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Some notes on the album : It seemed to me that most of the tracks in
the "Crimson" (pop) section of the album did not receive the work and
attention they needed. This was in part Keaggy's attitude of really
wanting to do a full album of his 'blues' side. But part of the blame
must be laid with record company officials (who demanded "Crimson") and
Lynn Nichols of Chagall Guevara (who, to be candid, was way too nice to
Keaggy). Keaggy needs artistic challenges at this point in his
career. A skilled outside producer who knows how to treat a pop
guitar (Don Was, Jeff Lynne, even former Keaggy bandmate Doug Pinnick
of King's X) would help. Nichols didn't really drive him to do better.
The attitude has to be that no track is a knockoff, all are to be
done with care and joy. But it wasn't. Thus, while "Stone Eyes" came
off as a crisp chunk of pop with a grand jam at the end, "Love Divine"
came off as what it was, namely, cheapo filler that was a direct ripoff
of "All My Loving". A more challenging and attentive approach could
have made "Reunion Of Friends" a really super record in the manner of
Paul McCartney at his best; instead, it is good but slightly cloying in
a way typical of lesser McCartney. The cover of "When Will I Ever
Learn To Live In God" (Van Morrison, from *Avalon Sunset*) was too
slavish to the original for me, but remember that those who buy
Keaggy's records have probably never heard Van the Man's version, and
thus will find Keaggy's to be quite good, which it is.
Just about the only move that really clicked in "Crimson" is the new
(old) drummer; Sferra does a bang-up job, much more nuanced than
Chagall's Mike Mead bang-bang-banging on previous albums. That Sferra
has hardly drummed professionally in 15 years makes it all the more
remarkable. As usual, the parts of Keaggy's tunes don't match right; a
good exercise for Phil and some outside producer would be to try to
shuffle the solid pop pieces differently so that a refrain is matched
with a verse or a middle that it can flow into or out of. The result
would be a pack of great pop songs. Then he'd have the pop sales
breakthrough he could have had 12 years ago with *Ph'lip Side*.
Keaggy's point about the label not letting him do the album he wants
to do is a good one. Keaggy is at the stage in his career where he
shouldn't have to prove his salability to them. However, key to the
problem is Keaggy's lack of backbone. I suspect that he'd have gotten
more of what he wanted if he just went ahead and did it and handed it
to them and said, "here, this is what you're releasing, bye!". I
doubt they would have shelved it; I doubt they can really afford to,
since Word hasn't exactly been burning up the charts of late, and
top-drawer Keaggy has natural crossover potential written all over it.
Besides, the blues is more live-ish and less costly to produce when
done right.
The electric blues music, in a way, is almost like a teaser, saying,
"Phil can do this", but then giving buyers something else for the most
part. I don't think that tactic will go down well with audiences,
whereas the music certainly will. Keaggy isn't getting any younger,
and popular success has been within sight since '68 and has never quite
gotten there. He deserves at least one real solid all-out crack at it,
by maximizing him in a real way instead of in a commercial way. "Crimson
and Blue" ain't it. It probably will work, if it ever gets tried.
Unfortunately, it may never get tried, and that in a nutshell is what's
wrong with the music industry.
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(To set up for this, Word/Epic sent a ton of material. But they
didn't send the whole album, only the pop or 'Crimson' part, not the
'Blue' part. I have since received it, and it's quite good, but
remember that I didn't have it when the interview took place.)
RHL : Let's start with the "Crimson" part. It continues to draw
heavily from the Beatles.
PK : With this particular album, it might seem like it's heavy on that
side of it without your hearing the four remaining pieces on the album,
because that balances out the idea of the Beatle influence in there.
The original idea for this album, the kind of album I was going for, is
mostly represented in three of the last four songs. The song "Don't
Pass Me By", is quintessentially what I wanted the entire album to be
about almost entirely. But with the influence of the record company
and the A and R department wanted more pop-commercial songs to be the
main focus of the album. Because the other songs on the album have
more of a Glass Harp/Blind Faith/James Gang feel, a lot of jamming.
"John the Revelator" and "Doin' Nothin'" [both of which are 8 minutes
long] have extended endings of jams which make both those songs go on
and on. A lot of real live-in-the-studio stuff, and a lot of energy
between the band members, especially between me and the drummer John
Sferra, who was the drummer in Glass Harp. When you get the latter
part of the album, it makes the first part of the album more a tip of
the hat to the Beatles, not a main focus.
