#17 IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK by 2nd Chapter of Acts (1975)

IN THE VOLUME OF THE BOOK by 
2nd Chapter of Acts (1975)
Myrrh - MSA 6542

"One, two, three, and..."

The first voice we hear on this brilliant album actually belongs to Michael Omartian, then a session keyboardist and arranger and artist in his own right. Omartian would soon be a highly successful and sought-after producer. Here on ITVOTB, he was counting off the string section on the album's opening track, Start Every Day With a Smile. 

Start Every Day... was hardly typical of an album opener. For starters, it's classical music. The track employs an actual string section, conducted by Omartian, and little else in the way of instrumentation. Clocking in at just fifty-four seconds, at first listen it seems like a pleasant little poem that Annie Herring might've married with a lilting melody on a slow Tuesday. Short though it may be, it's a song that sticks in your head and leaves you wanting more. Just as it is finding its way into our hearts and our psyches, it ends and slams into Yaweh, a hard rock song that explores the names of God and serves as the perfect vehicle for young Matthew Ward's already considerable vocal talent.

Start Every Day With a Smile and Yaweh were a powerful and effective one-two punch that got In the Volume of the Book off to an amazing start.

The Wards were a large Catholic family from the upper Midwest. Annie, one of 9 children, left the harsh winters and mundane lifestyle of North Dakota for the bright lights and sunshine of California. There, she met a popular radio DJ named Buck Herring. The two became an on-again-off-again item. 

Long story short, Buck found Jesus and then made sure that Annie did as well. The two subsequently experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit and became immersed in what God was doing in California during the early days of what later came to be known as the Jesus Movement. 

The rest of the Ward family had relocated to the Golden State as well. Then tragedy struck. When Annie's parents died within a short time of each other, two of her younger siblings - Nelly and Matthew - were taken in by Buck and Annie. 

Well, Buck transitioned from DJ to recording engineer and bought Annie an old, upright piano for $50. Annie began to play the piano by ear (or "by heart" as she says) and started writing songs that were prompted by the Holy Spirit. She called herself a "song receiver" instead of a songwriter. So Annie was downloading songs, and Matthew and Nelly started singing with Annie when they would come home from school in the afternoons. One thing led to another...and the 2nd Chapter of Acts was born. 

The group's 1974 debut album, With Footnotes, was an instant classic and will be explored later on this list. A year later, In the Volume of the Book was released by Myrrh Records. 

CCM author and historian Mark Allan Powell calls the 2nd Chapter of Acts "one of the Jesus movement's greatest treasures" and says In the Volume of the Book is the group's "second masterpiece." The album title comes from a passage of Scripture in the book of Psalms:

Then said I, Lo, I come;

in the volume of the book

it is written of me,

I delight to do Your will, O my God;

yes, Your law is within my heart.

I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great assembly--

tidings of uprightness and right standing

with God. Lo, I have not restrained

my lips, as You know, O Lord.

I have not concealed Your righteousness

within my heart; I have proclaimed

Your faithfulness and Your salvation;

I have not hid away Your steadfast

love and Your truth from

the great assembly.

Psalm 40:7-10

These words of Scripture are found both on the album's back cover as well as the inner lyric sleeve (along with a humorous visual depiction of the Amplified Version of the Bible - with headphones plugged into the Word of God). 

Musically, the 2nd Chapter of Acts was a true original. People have struggled to find ways to adequately and accurately describe their sound. In the Billboard Guide to Contemporary Christian Music, Barry Alfonso says their songs were "an unlikely hybrid of old-fashioned hymnody, 1970s-era hard rock, and American theater music." In his Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, author Mark Allan Powell said the group had a "completely unique sound and the native talent to outshine all secular competitors." Powell lists a few mainstream acts to which 2nd Chapter is often compared...but acknowledges that the 2nd Chapter of Acts had "a more consistent songwriter, stronger vocals, and...tighter harmonies" than any of those other bands.

The harmonies...oh my goodness. After all, they were siblings, and that definitely came into play. But add to that a charismatic focus on the anointing of the Holy Spirit and, well...it's no wonder secular groups just couldn't quite compare. One reviewer for CCM magazine said that listening to the 2nd Chapter was "like hearing the angels themselves." 

They were pioneers, but were unaware that they were pioneering anything at the time. They were unconventional, sometimes running afoul of expected norms from concert promoters and magazine publishers. They were just doing whatever God told them to do. Literally.

