"Hippie" Demos (circa 1968/69) Featuring: Chuck Girard, Denny Correll, Bobby Guidotti, Jay Truax,
Larry Brittain, Ernie Earnshaw & Jesse Johnston
Feel The Love
Changes
Boy, I get hazy here. These were done at Village Recorders. Gary Usher produced and I believe soon to be famous engineer/producer Keith Olsen (Fleetwood Mac?) was at the board. This was a very organic "hippie" version of "Feel the Love", and in many ways was my favorite. "Changes" features Denny Correll on vocals. - Chuck

"Living Room" Recordings (circa 1970) Featuring Chuck, Tommy, Fred & Jay

A Love Song Changes Welcome Back Two Hands Maranatha No, No You're Not Afraid Sunday Afternoon

Since I Opened Up The Door Jesus Puts The Song In Our Hearts Think About What Jesus Said Calling You Singing Our Praises To Jesus Brand New Lover Chit-Chat

Recorded in Bing Turnham's living room with Ed Plummer's new Sony 4-track sound-on-sound tape recorder and his engineering. These sessions had no drums - it was before we picked up John in Salt Lake City - 1970 - I believe we were still living at Bing Turnham's house, so it would have been about June 1970. That's the night that we went late, tried to record everything we had written to that date, and I started fooling around on a break with a crazy C & W song that Chuck liked called Front Seat, Back Seat. I still feel like that session most accurately captured the Spirit and essence of what was going on. Brand new believers with a brand new song. - Tommy

I don't remember too much, just that we were, as Tommy said, archiving all the songs to date for organization sake. The mood was very laid back and spiritual. we had no idea at the time that we were creating music that would be in a small way, historic, but were just a bunch of guys who were so grateful to be born again, and we were having a holy "jam". The songs were all done without benefit of much, if any overdubbing, (I don't remember if we added anything, I think not). I remember it being a very powerful night, full of feeling for these new songs which expressed our simple faith and gratefulness. - Chuck

Studio Demos (circa 1971) Featuring: Chuck, Tommy, Jay, Fred & John
Take No Chances (entire 5 minute version!)
Changes
Feel The Love (full version)
Since I Opened Up The Door
To me, the definitive version of "Take No Chances" was this 8-track demo done at Freddie Piro's old studio before someone broke in stole the equipment. Those are the demo sessions that Lonnie Frisbee was at and those are the demos that were used to send around to all the studio heads, etc. It was after Freddie left United General Pictures and Records headed up by Al Kasha. I remember Fred Field's electric violin was the big hit as well as the snow chains used on Take No Chances. One of my favorite memories was playing on the Sunset Strip (at The Troubadour) for a bunch of execs from Columbia and Atlantic records. The next day we met with Amet Ertegun (one of the founding visionaries of Atlantic Records, who put Aretha on the map and signed Led Zeppelin and the Stones) at his bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He was on the edge of his chair listening to "Changes" and immediately said, "That's a Stone hit, what do you guys want?" The Freddie Piro 8-track demo was what was being played. - Tommy

My memory is that we did this at Freddie's old studio, and we did the tracks live, overdubbing the vocals later. Nothing much distinguished this session from any other, except that we all were very excited to get the songs on tape in a "professional" studio for a change. - Chuck

Love Song w/Phil Keaggy - Dallas, TX 1973
Lift Up Your Hands (6 minute version)
Let Us Be One