In that vein, there are several songs that came about in the same
evening. "Reunion Of Friends" was written first late last spring, and
that was a "Hello Goodbye"-ish song. Then after I wrote it, I played
it for my producer Lynn Nichols over the phone, and he said "That's
good, that'd be a good album song". And I told him, while I was on
this Beatle thing tonight, I always wanted to write a song that was
happy and upbeat like "All My Loving". And so I did. And do you
remember the song "Dr. Roberts"? A lot of that influenced "Stone
Eyes".
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RHL : The usual gang is there : the Chagall folks, Phil Madeira. But
there's one name on the album that grabs the attention of those of us
who recall Glass Harp --- John Sferra. What led to his involvement with this album?
PK : John and I have been friends since eighth grade, 1966.
(RHL note: as one can tell by the consummate ease Keaggy has in pronouncing
the Sf- consonant combination.) We played a lot through our teen years,
though in different bands, until we
formed Glass Harp in 1968 [with Dan Pecchio], and then together until
Glass Harp broke up in 1972. We stayed in touch over the years; he
visited me when I was up in Ithaca [NY], and then we did a Glass Harp
reunion in 1981 and again in 1987. Then, while keeping in touch, we
thought it would be great if we could play together after all these
years, so he came to visit and then rehearse, and I thought it would be
great if John could play on at least a few tracks on this new album and
he ended up being perfect for the whole project. We have a great deal
in common, perhaps more than ever.
[RHL note : One of my own faves from the early '70s, before I knew
anything of Christian Contemp, was a single of Glass Harp's written by John
Sferra, "Just Always"; Keaggy's "The Answer", which presaged the sound
of the future *What A Day* album, was the flip. To you collectors :
it's Decca 32915, the single released from the Synergy album.]
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RHL : Out of the "Crimson" songs, the one that'll probably be getting
the most airplay around here [WUSB-FM] is "Stone Eyes". Could you tell
us something about that? It reminded me a lot of the material from
the *Sunday's Child* album.
PK : Yeah, that "Big Eraser", "Somebody Loves You" kind of
feeling. It has a long ending, so you can, of course, fade it wherever you
want...
RHL : No, we don't mess with that kind of thing, we want the listener
to get every last drop...
PK : The music was by Lynn and I, and Phil Madeira and I did
the words. Phil's the [Hammond] B-3 player on the album, and he also sang on it.
The song paints the picture of Moses coming down the mountain with the
tablets, and the chisel cuts the stone, the Word of God grafted upon
the stone, and then it carries into the idea of the word being passed
to us today on paper, pencil on a page. The idea is that the Lord has
made His ways known to us. Unless we open our eyes willfully, and ask
God to heal our eyes, our minds, we won't be able to understand or
perceive or have any kind of knowledge as to how to live life. How can
we see through stone eyes? We're all blind, spiritually, unless we ask
God to open our eyes.
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RHL : What about "Nothing But the Blood" ?
PK : It was an afterthought or coda that I put into the album.
All the tracks were recorded, and I had just [gone] downstairs, got my
guitar and my amp, in front of a small DAT machine, and recorded it.
It's a really solitary thing. The guitar is a sort of Hendrixy, Stevie
Ray Vaughanish liquidy Strat sound, with a simple rendition of the
[Robert Lowry] hymn "Nothing But the Blood", the first verse chorus of
that. I thought that it would be an apt conclusion for what this whole
album is about, because the previous song "Doin' Nothin'" is a comment
on the entertainment industry, primarily television, because there is a
dire lack of moral contribution in what we're taking in. But in the
final analysis, what really does affect our lives for good and for
change is a relationship with God through what Jesus did for us. And
that's why the album concludes with a very quiet, but very electric,
rendition of the hymn.
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RHL : You also cover a Van Morrison song, "When Will I Ever Learn To
Live In God" (from Van's *Avalon Sunset* Lp), which slipped past most
of us a few years back.
