatha Music was kind of the only thing in our line of vision," he said. "But they didn't really like the Sweet Comfort Band. It was our style - they didn't like jazz-rock-fusion-funk." 

Yeah, most of the early music on Maranatha was country-tinged, folk-rock. And by the late 70s, the label was turning a corner to focus almost exclusively on what was then called "praise" music. SCB got caught in the squeeze.    

Bryan Duncan didn't really mind having to switch labels. "We borrowed our own money to do the first album and then they would put it on their label," he recalls. "But we would find out that they didn't believe in marketing anyone because that would be exalting someone, and we have to stay humble in the name of Jesus."

"They also didn't see any reason to pay royalties on sales," Duncan said, somewhat sarcastically. "Of course, it was all ministry!" 

He continued: "In our last meeting with Chuck Fromm, the head of Maranatha Music, he said, 'If you leave this company, your chances of doing anything else are slim and none.' And so we left and we almost named the band Slim and None. That phrase by itself would make us stick it out in the face of all kinds of adversity."

Chuck Fromm

Sweet Comfort Band's guitarist/vocalist Randy Thomas wrote a hilarious and endlessly entertaining page-turner of an autobiography called Songstory (2021, Vide Press) in which he confirms Bryan's account. 

"I have no idea how much the Sweet Comfort album sold. No one did. There was a disconnect between band and label. We asked to leave the label. After all, the label had invested how much? Oh, that's right: zero dollars. A meeting was set with Chuck Fromm and Jimmy Kempner. They said, 'If you leave us, you won't last two weeks. Your chances are slim and none.' From then on, every time the band's van broke down by the side of the road, every time a promoter stiffed us, every time we wanted to quit, we recited 'Slim and None' to each other. It kept us going for another decade." -Randy Thomas, Songstory 

Ralph Carmichael

Light Records was a West Coast Jesus Music record company known as the label home for Andrae Crouch & the Disciples and the Archers, among others. It was owned by the legendary Ralph Carmichael, who is described by Randy Thomas as looking very much like a real-life Geppetto (white hair, big glasses, whiskbroom mustache). Thomas recalls Carmichael writing the band members' names down on a napkin every time he met with them. "Light was recording a band called Messenger that sounded a lot like us," said Bryan Duncan. "Very similar chord structure with jazz overtones. So we signed a contract with Light, understanding that they would put up the money for the album. Well, there's a step ahead!"

"Light Records did something we had never seen before: they promoted the record," wrote Randy Thomas in his book.  

Before delving any further into Breakin' the Ice, let's back up a bit. How did this unlikely foursome become a unit in the first place?

Apparently, the Thomson brothers - Rick and Kevin - were born in Cincinnati and grew up in a tiny town called Hamersville, Ohio. Reportedly, once it became clear that Rick could successfully alternate clapping his hands and tapping his foot, his school band teacher said, "You're our drummer." Rick played drums from that time on. According to an article at Christian Music Archive, the Thomson boys bounced back and forth a few times between Ohio and California. It was on the Left Coast that they were exposed to many different genres of music, including rock and jazz, and formed two different jazz-rock bands, playing dances and various functions around Southern California. Rick and Kevin (who played bass) started attending church during the Jesus Movement of the early 70s and surrendered their lives to Jesus.

Bryan Duncan

Meanwhile, a long-haired, wisecracking Pentecostal preacher's kid from North Carolina found himself in hot water with the powers-that-were at his denomination's Bible college down in Florida. You might say he was dishonorably discharged. Feeling like he had failed and disappointed his parents, Bryan Duncan set out for California, having heard about the Jesus Movement from a friend. Once he got to Cali, he met up with Rick and Kevin. 

The Thomson brothers saw Bryan perform at The Mother Ship (Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa) and invited him to jam with them. That same day they decided to form a group. Rick came up with the name, and Sweet Comfort performed as a trio for the next three years. 

Randy Thomas

Randy Thomas grew up a couple of blocks from Route 66 in Rialto, California. He was dragged to church as a kid but his father later admitted it was only out of obligation and stopped going. As a child, Randy says he thought Sunday services were punishment for running free six days a week. But he became a Christian in 1972 after a light-bulb moment that involved observing nature (and figuring there must be a God), and the witness of a friend who was also a band-mate. Randy's dad was a high school band director and Randy had two older siblings who were into the pop and rock records of the day, so there was always music in the air. 

