First things first: yes, it is possible that there could be fifty albums from Contemporary Christian Music worth the time of the average music fan. The classification is one I use begrudgingly, only because that’s how this music has been categorized all these years and it’s the simplest reference point for the layperson. In reality, there are many artists of the Christian faith that made good music for the sake of making good music and, concurrently, to profess beliefs. Don’t make me get Rev. Al Green on you to prove it.

The biggest problem is that CCM also has a tendency for lack of subtlety, a major penchant for wrapping up complex situations in bumper sticker theologies, for sometimes being painfully ignorant of the sufferings and circumstances of the people of the world and most grievous of all, for not being artistic at all. Rather, large numbers of the performers in the medium found a sound that was popular with “the kids” and hung a ton of Jesus talk on it. That’s how you wind up with so much pop-metal in the 1980’s sonically aping Def Leppard while espousing “Serve Christ today.” Initially, you went along with it because you were making the transition from rock kid to church kid and a little guitar is better than none at all. But after some time, you could see cracks in the edifice. The music could have been anything – it was just, for some, the shelf for a type of rhetoric.

But to be fair, George Harrison mistakenly (?) co-opted The Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” and recorded “My Sweet Lord”, so put them stones down, folks.

One tends to find that the best is a lot more open to personal revelation, the artists being a lot more confessional than professional. In the end, the better CCM releases don’t request we deny we’re the humans we are, when the Bible has already laid out that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but expresses that we’re all prone to our failings, and just maybe, there’s another way to consider. There is often a strong singer/songwriter component at work and you’ll find that cropping up again and again during this countdown.

I cannot take full credit for this mini-series, as it was inspired by my friend David Lowman whose countdown blog can be found here. I also cannot promise a weekly presence with this column – let’s call it a monthly edition and hope I don’t break my fingers on a rusty keyboard or something.

The last word on the subject comes from one of the wisest spokespeople on it. When confronted with the accusation that she had turned away from the Lord’s music, Mavis Staples replied, “It’s all the Lord’s music. The devil don’t have any music!” Are you going to argue with Miss Mavis’ authority on the subject? I think not. And with that, let’s begin.

50. Petra – More Power To Ya (1982) We start out with probably the most overt and pointedly typical of CCM bands in terms of the common perception. Petra was the biggest Christian rock band in the world, and they were never subtle about their message, and so there was zero chance they were going to break out into the mainstream. Also, there was a tendency with them to use rather jingoistic metaphors in their songs, a constant barrage of God’s army and Christian soldiers and going to war – Two big problems with this is that it totally neglects how much of Jesus’ teachings are rooted in pacifism, if the whole “turn the other cheek” tack is to be accepted. Also, in 2010, songs about waging holy wars just seem to be in incredibly bad taste.

But in 1982, despite some of these handicaps, Petra made some recordings that are worth noting. More Power To Ya manages to present moments that really speak to the listener versus being merely a tract with a backbeat. “Judas Kiss” reckons the common betrayals we all fall into each day, if not in your estimation to a God or savior, then to things we know aren’t right yet do nonetheless. If God is within us and we do what we know to be wrong, yet what is the most expedient, it’s a betrayal regardless, either to that God or to the better self we should be searching for.

“Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows” is the second most controversial song the band did because it dared to ask the church to be honest with itself, not to fall on the simple sword of believing all within is always right or acceptable. It didn’t raise the ire like the track “Hollow Eyes” from the album Beat The System (1985) which was an unflinching look at the starving children in Africa, as well as a challenge to do something about it. The radio stations that played the song were inundated with complaints wondering how Petra could record something so ugly and so directly confrontational. Sadly, it was the exact mentality “Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows” was warning about. Even worse, the band never recorded something so challenging again, a black mark on their collective career.

The harmonies found on “Road To Zion” are gorgeous, and even if you can only go as far as Paul Simon’s “Loves Me Like A Rock” as far as gospelizin’ is concerned, you have to tip your hat to the overall sound of the track.

Fun Fact: Greg X. Volz, lead singer from 1977 to 1986, was on the horns of a dilemma before joining Petra. Another band was looking to hire him on as vocalist. Ultimately, he felt called to express his faith and R.E.O. Speedwagon had to go with Kevin Cronin instead.