PK : I'm a Van Morrison fan, and I really appreciate the kind
of music he does. That album *Avalon Sunset* has some wonderful songs on it, as
does his latest *Hymns To the Silence*. I like Van's earlier music as
well, *Astral Weeks* and *Moondance*, which were produced by the guy
who produced the Glass Harp albums, Lewis Merenstein. For people who
more than likely had not had the opportunity to hear Van's album, I
wanted them to hear it. I tried to do a version which was loyal to
its intent, and I think it came across pretty natural and honest, and
used his performance as a model for doing my best at interpreting it
myself. I think that the sound has a lot of great things to say; it
boils down to a simple message, yet the lyrics say a great deal, about
God influencing people in art and architecture and writing, and the
view of nature.
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RHL : This next question has nothing to do with the current album, but
I'm doing some other stuff on which this could be helpful.
What was it like for you, between the breakup of Glass Harp and your
first solo album, *What A Day*? What happened, and what did you do,
and what were you hoping to do?
PK : When I left the group in August of 1972, I think we were
playing on Long Island or somewhere out there on August 8. That was my last
concert with them. I just knew it was time for me to move on, and it
was quite painful for me to leave the group. It wasn't an overnight
decision; it was weighed carefully and considered thoroughly. I had
been considering leaving for some time. So when I did, I had no plans
to go into any other group situation; I thought it was just time for me
to kinda back off and a friend of mine, Peter York, we hung out a lot
together a lot and wrote some songs. We played at colleges and
churches and coffeehouses, but didn't make any plans. Then we did a
children's special at a TV station, on a motion picture sound studio,
for a public television special in November of 1972. And I met the
engineer there, and I said it would be great to just come into the
studio there and lay down some of the songs I had written over the past
year, including ones I wrote when I was with Glass Harp. So I went in
there January 1973, and there was a man Al Stevenson in Cleveland, who
I think worked for the Channel 25 station I was doing this with, and he
offered to help me out with the recording costs on the condition that I
paid him back. And the album *What A Day* cost $1800 to do, and I did
it within a week's time. So, the basic idea was to get out of the
group, get off the road, collect my thoughts, and find out what kind of
direction I was going to go with my life. [[ RHL note: remember : at
this time he wasn't yet 20, but Glass Harp had already toured the
country several times, had three major-label releases, had a small but growing cult
following, and were thought by some in the industry to be on the verge
of breaking through into the charts. Heady stuff. ]] Also, that
autumn, I became engaged to my wife Bernadette, and we made plans for
our life together. That was a good decision and a really big step for
our lives as well.
[[RHL note: The first song, "Shouts Of Joy", is a throwback to the
early-'70s youth folk services that dotted the nation at that time, and notably
upstate New York and Pennsylvania, where Keaggy spent much of his time.
They would be armed with Ray Repp songs such as "Come Away" and
"Alleluia"; this song credits Repp for much of the lyric and captures
some of the feel these songs created, though really a more 'naked'
acoustic musical approach would've sounded better.]]
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RHL : You seem to go back and forth between electric rock and
mellow-ish acoustic music. Why is this?
PK : It's because I've always enjoyed a great variety in music.
there's still that capacity in me to be a band player, but my own
concerts are almost always solo, on the acoustic guitar. So,
oftentimes, instead of working things out at home on an amp, I'm
sitting around at home with my acoustic guitar. And that's how *Beyond
Nature* came about; there were this little group of songs that I wanted
to go into the studio to put down ina very simple sense, an expression
of what's inside of me, the alternate tunings, finger picking, a touch
of this and a hint of that. Folk, a touch of classical, a touch of
Celtic. And then when it comes to the vocal album, I want to do
something that captures what I did in the past with Lynn [*Sunday's
Child*], and then what I did in the past with John [Glass Harp]. What
we've done in the late '80s - early '90s is band music. As muchas I'm
a soloist, I have a lot of good memories of what it feels like to be a
band member, and to do something with other players. There are people
out there who've been really waiting for me to kick out the jambs, and
I did, and I hope you'll soon be able to hear what I'm talking about.
There's also a maxi-single [EP] coming out called "Revelator", in which
John and I do a thirteen-minute jam, just drums and guitar. It's
called "The Further Adventures Of...", kinda like "David and Goliath"
on the third Glass Harp album. It was all spontaneous; we didn't even
discuss what we were going to do. We just kinda picked up our
instruments and just ran with it.