Sonrise

Psalm 150

Randy would wind up in two early Jesus Music bands - Sonrise and Psalm 150. [Members of these two groups would go on to play in Allies, Night Ranger, Damn Yankees and Andrae Crouch & the Disciples.] Thomas also tried his hand at "worship leading," even though that term was not yet in vogue. He would lead songs at Calvary Chapel Riverside where the pastor was a 23-year old Greg Laurie. In his book Songstory, Randy talks about how powerful the music was during the Jesus Movement days. "I'm not sure if the music was so incredible, or if it was the prayer-soaked Holy Spirit atmosphere, or both," he wrote. "The concerts were enthralling."

Greg Laurie

Next came a series of events that Randy Thomas blames on God. 
1. People kept telling the guys in Sweet Comfort, "You guys are great, but you need a guitar player"
2. Greg Laurie suggested to Randy that he audition to play on a Saturday night at Calvary Chapel Riverside
3. Kevin Thomson was the "gatekeeper" of the Saturday night concerts at Riverside
4. Kevin invited Randy to jam with him and Rick in Kevin's garage
5. With no introduction, Bryan Duncan shows up, starts singing and playing
6. Randy Thomas' guitar fills the holes in the trio's sound
7. Soon they were playing Disneyland and other large venues

"It was as if a missing puzzle piece had snapped into place," said Randy Thomas. "God was doing something!"

After a rehearsal in Riverside
(with an unidentified guy in overalls and flipflops)

Thomas described their initial musical output as "an odd blend of Canned Heat boogie meets Elton John pop," adding that Bryan Duncan was short, but sang like he was ten feet tall.

To read all about the 1977 debut album, click HERE. Now let's get back to SCB signing with Ralph Carmichael's Light Records.

"We signed a three-year deal with two options for one record each," remembers Bryan Duncan, "but Light was shady, too. We learned something in the fine print about cross-collateralization, which meant they could put anything on our record budget. And they would, including choirs for other projects and dinners out on the town. We would also sign away our publishing rights. I remember asking specifically, 'What does publishing mean?' and the guy said, 'It just has to do with filling out the license for the copyright.' Turned out that publishing was 50% of all the money that comes in on record sales." 

"We would also later find out that the addendum to the contract, where we had added some specifics, was never signed by both parties," Duncan said. "We were too busy playing concerts to be paying attention to paperwork! We also didn't have a manager then. The Sweet Comfort Band records have all been sold off to a couple of different companies, all of which went out of business, and I still can't find the masters to those projects."

Wow. Who knew the music business could be so depressing? Let's talk about the music! 

Seawind

Tommy Coomes and a very young Jonathan David Brown had done a nice job producing the group's debut record, but the guys wanted to step things up on the next album. "We'd come across a band that was on a secular label," Duncan recalls. "It was light years ahead of every Christian thing we'd ever heard, and it turned out that some of them were Christians. The group was called Seawind and they had a full horn section and were doing the kind of music that we really liked. So after seeing them live, we approached Bob Wilson, the drummer for the band and also the leader, and asked him about producing a record with us. He agreed, and he would bring the horn section with him."

Bob Wilson

Randy Thomas recalls recording at Martinsound in Alhambra, with Wilson as producer and Jack Joseph Puig as engineer. He says the group had sort of learned the basics of recording the first time around, and were a little "more professional" on the sessions for Breakin' the Ice.  

So what about Bob Wilson? Turns out he gets mixed reviews from Bryan and Randy. 

Bob & Pauline Wilson
A record they made together in 1981. The pair would later divorce.

"I don't have great memories of working with Bob as a producer," admits Bryan Duncan. "Number one, he didn't like my voice. He was used to a female singer - his wife - and he would alternate lead vocals between myself and Randy and Rick. The first review of Breakin' the Ice I remember reading said, 'This is a great band but they lack a lead singer.' Well, we usually sang our own songs, meaning, whoever wrote the song sang it. But the bounce-back-and-forth vocals that were brought in by Bob on the second album made it unsure of who was actually the lead singer. I didn't really argue about spreading the vocals around because I liked Sly and the Family Stone and they did that pretty often. You've got to remember that the studio is not the real world, and you're recording bits and pieces the whole time that you're recording. You don't really have an overview of how the whole thing sounds, and I never felt like I was being neglected."