49. Phil Keaggy and Sunday’s Child (1988) There are tons of urban legends involving Phil Keaggy, most of them are false. What is true is that he is one of the most phenomenal guitarists of all time and, yes, he does it without the benefit of having the middle finger on his right hand. I do not advise to those seeking to become guitar heroes any sort of amputations. Another true fact is that the album Phil Keaggy and Sunday’s Child is one of the greatest power pop albums you’ve never heard.

Featuring a supergroup who’s who of CCM stars (in short order, Randy Stonehill, Rick Cua, Russ Taff, Mark Heard and Derri Daugherty from The Choir) the task was to make an album that felt like a great, lost jangle pop offering from the 1960’s and expense was not spared. A Ringo Starr drumkit was brought in for as much the mojo as the sound it emitted. Heard contributes two songs, “Everything Is Alright” and “I Always Do” while Stonehill adds vocals to “Sunday’s Child” and “Ain’t Got No”. Keaggy shines on the dreamy, romantic “Blessed Be The Ties” and the closing “Talk About Suffering”, providing an incredible arrangement for the traditional gospel track.

If the world was a more tolerant place, the opening track “Tell Me How You Feel” would have been a hit. It’s a perfect little pop song with mucho chorus begging to be sung along with. Expect to be reacquainted with most of the names mentioned above. We will be visiting them again.

For more on the story: You think I’m pulling your chain on how good this album is? No less an authority on what makes good pop, our very own Will Harris spoke to Keaggy about this album in his Hooks ‘n You column. You can find it here

48. Vector – Please Stand By (1985) The second release by Vector found bassist/vocalist Steve Griffith, guitarist Jimmy Abegg and future 77’s drummer Bruce Spencer moving toward an aggressive synth-pop sound and the change worked well. Featuring big hooks, but not forsaking a handful of nice, biting guitar licks, Please Stand By wasn’t mimicking the sound of the times as much as it was walking in lockstep with it, a very big difference there.

The album had a few prominent tracks that could have made it on the charts, like “I Can’t Help Falling In Love” which was mixed by former Police producer Nigel Gray for that exact purpose, although it didn’t work out that way. During this period, Word Inc., the parent company of several subsidiaries in the CCM marketplace, and A&M Records were in business for crossover appeal. One artist benefited from the arrangement (Amy Grant) while the rest languished in anonymity (The 77’s, Vector, even Petra had a few A&M co-releases.) What resulted in many of these situations was that the bands got a little more clever with their message, not forsaking it entirely, but finding ways of working with metaphor and subtext. While a few of these groups couldn’t make that topicality work in their favor, Vector could and did.

“Running To The Memory Of You” has a great blend of synth and guitar while “How Many Times” almost sounds like an ’80s version of a ’50s tune. During this time period, any band that leaned on the keyboards for their primary sound got smacked with the description “ethereal” and yet, the closing track “Scottish Coast” is exactly that until it morphs into a moody electrobeat tune even Giorgio Moroder would be proud to own.

Vector would release two more albums, Simple Experience and Temptation, but they were never able to rise up from the trap of the myopic CCM marketplace. At least they were able to leave a handful of very good albums behind.

Fun fact: Guitarist Jimmy Abegg has passed his love of music on to his children, most notably Jemina Pearl, lead singer of the now defunct band Be Your Own Pet.

47. Resurrection Band – Mommy Don’t Love Daddy Anymore (1981) There is one thing you can say about most of the early Christian rock bands, and that is that they were sincere in their pursuits. Their charge, to spread the Word, was genuine and the best of them did it with a real passion. The problem is that just as many didn’t walk the talk. Not so with Resurrection Band. Coming out of Chicago with the Jesus People USA (JPUSA) Outreach, and forming from the seeds of the earliest of the commune-cum-church organizations of the late ’60s and early ’70s, they ministered in the fullest sense to people coming off the mean streets. Often, those hard stories worked their way into the music of the Rez Band.

Here was a group that played a fired-up brand of hard rock, as potent on a good day as AC/DC, stemming from the soil of the blues. You get those blues on “The Crossing” and the thrashing “Alienated” has lead singer Glenn Kaiser doing a call-and-response with the band. Once again, though, it is that sincerity of purpose that comes through. Rez Band is not there to make money and, frankly, if someone wrote to them and said they needed something to lift them up, the band often just sent things away free of charge. That sincerity is found on the title cut, seen through the eyes of a child whose family is disintegrating. There are no promises of quick fixes, or the expected sleight-of-hand where, if the child prays hard enough, everything’s coming back together. This family is through, no matter what, but what about the child?

