"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
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