For my money, both Randy Thomas and Rick Thomson were/are fine singers and the presence of their vocals added some variety and a richness to the overall product. But let's face it...when you look up the term Lead Singer in the dictionary, you should see Bryan Duncan's picture. The fact that he wasn't featured on every song is actually pretty wild. Randy Thomas, again, a very fine singer in his own right, would be the vocal frontman for most bands. But he just happened to be blessed (cursed?) to be in two different bands with two of the greatest lead singers that God ever made, not just in Christian music, but in pop music period. Bryan Duncan and Bob Carlisle possessed an other-worldly level of talent where lead vocals were concerned.

Jack Joseph Puig

Thomas says that with Jack Joseph Puig flying the ship and Bob Wilson at the helm, Breakin' the Ice had a fun vibe. He says he was at Wilson's elbow for the whole project, and found out that he loved the studio world. 

Seawind horns

Bryan Duncan told me that on this record, he felt like everyone else was driving the bus and he was just along for the ride. "I don't even remember the horn section days in the studio," he said. "Breakin' the Ice was the first time I recognized the competition for whose songs were going to be on the record, and I would remain passively aggressive. My primary interest has always been in the performance of the songs themselves in a live situation."

Bob Wilson

The title track is a funky little number, and the album's only song not written by the band members. Wilson wrote it himself. In the book Songstory, Randy Thomas describes an audition process by which Wilson determined who would sing lead on the track. After Rick, Bryan and Randy all gave it a shot...Randy got the nod. But he was somewhat disappointed to learn that Wilson was going to use his 'audition' vocal on the album, rather than record it again. "The only good thing about that vocal," Randy says, "is that I could always sing it better live than on the record!" 

Bryan Duncan told me that he would end up singing lead now and then on songs that the other guys wrote on future albums. "Valerie was one of them," he said. "It was written by Randy Thomas and I sang lead on it. Rick and Randy also wrote a song called They Just Go On, and I took the lead vocal on the hook on that one. I would eventually become more of the main vocalist on the songs that did well on the radio."

Randy and Rick...writing in the back yard?

Rick and Randy seemed to co-write a lot of songs in the SCB catalog. Randy Thomas says that drummer Rick Thomson was a good "song starter" while he [Randy] was a good "song finisher." It worked out. The two teamed up on four of the nine songs on this record. "Two Thomas-Thomson tracks, Good Feelin' and Got to Believe, have a heavier jazz influence and are stellar songs - examples of the best that Christian music has ever had to offer," gushed historian Mark Allan Powell in his Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music.

Searchin' for Love was a Bryan Duncan-Randy Thomas collab. It had a hard rock beat, by far the most intense song on the album. "I wasn't crazy about Searchin' for Love," Duncan revealed. "I didn't really trust my own voice to sound like a real, serious rocker. I had a clean sound. But we were playing a lot of outdoor events and we discovered the driving rock and roll kind of sound went over well with big audiences. Don't get me wrong, I love Kansas and Toto, and once I heard that Boston record, I decided I could scream right along with the best of them. We would eventually write another song called Contender, where I felt a lot better about being a rock singer."

Critics liked the song more than Duncan did. Derek Walker penned these words for the Phantom Tollbooth: "Even with no horns, [Searchin' for Love] is one track that sums up how well everyone just clicks together, organically and intuitively, whether it's the machine-gun licks of the guitar, the supportive organ, or some drum breaks that add a real kick. Duncan squeezes every bit of feeling out of this one, bending his notes all over."

We've got more songs to discuss, but can we just take a moment to admire that album cover? I asked Bryan for the inside scoop on how it came about.

"When it comes to album covers," he said, "we knew two people in the local area. One was Rick Griffin, who did the iconic logo of Sweet Comfort. And there was another key player that was doing a lot of artwork for Christian product. His name was Kernie Erickson. I don't know exactly how we got in touch with him, I think Kevin probably lined him up. But we were big fans of Chicago's album covers because they didn't put the band on it, and we felt like an album cover with the band on the front, dressed in a certain way and with certain hairstyles, would look dated eventually." 