While I’m not insinuating that those in modern CCM do not have the desire to make things better, I am saying that as a marketable product, CCM is far more lucrative than it once was. Kaiser and the rest of the Rez Band were in it for the love, and the bankbook be damned. Even if you can’t stand your Jesus music, you have to admit that’s a refreshing stance. Kaiser has been involved with his blues-rock group the Glenn Kaiser Band for much more than a decade now. It is unlikely we’ll see Rez Band again anytime soon, but it is gratifying to know that, even though the band is no more, the spirit behind it lives on today through the actions and outreach of the continuing JPUSA organization.

For more on the story: To get more background on Rez Band and Glenn Kaiser, I spoke to the man himself. The following is part of the transcript.

On Mommy Don’t Love Daddy Anymore: The band was going through a transition from the hard-rock/blues sound to a more synth-oriented one. Was there any difficulty making that transition?

GK- At the time I wasn’t happy with most of the songs I was coming up with. We had in Jim (Denton) and Stu (Heiss), two great keyboard players in the band, I personally liked Jim’s songs far better than what I was coming up with at the time, and the relevancy of synth/digital sounds at that point in rock ‘n roll all led us to go that route. Some fans loved it, some hated it and some just rolled along with REZ as they always had. The transition seemed a logical progression at that point, so no, not difficult, rather practical and even freeing.

On the song “The Chair”, the voice of the piece is of someone who is confined to a wheelchair and feels marginalized by the world. How did this come about and was it written with an actual person in mind?

GK- I wrote “The Chair” based on a person I met at the end of a show one night. The band always hung out after the set, spread around the room. I sat on the stage, and it had been a large audience with maybe 200 people waiting to do the meet & greet. But me sitting on the stage and all these people up front meant I couldn’t see him as he was down in his wheelchair, or I’d have had him come up right away. Some folks have diseases that really tire them you know… but I never saw him until an hour had passed and there he was behind the last twenty people or so! He was a very educated guy, severe disabilities and my heart so went out to him in terms of friends, marriage, even people wanting to be around him and considering what a cross this was for him to bear. That’s what inspired the song.

46. Undercover – Devotion (1992) At the dawn of the Alt Rock revolution of the ’90s, a lot of new musical freedoms were being allotted to bands both new and established. Some did well and some, well, didn’t. Undercover took to them like ducks to water. Originally the first punk band to come out of the CCM gate, Undercover morphed into a type of goth rock (Branded), hard rock (Balance Of Power) and ultimately on Devotion, a heavy yet undeniably funky rock. Lead vocalist Sim Wilson was given plenty of room to stalk. Bass, keyboardist and primary songwriter Joe (Ojo) Taylor seemed freed up from the expectations of what the band had to be.

With that freedom, Taylor could be non-specific, allowing the listener to fill in the spaces with their own experiences. Yet in the times he was specific, it mattered big time. The album closing “So Wonderful” is an ode to one who’s walk has ended and has gone to their reward. Musically, it builds from one instrument to the next, and the next, until the full band kicks into this incredibly vital and celebratory rock ‘n roll victory lap. That freedom also is carried in the title track wherein a young person sees the situation she is in is false, and her clarity is disregarded because she’s “just a kid.” The song has an agitated rage inside it, as we all have as young people who can’t get our point across, ignored because of our place in the chronology. Midway through the song, the beat drops down, guitarist Gym Nicholson and drummer Gary Dean Olson provide a bed that could almost be considered shamanistic. Wilson starts a chant: “Raise your hands, it’s time to fly, people – raise your hands, it’s time to fly…” The beat creeps back up to the original BPM with a cathartic sense of release.

And on top of all that, it sounds awesome when played very, very loudly.

45. Ric Alba – Holes In The Floor Of Heaven (1991) The bassist for the punk band Altar Boys, Ric Alba, arrived with a solo record that shocked many, some for appropriate reasons, some for inappropriate ones, and still others who claimed to live lives of peace and understanding and wound up displaying anything but those values. The biases have very little to do with the music itself, unless the listener was expecting more of the Altar Boys’ gut level sonic energy. Instead, Holes In The Floor Of Heaven has a shimmering, ’80s-ish Brit-rock vibe, reminiscent of The Cure, The Psychedelic Furs and it is hard to see how the album could be refused by a rock fan, regardless of the tonality of the guitars.