The aforementioned Start Every Day With a Smile begins the album with simple lyrics that sound almost like something Annie Herring might say to another person during a conversation:

Start every day with a smile in your heart

and you'll never part

from the Good News you will hear in your ear

falling from the cross.

It's so easy to pretend we're not coming to the end of the world,

I know that it's so easy, I've been there too, like you.

That's it. A lot of Annie's lyrics were like that. Very poetic, veering off in unexpected directions, but expressing spiritual ideas and saying things in a totally different way, with a fresh vision. I recently bought a devotional book that she wrote. She writes books the same way she wrote songs. Full of wonder and mystery, and sometimes you are not always sure exactly what she means, but your spirit understands (if that makes any sense).

Yaweh is the only song on the record that is not at least co-written by someone named Herring or Ward. Jesse Cosio wrote this song, a hard-rocking gem that allowed young Matthew Ward's incredible voice and Phil Keaggy's considerable guitar prowess to really shine. The group's debut album also contained a hard rock track that featured Matthew, but reviewer Mark Allan Powell says, "Yaweh does The Devil's Lost Again bit one better."

 

I suppose I should mention at this point that Matthew Ward (still a teenager at the time of this recording) always possessed not only an amazing vocal range, but also an other-worldly level of vocal control. This was decades before vocal "runs" became ubiquitous in pop music. Matthew's ability to improvise and sing crazy runs with an amazing degree of control was, well, just a joy to listen to - from the earliest days of the 2nd Chapter, through his CCM solo albums, as well as his foray into worship music...and still to this day.  [By the way, I'm no Old Testament scholar...but a lot of people spell the name of this song, which is also a name for God, Y-a-h-w-e-h. In fact, I think the Bible itself uses that spelling, as well as the ITVOTB lyric sheet. But the album cover and songbook sheet music spell it Y-a-w-e-h. I just thought that was interesting.]

The next two songs on the album use the imagery of nature, weather and seasons to express a deep longing for God's abiding presence. Something Tells Me is a ballad with a fairly complex arrangement. When the trio sings, "Something tells me it's time to go..." at the end of the song, they hold the note in perfect, unwavering 3-part harmony for what feels like a very long time while the band continues to run through its chord changes. This was long before the days of Pro Tools, digital recording tricks and autotune, folks. In other words, these three could sing. In an interview with Brian Mason, Matthew Ward revealed that The Grey Song was the only song the group ever recorded perfectly, from beginning to end. "We didn't have to fix anything," Matthew said. "All three of us. It almost had a kind of country-ish vibe to it. It's a cool song." 

"I always enjoyed that tune because it came so easy, I guess," Ward said with a smile. "I love things that aren't hard!"

A soft Fender Rhodes (don't you miss those?) signals the start of a testimony anthem called Now That I Belong To You. This one goes through different musical movements, with instrumentals that sound for all the world like they have a horn section involved. Come to think of it, Yaweh also seemed to have horns. As does Hey, Whatcha Say. But there are no horns listed in the album's credits! My guess would be that the "horns" I'm hearing were actually supplied by synthesizers. Perhaps? 

Next up, it's a Scripture song solo from young Matthew. He and keyboardist Richard Souther co-wrote the music for this one, titled Ps. 63. Souther was the pianist for A Band Called David, a group of spiritually like-minded musicians from the church that Acts attended - Jack Hayford's Church On The Way. Thus began a tradition of sorts - Matthew and Richard teaming up to write a Scripture song from the Psalms. In addition to Psalm 63 on this record, the two also collaborated on Psalm 61 for a live album in 1977 called How the West Was One, and Psalm 93 for the studio album Mansion Builder in 1978. Souther would go on to become a successful instrumentalist and songwriter, under both the names Richard Souther and Douglas Trowbridge.

"Annie the Poet" shines again on Prince Song, a very popular track that borrows language and imagery from classic fairy tales...

I've got a brand new story though you've heard it a time or two

about a prince who kissed a girl right out of the blue

Hey, this story ain't no tale to me now

for the Prince of Peace has given me life somehow

You know what I mean

My sleep is over, I've been touched by His fire

that burns from His eyes and lifts me higher and higher

I'll live forever with Him right by my side

He's coming again, on a white horse He'll ride

He'll clothe me and crown me and He'll make me His bride

You know what I mean

[By the way, Annie the Poet is a name that Michael Omartian gave to Annie Herring in a song on his 1976 album, Adam Again.] 

And so ends Side One of In the Volume of the Book.