Duncan continued: "The one time we went away from Kernie Erickson was with Hold On Tight!, and it was the worst album cover we had ever seen because we left it in someone else's hands. Hold On Tight! would be a $250 cover on a $50,000 project. After that, we made ourselves responsible for our own album cover graphics." Randy's take on that Hold On Tight! cover was that it "looked like Rocky and Bullwinkle were now running the art department."

"I don't think I was completely crazy about the Breakin' the Ice cover," Duncan said, "but after the Hold On Tight! fiasco, Hearts of Fire, Cutting Edge and Perfect Timing were right down the alley for me. We had developed a visual brand for the style of music that we did. And it was designed to look timeless."

So what did critics think about the album?

"...one of the most legitimate white R&B albums ever released."
-Bruce Brown, CCM

"I Love You With My Life is a definitive Christian ballad...I Need Your Love Again is quintessential Duncan, defining the sound that would come to be known as blue-eyed soul."
-Mark Allan Powell, Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music

"Borrowing directly from the funk/soul sounds of the late 70s without falling into the trap of disco, Sweet Comfort Band created an album for the ages with sharp production, killer grooves, monster vocals and some of the most stirring ballads for the day...At the time CCM was really lagging behind in the production quality world (based more on minuscule budgets than musicianship) and the band really created a new standard here...Good Feelin' really shows Duncan's range and Thomas' guitar prowess. But I would be remiss to discount the strength of the ballads on this album. I Need Your Love Again is a beautiful call to the Lord for His graciousness toward a fallen soul. But it's the album's closer, I Love You With My Life, that remains a true classic..."
-David Lowman, Legacy podcast, CCM's 500 Best Albums

"Breakin' the Ice deserves any praise lavished on it...this collection has a complete set of goodies and no duds. Maybe it is the musical tension between funk, soul and rock that makes each track so strong, or maybe they are just great, tautly-constructed melodies played by consummate musicians. Every track wraps an arm around you and invites you in to share the experience..."
-Derek Walker, the Phantom Tollbooth

Well, then. 

Of course, the critics mentioned the elephant in the room that we have yet to discuss - I Love You With My Life. And we will get to that, trust me. But first, I wanted to know which songs on Breakin' the Ice were Bryan Duncan's personal favorites.

"Got to Believe was the mainstay of the whole record," he replied. "We played that a lot, usually opened the show with it. But years later, I would listen to Randy's guitar solo on Good Feelin' and realize that he was a way better guitar player than I even imagined when I was in the band with him! So those are my two favorite songs on the record, Got to Believe and Good Feelin'. Of course, since then I've also come to love I Love You With My Life just as much.

If there's a "time capsule song" on this record, it would have to be I Love You With My Life. Huge hit, greatly loved by Christian music audiences the world over...but for Sweet Comfort Band, the song was kind of an afterthought. It was the hit that almost didn't happen. 

"The interesting thing is that we toured Breakin' the Ice for almost a year and a half and we never played I Love You With My Life on that tour," Duncan revealed. "It was a ballad, and we were not a ballad band! And I Love You With My Life was the last song on Side Two of a vinyl LP. WCIE in Lakeland, Florida, would start playing the song after we had played at a local church there. It was completely grassroots. It started getting airplay on other stations, and ended up becoming a national #1 single." 

Duncan jokingly added, "I remember thinking, how does that song go again?"

Bryan didn't really care for Bob Wilson's musical vision for the song. Wilson decided to "bounce it," rhythmically. Duncan says he didn't like it from the get-go, but eventually got used to it."

Needless to say, I was curious as to how the song was written. "Well, I was not a great piano player," Bryan claimed. "But I wrote I Love You With My Life after Randy Thomas showed me how to play a 7 chord. Most of my ballads were in the key of C major. So one day, that's how I started. I played a C major chord, first inversion, and then I went straight to a 7 chord. I remember singing, I would like to say...and then I was stuck. I had no idea what I wanted to say! But then, on tour, sitting in the front seat on the road to somewhere, I was reading the story where Jesus said, 'I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you can be.' And I specifically remember feeling really suspicious about that. It sounded to me like, 'I love you...but I'm leaving!' Wait, what?! And I'm supposed to trust that You're coming back? So that was the next line of the song: I would like to say, just before I leave you..." 