Recorded for Glasshouse Records, the first stab at a label from The Choir’s Steve Hindalong and Derri Daugherty, Holes finds Alba an astute lyricist, able to mix metaphor into a doomy, chugging track like “Laughter”, which is chronicled through the eyes of a frightened child. The title track alludes to the stars in the sky being as “holes in the floor of heaven,” long before Steve Wariner used the term. The standout track for me is “Under Lock And Chain” which is a cry for revelation and release while, at the same time, the soul is burdened by mortality and the traps of this temporal thing of being. “Here, the stars You set so high, like holes punched in the sky, but they seem so far away – I could never reach them anyway, my heart still remains under lock and chain…”

It is more how Alba sings the lines that gets to the listener, almost exasperated, almost anguished. It is how, I imagine, everyone feels to an extent, trapped in a state far less than glorious but not for the lack of wanting. It is also a cry to live a free and honest life without the outright hatred that can be levied at some for doing so. I’ve always been a fan of the album, ever since its release, but there is something more brave about it than I knew then. This was as good a time as any to investigate.

For more on the story: I contacted Ric Alba about Holes In The Floor Of Heaven.

Holes In The Floor Of Heaven was quite unlike the stuff you were doing with the Altar Boys, sort of a goth-pop vibe nearer to the Cure than punk. Were you concerned, going in, that the change wasn’t going to settle well with the audience, or did you just feel compelled to express yourself in that manner?

RA – I let the overall tone and style go where it would. During playback I realized more and more who it sounded like. The truth is I’d never bought a Cure album, though I liked most of what they had on radio. Our vocal chords happen to have inexplicably identical DNA for certain ranges. I have the same thing with that Psychedelic Furs fellow in lower ranges. Things go bad when I fight it too hard. I never wanted to be a lead singer so it didn’t matter up to that point. But these were the kinds of songs that seemed to need to be delivered by the writer. So I plowed through it, Cure, Fur, and all.
“Under Lock and Chain” should have been huge, and yet if you didn’t pick up the CD, you would never have even heard it. Is the CCM subset too constrictive, in your opinion, for artists?

RA – There was some play for “Truly Helpless,” and a video for “Pretty Blue Things.” I suppose “Under Lock and Chain” might have gotten a turn, thank you for that. But the whole gay/church controversy hit me directly (as a gay man just coming to terms), just after the album came out, and a successful tour of Christian venues was unlikely for me in 1991. As for constriction, I suppose when talking styles of music, room is found for everyone. But when an industry is part of the world of evangelicalism, yes, there are the same restrictions on entry as an artist in that industry that there are for entry into the Kingdom of God. People use the same list of who shall not be permitted.

The album was recorded for Glasshouse, which if my understanding is correct was the first shot for the guys in The Choir (Hindalong & Daugherty) at a boutique label. Did it help to have them in that capacity versus the usual labels of the time?

RA – I wouldn’t have recorded for anyone else. Well maybe that label Madonna is on, but Derri and Steve called me first. I didn’t sell myself well at Frontline. There was talk among friends about other labels, but my overall impression was that all the established labels were wanting us to spoon-feed the milk of the Word to their target audiences. Nothing controversial. Derri and Steve got hold of my demo thanks to a couple of friends, Bert Moeller and Drew Jaya (who later co-fronted Chef’s Hat Boxing with me). I knew the thing wouldn’t get wrecked by the industry with Derri and Steve as a buffer. We were band-guys from the same era and realm of experience, including the unspoken resistance to having the work we felt compelled to do get messed up by corporate, or socio-religious pressure.

Ric Alba Under Lock and Chain

44. This Train – You’re Soaking In It (1995) Punk had been done in CCM. Head dude in This Train, Mark Robertson, had (briefly) been in Altar Boys after all, one of the premiere Jesus punkers of the day. Cowpunk/rockabilly popped in occasionally as well, but almost always as a tonal lark for the practitioners. This Train, however, was not messing around. Witness the opening track of You’re Soaking In It, a much-maligned little ditty called “Baby Baby” – only this time, the band is dancing on the amps like it is an electric hoedown and Robertson and Beki Hemingway are diving into it like John Doe and Exene Cervenka. Tepid? Hardly.

