Phil Keaggy - What A Day - Rejoice

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In 1968, Keaggy, along with longtime friends drummer John Sferra and bassist Daniel Pecchio, formed a band called Glass Harp. A major turning point for the trio was their winning of an Ohio area's "Battle of the Bands." One of the event's judges happened to be an associate of producer Lewis Merenstein, whom he alerted to the threesome. Merenstein was persuaded to fly down from New York to listen to the band in concert. Upon hearing Glass Harp perform, Merenstein's enthusiastic report resulted in Decca Records signing Glass Harp to a multi-record deal.

In 1971, Glass Harp released a follow up album, Synergy. Again Keaggy's Christian faith surfaced in some of the lyrics. The guitarist notes, "That album was a real experience because I was able to sing 'The Answer,' a song I wrote right after my conversion to Christ. And with...producers and an engineer that didn't care about Jesus, I was surprised that out of 15 songs, one of the ten that got on the album was 'The Answer.' I praise Jesus for that work, because it's just a simple song of testimony." The following year the band released its third album: It Makes Me Glad, which included a version of the old spiritual "Do Lord." "We all worked the best that we could. The group knew that it would be our last album together because I had given notice that I was going to leave. And on August 8, I did. It was a really heavy thing for everybody.

Having recorded three albums with Glass Harp, Keaggy left the band in 1972. Keaggy says, "We enjoyed playing together and we really got tight musically. But spiritually we were going different directions." In 1973 Keaggy released What A Day, his first solo album. The songs were written while Keaggy was still with Glass Harp. Keaggy performed all the instruments on the album. The title track remains a staple of Keaggy's concerts up to the present day. Keaggy married his wife Bernadette in the summer of 1973. He then took a brief hiatus from recording on his own and only toured in support of other artists like Love Song, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Paul Clark, and Nancy Honeytree. Years later, Amboy Dukes guitarist Ted Nugent was quoted as saying "I don't know what happened to that Phil Keaggy. He could have saved the world with his guitar."

Phil has gone on to have a long and blessed career releasing more than 50 albums and contributed to many more recordings in both the contemporary Christian music and mainstream markets. He is a seven-time recipient of the GMA Dove Award for Instrumental Album of the Year, and was twice nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Gospel Album. He has frequently been listed as one of the world's top-3 "fingerstyle" as well as "fingerpicking" guitarists by Guitar Player Magazine readers' polls.

For more information on Phil Keaggy, check out his website at www.philkeaggy.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Phil Keaggy
• What A Day
• Glass Harp
• Jesus Music
• Christian Rock
• Rejoice

[otherworld11]

Amazing music reminds me so vividly of when I first met King Jesus.

[RonSafreed]

CCR I first heard this song in 1978&later in 1979 I was part of a music team&this is one song that was sung with the group. Phil keaggy was one of the first contemorary Christian mucisians I heard back in he seventies.LOL my friend&thanks for posting.

[lcvolt]

@ChristianClassicRock well thankyou, seems lke we'll never know. i was worried not because of this song being originally his, (he's done lots of covers over the years), but mostly because this family thing is a sect and took some aim at the jesus movement era. (lots of immoral stuff was done by them in this time). I wouldn't like to know he was (or is) part of it. Anyways, i think not, he plays in churches, those people are not allowed to. well, thankyou

[ChristianClassicRock]

@lcvolt - Wish I could give you a definitive answer to this, but I am not really sure. I know that at on the live concert album "How the West Was One" he states on the intro to Rejoice, "This song is a song I recorded on the What A Day album" Incidentally, his live version of Rejoice is almost 17 minuets long! Regardless of who originally wrote the song, Phil does an awesome job with it. :)