"It would create an instant tension," Duncan said. "From there, it was just a matter of reading all that Jesus said in the Bible about what He was doing and what He felt. I didn't even think the song was very good when I finished it because it was just a tag at the end - 'I love you with My life'... It did not follow the formula we had learned in songwriting. But without realizing it, I had said what Jesus would say to all of us, in a way that was personal. Like it was a note on the refrigerator."

"If ever there was a song where there was divine inspiration and intervention from God Himself, that would be the song," said Bryan. "I still play it to this day. It's been recorded twice since the first recording and it's been a #1 single in three different decades. It flies in the face of all our formulas and cleverness in writing songs. That song is the one song that I still sing to this day, almost every week. And it's not even from my perspective; it is directly from the words of Jesus."

I would like to say
Just before I leave you
I'll be back someday
And with Me I will take you
So do not be afraid
Only watch and pray
And wait for my return

I've done what I must do
My work here is completed
It's all been done for you
Believe what I have stated
And I will give you peace
Through all your tribulations
Until I come again

Please know that I love you
And I'll stay by your side
If only now in spirit
I'll still be your guide
You will not suffer long
I have suffered for you
I love you with My life

I'll prepare a place
Where we can live together
I'll meet you face to face
To share our new forever
Don't let your heart grow cold
And I will not allow
What's more than you can bear

I love you with My life
Love you with My life...
Love you with My life...

"It turns out that we never tire of being reminded that we are loved by God," Duncan said, "and hearing it from His own voice."

Mike Stone

Randy Thomas was the only band member present at the mix. Mike Stone engineered. Thomas said he never saw Stone before or since. "We mixed Breakin' in two evenings," Thomas recalls. "I had seen a record through, from the first song written to the last song mixed." Thomas likened the experience to "taking producer lessons."  

Thomas says that while the first album sold primarily on the West Coast, Breakin' the Ice took the Sweet Comfort Band nationwide. Bryan Duncan says Breakin' was not his favorite album (because he felt he didn't have as much a hand in it as he did with other records), but he does acknowledge that the record launched the band nationally and solidified the name Sweet Comfort Band "in the national mindset as quality music." 

"What that mostly meant was longer trips out on the road," said Bryan. "Because California to Florida is a long way. We would break down in Texas more times than I could count!"

Yes, the tour stories are legendary and quite funny. Randy Thomas recounts a good number of them in his book Songstory. Did I mention you simply have to purchase that book? [There have been links sprinkled throughout this post and there will be another one below.] 

Four more studio albums would follow. Hold On Tight! was considered a low point for the group, but Hearts of Fire and Cutting Edge would firmly establish Sweet Comfort Band as one of the greatest rock bands in the history of Christian music. And then the guys decided the band had run its course. Well, actually, the band had pretty much ended during the recording of 1984's Perfect Timing. It's just that very few people knew it at the time. There was a brief farewell tour and a couple of compilation albums. 

Rick Thomson and wife Alice

Rick Thomson went on to play drums with Benny Hester for a while. Then he built a studio and recorded albums for others. One of the projects that Rick co-produced was a hit-laden compilation titled Voices, featuring talents such as John Elefante, Tommy Funderburk, Matthew Ward and Howard McCrary. Oh - and it also featured old friends Bryan Duncan, Bob Carlisle and Benny Hester. In addition, Rick Thomson became a General Contractor and ran a construction company.

Bryan Duncan

Bryan Duncan enjoyed a successful solo career, and that's an understatement. He won a Grammy and four Dove awards for his participation in compilations or tribute albums. But he recorded eighteen solo albums, selling more than a million records, and had numerous radio hits and #1 songs. Today, he hosts a podcast called Nutshell Sermons. He describes this as devotions in his own antagonistic style, in little 2-minute rants. Go to nutshellsermons.com and subscribe!  