They also had a sense of humor about themselves which shines through on the trailer-park ode to love called “Monstertruck,” the kiss-off-with-a-smile “That’s Ex-Doormat To You” and the tribute to one Fred Rogers, “Every Word You Said.” Lest you think the band is merely a goof, “Fair Weather Friend,” “The Silence” and “We’ll Never Know” plumb the depths of real emotion and, sometimes, real uncertainty. The standout track, however, remains Hemingway’s contribution of “Mary Alice” which is seen through the eyes of a girl, tending to her sister and brother in a waiting van, as Mom and Dad go nuclear on each other inside the house. For such dire material, the power-pop tone and a hook-laden singalong of a chorus carries the listener through.

For more on the story: Mr. Robinson will be back later in the countdown, but for right now, I took a moment to ask Beki Hemingway about “Mary Alice” and its origins.

You brought that to the band, and it showed up on You’re Soaking In It. How long before that had the song been written?

BH – “Mary Alice” was probably written not long before, if not, during my time with This Train. It is actually very literal, except that my recollection of it as a 10 year old can’t be fair to the complexities of the divorce of my mother’s best friend and her husband.

The song recalls the perspective of children being shuttled away after their parents have a huge meltdown of a fight. Dare I ask if this has threads of autobiography in it?

BH – Their divorce came as a shock, since we were passing through their town on a family vacation and my parents popped in to surprise Mary Alice, one of Mom’s best friends, only to find her and her husband packing boxes for their split. It was the first time I had ever seen my mother uncontrollably crying.

By the time You’re Soaking In It came out, topics like this were becoming more accepted, whereas only a few years before it the song might have been considered too dark or negative for the CCM market. (I point out that Petra received a lot of flack for the brute honesty of “Hollow Eyes” from the Beat The System album, just to clarify my statement). Was there ever a question about going with the song for that reason or was it just immediately welcomed?

BH – I know that CCM has had its controversies and has come a long way, but it never occurred to me it would be a problem, and Mark immediately welcomed the idea of the song–if there was any question, it was about the musical fit.

I wasn’t worried about the CCM response because I didn’t know how or if it would be used. I just wrote it to work through my own thoughts as a newlywed getting used to the ups and downs of marriage. Later, when we were planning to use it on my first full-length solo cd, we met with Dana Key (at Ardent) and he said we were “too real for CCM.” I thought that was funny.

A couple of my own friends had left their husbands in the months before I wrote it, and as a result of my honest disapproval, never spoke to me again. I believe that often the secret to a long marriage is simple – STAY PUT! Some days I have felt just like they did, but I didn’t think the pursuit of my personal happiness in a given day, month, or year trumped my sacred vows of “better or worse.” The rewards of staying have been significant. We’re going on 20 years and I think Randy (Kerkman) is a pretty incredible person. I love him a lot–and a lot more each year.

Ultimately, I guess I saw the song as hopeful instead of dark because it is about choices–the choice to leave or stay, and perhaps a tribute to my parents’ example of a long, loving marriage with real life ups and downs.

43. Steve Taylor – On The Fritz (1985) They called him the “Clown Prince of Christian Music” which was true only in part. Yes, Steve Taylor employed lots of humor and perhaps a strong dose of sarcasm in his tunes, but by 1985 and On The Fritz, he was looking inward and not liking what he saw – churches as carnivals and hook-up joints, where the feel-good dogma superseded the real deal (“This Disco Used To Be A Cute Cathedral,”) politicians who trot out their faith for the voters approval but have little use for the values beyond stumping (“It’s A Personal Thing,”) and the brutally incisive “Lifeboat” where children are, as Rogers and Hammerstein once mused, carefully taught.

Taylor also rocked harder than he ever had on previous efforts. “You’ve Been Bought,” “Drive, He Said” which tells a tale of an encounter with Ol’ Scratch himself, and the title track where pride is just about to send it’s victim before the fall all go for broke. Sure, the synth edge of the previous album Meltdown remains, but the guitars wail and flail in grand style, the moods run deeper and the intentions run both close to the surface and under the skin.

Taylor was a favorite among the music fans of the time, but I often wonder how closely the listeners were listening. As the press was content to classify him that “clown prince,” did they know he was talking about them as well? How about those that twist and subvert the intents of the Bible for their own biases and gain (as on “I Manipulate” where the key line, sung in a stentorian, sinister manner, goes, “If you question what I’m teaching you, you rebel against the Father too.”) Taylor’s next album would be even more controversial in two ways, one in the way an obvious truth could be ignored, and the other for an altogether stupid reason. We’ll discuss that album later on.