Buck Herring

ITVOTB was of course produced and engineered by Buck Herring (as were, I believe, every 2nd Chapter of Acts album ever recorded). It would seem that Buck's right-hand man on this project was the multi-talented Michael Omartian - or Omar, as Buck calls him. Omartian arranged the songs and played keyboards (Aarpvark synthesizer/organ/piano) and percussion. "Michael gave of himself to us beyond measure," Buck Herring told Brian Mason in a 2022 interview for YouTube. "There wouldn't be enough money in the world for me to pay Michael for his contributions to the 2nd Chapter of Acts and to our music ministry over the years. Our relationship with Michael goes a hundred miles deep, a hundred miles wide, and a hundred miles high."

Michael Omartian & wife Stormie

Buck Herring's music industry connections paid off as he brought in top-notch studio "cats" and session players who had already played with - or went on to play with - some of the biggest names in mainstream entertainment. In addition to the aforementioned Phil Keaggy on lead guitar, Herring brought in drummer David Kemper (Glen Campbell, Linda Ronstadt, Olivia Newton-John and more); bassist Emory Gordon, Jr. (Elvis Presley, Neil Diamond, John Denver and more); bassist David Hungate (Boz Skaggs, Dolly Parton, member of Toto); guitarist Jay Graydon (Joe Cocker, Aretha Franklin, Donna Summer and more); guitarist Larry Rolando (Seals and Crofts, Vicki Lawrence, Art Garfunkel); organist Danny Timms (Edie Brickell & the New Bohemians, Bonnie Raitt, Los Lobos and more); and bassist Michael Been (who went on to form The Call). Annie Herring also played some piano and percussion on ITVOTB. 

On the group's debut album, cover photos were used sparingly. Not so on In the Volume of the Book. There were lots of pics - two photos blended one over the other on the front, and seven pictures on the back cover. The photography credit went to Joel Strasser.

Side two begins with a beautiful worship song that has stood the test of time. Morning Comes When You Call is a reverent plea for God's presence...a tender yet powerful acknowledgement of our need for Him:

I need Your hand to guide me

Every step along the way

I need Your arms to hold me

I need Your love to fall down fresh upon me every day

I need You here beside me

Here again, we see the theme of days, seasons and nature...

Morning comes when You call... Evening comes when You call... 

All nature listens to You, 'cause You hold it all... 

The grass withers, the flowers fade, but Your Word lives forever... 

The whitest lily becomes your shade...

Borrowed Time is a quirky little tune, a little different from the rest of the album. To me, it's sort of a companion piece to Good News from the first album, With Footnotes. Good News was a heavier rock song, but it was highly evangelistic and aimed to share Jesus with people "out there" who were distracted by TV, war and killing. Well, Borrowed Time is also an evangelistic song that aims to share Jesus with a dark and despairing world of people who are worried about what tomorrow may bring and concerned with what they're going to eat, how much money to borrow and all the bills they have to pay. Annie says they're not living on Eastern or Pacific, but on borrowed time. 

If I could only share one song with a person who'd never heard the 2nd Chapter, you know, as a good representation of the group's work...I could do a lot worse than Last Day of My Life. It checks a lot of boxes. The close, smooth, sibling harmony...Matthew's rock and roll pipes...incredible dynamics and passionate lyrical poetry. By the way, Last Day... is also a highly evangelistic song, making it and Borrowed Time a powerful one-two punch for the listener who's on the fence about this Jesus guy.

The rhythmic, uptempo Hey, Whatcha Say is a simple song, lyrically. It's all about seeing, hearing and feeling God. Here in the YouTube age, there's no shortage of videos from reformed cessationists who are apparently very upset that people actually believe that they a) literally hear God speak to them and b) feel His presence during worship or just as they go through their daily lives. Well, the members of the 2nd Chapter of Acts have never shied away for an instant from their belief in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They attended an Assembly of God church for a while during the early days of their Christian walk in California, then transitioned to Pastor Jack Hayford's Church on the Way, a well-known Pentecostal/Charismatic fellowship. They have recounted miracles and supernatural acts of God in books and numerous interviews, without apology. They really meant it when they sang to the Lord:

Hey, whatcha say to me

I've never heard words like that before

Oh, what You let me see

I've never seen things like that before

Oh, what they do to me

I've never felt feelings like that before, no

I've never felt feelings like that before!

Hey, Whatcha Say gives Phil Keaggy a chance to deliver a couple of blistering electric lead solos. And he does not disappoint.

Phil shines again (for lack of a better word) in Keep On Shinin'. In a 2022 interview with Brian Mason, Buck Herring tells a pretty amazing story regarding Keaggy's recording experience during the making of In the Volume of the Book.