Randy Thomas started a successful Christian rock band known as Allies. Allies had a run of 9 years and 2 #1 singles on Christian radio. After Allies, Randy played for a while with Shania Twain. Back during the Allies years, Thomas had formed a songwriting partnership with Bob Carlisle, one that yielded numerous secular hits for country artists. And, oh yeah...he and Bob co-wrote a song called Butterfly Kisses that got some attention (and won Randy a Grammy). 

Randy Thomas and wife Lori

Randy eventually moved to Florida where he became a Presbyterian worship leader and also does all different types of gigs with his wife Lori.

Kevin Thomson had always been SCB's Evangelist-in-Residence. Randy Thomas has said that telling people about Jesus in everyday language was what Kevin did best. He would always give SCB audiences an opportunity to surrender their lives to Jesus; it was about more than just rock and roll. "At nearly every concert, we saw dozens of converts," Randy Thomas said.

While it was clear from their post-SCB careers that Duncan and Thomas were much more musically ambitious and driven, it was also apparent that the Thomson brothers had been a key part of the success of the Sweet Comfort Band. This much was made clear in the liner notes to The Light Years, an SCB best-of released in 1995. "To this day," wrote Bryan Duncan, "even though I want to write and I want to sing, I still have a short attention span. Kevin and Rick Thomson were the go-getters who said, 'Let's go find someplace to play.' They were the people who would go grab the attention of authority figures and say that we had something for them. I can't underestimate that kind of value...if it were not for Kevin and Rick, the business wouldn't have gotten done and Sweet Comfort Band just wouldn't have happened." Randy Thomas also praised the determination of the brothers Thomson. 

2015 reunion concert at The Upper Room

There was a reunion show at the iconic Cornerstone Festival in 2001. I'm still kicking myself for not dropping everything and heading back to that dusty cornfield one more time. But I didn't. Reportedly, a good time was had by all.

The guys decided to record again after many years apart. But Kevin Thomson had come down with an illness that had him confined to a wheelchair. He would go Home to be with the Lord before The Waiting is Over was finished and released. So fittingly, his sons Eli and Josh stepped up. Eli played bass and Josh was a guitarist on The Waiting Is Over. Recorded at Rick's Shelter Sound Studios, the album concluded with In the Light of Heaven, a tribute to Kevin Thomson, written by Randy Thomas. Thomas says The Waiting is Over is actually his favorite SCB album..."because seasoned songwriters really have something to say."

Kevin Thomson and wife Robin

"During Kevin's years as a quadriplegic, he stayed strong," said his brother Rick, "always encouraging others and never letting the enemy rob him of the joy he knew was coming. There were times he would call me to encourage me when he knew I was having difficulties. But none of my difficulties came close to what he was experiencing. Kevin would often talk about the old days when the harvest was ripe. Looking back, it was an experience I will never forget. I am still very blessed to hear so many stories of people coming to Christ at one of the Sweet Comfort Band concerts."

Forty-five years have passed since Bob Wilson introduced his Seawind horn section to four fresh-faced, idealistic, 2nd-wave Jesus Music troubadours known as the Sweet Comfort Band. The results were magical. I've probably listened to Breakin' the Ice all the way through about five or six times in preparation for writing this blog post. That record still puts a smile on my face.

"Music is a universal language. What is its origin? The biblical view is this: A loving Creator has bestowed talents upon His creatures to glorify their maker. We are made in His image and called to be little creators. Creative people, if they are honest, marvel at how lyrics and melodies come to them. I think that's God's grace at work. He loves to see us imitating Him."
-Randy Thomas, Songstory

 

That reminds me of a song.

We are the children of the Mighty
We are the apple of His eye
We are the image of the Maker
We are the song of the Most High

Can you hear it?

Fun fact: My brothers and I had a band in the late 70s/early 80s and traveled nationally with our family's evangelistic ministry. We were a SCB cover band of sorts, performing, at various times, Childish Things, When I Was Alone, I Love You With My Life, The Road, and Good Feelin'. We were working on our own version of The Lord is Calling when our Pentecostal preacher father heard that phrase "There'll be hell to pay..." in the lyrics and nixed it, fearing how Assembly of God congregations might react. True story.

Get Randy's book Songstory HERE.