Fun Fact: Taylor was always an all-inclusive artist, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when former Foreigner and King Crimson member Ian McDonald was discovered as co-producer of On The Fritz, but there it is.

42. Mortal – Fathom (1993) Industrial rage and Jesus music seem like an awful combination, and in the early 1990s, several attempts at the merger were just that – awful. Then came Mortal, led by Jyro Xhan and Jerome Fontamillas (now the bassist for crossover phenom Switchfoot) and the possibility of cranking up fiery, and sometimes scary, rock music was within reach. Originally a dance-synth-goth band Mortal Wish, Jyro and Jerome were fascinated by what synths could do, and how far they could go. They recognized the advances outside of CCM with Nine Inch Nails, Skinny Puppy and KMFDM, and the advances within with the raw, fierce power of groups like Scaterd Few. The “Wish” fell away and the new animal left behind was not afraid to bare it’s sharp, chrome teeth.

Fathom, their second record as Mortal, once again features Terry Taylor (of Daniel Amos) as producer, but the show is pretty much all Jyro and Jerome. Opening with the slam-dance of “Alive and Awake” and then barreling into “Neplusultra” with its techno-thrash, one could expect this to be a non-stop bullet train of a record, but then the duo throws gears. “Bright Wings” is a groove track, and Jyro’s harsh stompbox distorted vocals give way to a fantastic turn at the mic. The ballad “Jil Sent Me” points to the band’s next phase, the pop-rock hybrid Fold Zandura, and shows they are as capable of textured beauty and harmony as they are of rust, wires and the sound of Armageddon.

For The Record: I tried to get in contact with Jyro Xhan who, in recent years, moved on to a new band called Lucena. Their EP, Mercury Light, had been available only on iTunes, but it was only through stumbling and investigation that I found out about Jyro’s participation. I wanted to interview him for Popdose but, alas, all roads led nowhere.

Jyro, if you’re out there, you know where to find me. Let’s do this thing.

41. Starflyer 59 – Silver (1994) Speaking of Jerome and Jyro, they briefly formed a production unit called Blood. This is significant because Blood produced the first Starflyer 59 album we’ll call Silver, if only because the cover of it is silver (as the next album, Gold, is recognized as such by its color). As Mortal introduced undiluted industrial rock to the pew-bound youth, Starflyer 59 ushered in shoegaze, not unlike My Bloody Valentine or The Jesus and Mary Chain.

The primary member of the band, Jason Martin, has remained right up to 2010’s The Changing Of The Guard. Over the years, the band’s sound has morphed as well, from the glam-pop of Old to the “teenage symphonies to God” of Leave Here A Stranger, but the appearance of Silver in 1994 would have surprised those who knew of Martin’s prior work. As a member of Dance House Children, Martin with his brother Ronnie produced electric, rave-oriented dance music, a sound Ronnie would continue with as Joy Electric. So the listener, expecting the ecstatic rhythms and pulses of that former group, probably would have had a heart attack with the sonic wall of fire of Starflyer 59 and that opening track, “Blue Collar Love”.

As I said Petra would be the most overt of the bands on this list, Starflyer 59 is the exact opposite, coming out on the Tooth and Nail label which filled the roster with both approaches (illustrated by former labelmates MxPx). Most often, the extent of their evangelism came from an almost tossed-away snip of a lyric, or by how Martin always makes sure Jesus gets a credit in the liner notes. The real power of the band comes from the force they make, either with this or with their pop side, and somehow I think Jesus would approve. You have to believe that, sometimes, He gets tired of being namedropped too.

Fun Fact: Dance House Children reunited recently; well, sort of. The Brothers Martin’s self-titled debut at times sounds like an album split between recent Joy Electric and SF 59, but it’s so good to see brothers working together. Who would begrudge that?

Next time, in approximately one month, I unveil what might be the angriest CCM album I’ve ever heard and introduce you to one of the best guitarists you’ve never heard. Come back, won’t you please?


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About the Author

Dw. Dunphy

Dw. Dunphy is a writer, artist, and musician. For Popdose he has contributed many articles that can be found in the site's archives. He also writes for New Jersey Stage, Musictap.net, Ultimate Classic Rock, and Diffuser FM. His music can be found at http://dwdunphy.bandcamp.com/.

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