"The first day, Omar was doing the arrangements," Herring recalled. "I had set everything up, the music stands and mics, all that stuff. They started running down the first song and Phil was just kind of sitting there, just looking at his music stand. And I thought, 'Oh, no. I've embarrassed him because he doesn't read music.' He got up, put his guitar down and came into the control room. He plopped himself down on the couch in front of the console and he said, 'I'll do my parts later.' So we recorded all of the tracks, and Phil hadn't played yet on any of them."

Phil Keaggy

Buck continues: "In my producing career, I always abhorred electric guitar overdubs because I'm not a musician, I could not tell them what to play; it was always a process of elimination. What do you hear? I hear this. I don't like that. And you would just keep going until you eventually landed on something you both liked. But I had to depend on them to really contribute because I couldn't guide them all that much. So now we had finished all of the tracks for In the Volume of the Book, and we had scratch vocals on everything. So it came time to do the electric guitar overdubs. I had no idea what was going to happen. I had never worked with Phil before. And a few days prior I had embarrassed him but putting him out there with all of these studio guys and exposing the fact that he couldn't read music. But sitting on the couch, listening while we laid down all the tracks, he had memorized all of them. There are thirteen songs on In the Volume of the Book. One take. One take on every single song on the album for guitar. There was only one internal punch on the whole album and that was in the middle of the guitar solo for Keep On Shining. Everything else was one take on the whole album. That was it."

Buck described it as, "The most amazing one take of my entire recording career."

Fittingly, Keep On Shinin' carries on the nature theme as Annie writes about morning, night, daybreak, and light, relating all of it, of course, to the closeness she desires with the Lord. 

ITVOTB wraps with I Can't Get Near You, a passionate song sung from the Lord to us. This one seems to be a solo by Annie. Ascribing words and thoughts to God in a song is sometimes a tricky thing...but here, it just works...

I can't get near you even though I died for you

I can't get through to you, even when those nails went through in pain

All I tried to explain is My love, all of My love that I long to give you

A love you can live through

A love that is free, perfectly free

To heal all your sorrows, for all your tomorrows

So open your heart

Here's a new start

I love you

After the group's 1974 debut With Footnotes took Christendom by storm, if ever there was a time for a so-called sophomore jinx, this was it. But it didn't happen. True, there was no Easter Song on this album. But there's only been one of those ever. And there wasn't a Which Way the Wind Blows on this record (although Morning Comes When You Call comes close). But taken collectively, as a project, this record is a beautifully recorded statement of continuing faith in 1975 by the 2nd Chapter of Acts. Oh - and it rocks. There was no drop-off. If anything, the relatively small group of folks known as Jesus freaks who were aware of this album in 1975 were not only thrilled with this record, but extremely excited about what the future held, based on this record. And they should have been. The group's output across the rest of the 1970s was prolific.

2nd Chapter of Acts with Barry McGuire

That same year, the 2nd Chapter hit the road with Barry McGuire, and a multi-disc, landmark live album was the result. The next year they took a C.S. Lewis book and turned it into a musical (though it was held up for a time due to copyright claims). In 1977, they hit the road with Phil Keaggy and another classic live set was released. After a move to Sparrow Records, the classic Mansion Builder LP was released in '78. And don't forget their involvement in musicals like Firewind and The Witness. 

The music styles and clothing styles changed somewhat in the eighties. But the 2nd Chapter rolled on, seeing lives changed and set free by the power of God - which was indeed their primary goal in all of this. They relocated to Texas along with their friend Keith Green and some other ministries, and later to Colorado. But as the business side of the music business began to take center stage, the 2nd Chapter grew less and less enchanted with what had come to be known as Contemporary Christian Music. They were sometimes viewed as being difficult by magazine publishers and festival promoters, because they wouldn't just go along and play the game. They always had a higher calling. 

By 1988 the group members felt God telling them that this chapter was drawing to a close. Time to come off the road and focus on family. Annie and Matthew also pursued solo ministries. We (I'll just go ahead and speak for everybody) were sad to see the group go, but oh so thankful for the rich legacy of music and ministry that they had left for us - music that continues to minister to this very day. They were originals. There's never been a group like them before or since. 

The focus of the 2nd Chapter of Acts was always...What do You want, Lord? What do You want from us? What would You have us say and share and do?  Looking back, you might say that the foundational verse for this album remained front and center for the members of the 2nd Chapter throughout their time of ministry together...

In the volume of the book it is written of me,

I delight to do Your will, O my God;

Yes, Your law is within my heart.

 

  

#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.