RHL : You're generally known for your guitar playing, in part because
you're good at it, in part because of hype, and in part because those
who catch you live can see very quickly how much you love playing
guitar. And you're no slouch in the art of singing, either. But your
lyrics haven't received as much attention. Why do you think that's
so?
PK : I'm not known as a lyricist; that's not my strong suit,
really. If you listen to a lot of guitar players who've devoted a lot of their
time and energy into playing, many times these people are not really
good lyricists. There are exceptions : Bruce Cockburn, Eric Clapton.
But there are a lot of geniuses on guitar -- of which I don't consider
myself -- like Alan Holdsworth or Pat Metheny -- you don't hear them
singing. I try to balance things out, because I do like singing, and I
do like saying something in my songs. But I think a lot of artists
who are songwriters, they spend a lot of time painstakingly putting
together their lyrics, crafting them in a very artistic way. I've had
some songs that are very simple in the way they're brought across, and
then there are songs that I've devoted more time to, and trying to
craft how to sing the song. But it's my songwriting that's given me
the opportunity to keep working and keep making albums that you can
listen to over and over again. I want to make music for everyday
people; I don't want to make albums just for musicians. I think if you
try to make albums just for musicians' tastes, there's more pressure to
make it more technical. A song needs to really live, whereas
sometimes an incredible technical album will appeal to a smaller number
of people, and so, I try to be what I am, and I don't do a whole lot of
analyzing of it, either.
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RHL : "Don't Pass Me By".
PK : It was written with more of a rock edge, it has kind of a
folk thing in it that goes on that's just a bit more aggressive. John's
drumming was especially good on that one. The lyrics are making us
more aware of those who are suffering in poverty and living in want and
need. People who are are suffering. And it makes us aware of those
who have dedicated their lives to serving others. So the song is about
compassion, and I wrote the song with Compassion International in mind.
I've been to Third World countries several times; I've returned
within the past week from Ecuador [[[RHL : which delayed this interview
till the deadline date; of course, I got an extension]]], visiting the
school projects, and going into the homes of those in dire poverty, yet
seeing the difference we can make. That's an area of concern I've had
for some time now. It's in the lyrics :
"But I believe that we could change At least the world of just one life True love has a different face No place for condescending pride Giving ourselves to those who need That's how it really ought to be."
RHL : Not to make you sound old, Phil, but you've been at this
Christian music stuff for twenty years. Has what you're aiming to do
with this music changed over the years, and if so, how?
PK: I always come back to the main theme, that God loves people
and that He want a relationship with people, and no matter where they are
in their life, that there is a living God who cares, and he has invited
us to be a part of His plan. Not that we can sit back and watch Him
do what He does, because He chooses to use us in the task of doing it,
to be an extension of His heart for other people, so we don't live in
an isolated world, that we keep our eyes open and our hearts tender
toward those who need to hear the good news, because the Gospel is
life-changing news, and it means not just believing but doing. That's
run through all the albums I've done. I also sing about a man's love
for a woman, and on many of my albums I've written songs to my wife, or
for my children, reinforcing family and a traditional view of what
family is about, because I'm into tradition, and carrying on the
tradition my mother and father had in raising us, and I hope to see
that in my own children.
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RHL : Anything you want to share that's on your heart right now?
PK : I've known the Lord 23 years since I became a Christian.
Knowing the Lord all these years doesn't solve all the problems, doesn't
provide all the answers. There's no simplistic way. As it says in the
Scriptures, we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling
(Philippians 2:12-13). And sometimes it comes down to that. We
still need to deal with fear, we still tremble at the idea of what
we're all about. The world we live in, this world is a fallen world.
But we can make a difference in the lives that we personally meet
day-to-day, and also through prayer. And yet, the Lord called us not
only to a humility to walk before him, but an honesty as well. And I
can admit that I've never arrived at living up to the ideals I set for
myself when I first started out. But I have the Lord on my side, and
we all do. If we take hold of His hand and hold His word in our
heart, He will give us the grace and the strength to be all we can be,
while we can, and to walk in his light. As is said in Micah [6:8] :
"He has told you, O man, what is good/ and what does the LORD require
of you/ but to do justice, to love mercy/ and to walk humbly with your
God".
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