Description
Truth of Truths is a contemporary rock opera released on Oak Records in 1971. The album was produced by Ray Ruff.
“Can you handle the Truth?” “Truth of Truths” was a project of Ray Ruff, famous legendary music industry record producer. Ray produced and co-wrote this Biblical Rock Opera. Copywrited by Senor George Music and Oak Records in 1971. It was considered a very ambitious effort, taking over four years to make, and requiring the talents of nearly 300 persons. “TRUTH OF TRUTHS premiered at the Easter Sunday Sunrise Service at the Greek Theater in Hollywood in April 1971. The soundtrack album was released as a 2-LP set with 26 tracks on it, and featured the voice of actor Jim Backus as God.”
Composed and Recorded by record producer Ray Ruff and some talented songwriters in 1970-71, released on Oak Records, TRUTH OF TRUTHS is a Rock Opera stage musical of the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, first released both as a stage show and soundtrack 2-LP album on Easter Sunday morning, April 1971, at the Greek Theater in the Hollywood Hills, California, playing to an audience of more than 1,200. Employing nearly 300 people, the musical played to enthusiastic audiences in Los Angeles and five other major American cities over the next year, and the album sold extremely well, selling half a million copies by the time it went out of print in 1975. However, the album was panned by the Rock Press in 1971, with the Rolling Stone and others saying it was “preachy” and “not commercial enough”, and many critics lampooned the idea of Jim Backus as the Voice of God, who was seen as more of a comedic actor and the voice of Mr. Magoo, so they couldn’t take him seriously as the voice of God.
One of the better known of the Christian rock operas, this classy two record production has a big fat soulful sound stacked with strings, brass, woodwinds, choir, featured soloists, rock band, and Jim Backus (Mr. Magoo, Gilligan’s Island’s Mr. Howell) as the voice of God. Portions have similarities to Superstar, though at least on this one Jesus isn’t left in the grave. A number of Bible themes are presented in song: creation, the fall, the flood, the tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, the 10 commandments, David, the life of Christ, culminating with ‘Prophesies Of The Coming Of The End Of The World’. A few heavy moments here and there, like the fuzz guitar on the opening instrumental ‘The Overture’. ‘John The Baptist’ and ‘Joseph Beloved Son Of Israel’ both possess a sophisticated ‘60s garage/psych aura – if nothing else these two tracks make Truth of Truths an essential item. I’ve mentioned before in here that I’ve never been a huge fan of the whole rock opera thing, but as far as the style goes I must say this is very professionally written, arranged and performed. Numerous individuals involved in the song-writing, though Ray Ruff appears to be the main man behind the concept. Gate-fold cover plus large lyric booklet. [Ken Scott, The Archivist, 4th edition]
2LP tracklist:
Side One – Old Testament
A1. “The Overture” – 4:29
A2. “Creation” – 3:06
A3. “The Fall” – 4:52
A4. “Forty Days And Forty Nights” – 4:13
A5. “Tower Of Babel” – 2:12
A6. “God Called On To Abraham” – 3:04
A7. “Sodom And Gomorrah Were The Cities Of Sin” – 3:13
Side Two – Old Testament
B1. “Joseph Beloved Son Of Israel” – 3:10
B2. “Let My People Go” – 4:05
B3. “The Ten Commandmants” – 2:45
B4. “Song Of The Children Of Israel” – 2:42
B5. “David To Bathsheba” – 3:02
B6. “Turn Back To God” – 3:12
B7. “Prophecies Of The Coming Messiah” – 3:23
Side Three – New Testament
C1. “My Life Is In Your Hands” – 2:50
C2. “John The Baptist” – 2:34
C3. “He’s The Light Of The World” – 3:53
C4. “Hosanna” – 2:20
C5. “The Last Supper” – 4:45
C6. “I Am What I Say I Am” – 2:20
C7. “The Trial” – 5:12
Side Four – New Testament
D1. “The Road”
D2. “The Cross” – 5:50
D3. “Jesus Of Nazareth” – 1:36
D4. “Resurrection” – 4:45
D5. “He Will Come Again” – 2:50
D6. “Prophecies Of The Coming Of The End Of The World” – 6:13
Note: Originally released on both 8-track tape and 12-inch vinyl LP. A digitally-remastered double-CD Collector’s Edition was released by Oak Records in February 2018, featuring the original lyrics libretto in a 24-page booklet enclosed in the jewel case.
Truth of Truths, 2CD Collector’s Edition, Oak Records 2018
Excellent, exciting progressive rock version of J.C. SUPERSTAR is actually a whole different version, from a Biblical Christian perspective. Fantastic, fresh, original rock opera is the soundtrack from a nonexistent Biblical film; indeed, it is the Bible set to rock music. The rock music critics in 1971 hammered it for being a ripoff of Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice’s SUPERSTAR, but that was the idea, wasn’t it, to make a true Christian rock show like it to counter-attack old Nick’s secular, blasphemous, counterfeit version of the Life of Christ. The show was well-received, though mostly by Christians who turned out in droves to see it; and like Billy Graham Crusades, there were “witnessing booths” with Bibles and Christian Gospel literature and counselors to help in converting those who were converted on the spot. Ray Ruff had made a deal with the Evangelism division of Oral Roberts Institute, and had arranged to sell or give away free copies of this album to new converts, for a free-will donation. (According to Ray Ruff, thousands of copies of the album were sold or were given away as TV premiums on the Oral Roberts Hour in the first three months of its release; it was promoted by Richard Roberts, Oral Roberts’ son; and thousands more copies were ordered, and so on, and eventually, perhaps 100,000 copies were made, most of which were either sold or given away, and a few hundred copies ended up as bargain outlet cutouts by 1973-75.) The Greek Theater, Hollywood show on Easter weekend 1971 was attended by over 10,000 people and was like a major outdoor rock concert event, with “Christian hippies” aka “Jesus Freaks” dancing with flowers in their hair and incense burning, and even Hollywood celebrity Gypsy Boots turned out, having a health food booth selling his health products, energy bars, juice drinks, and food while dancing in front of the stage and orchestra pit. It was a very positive, joyful, uplifting experience.
On the whole, the rock opera is a wonderful, joyous musical and spiritual experience, in spite of its inherent “cuteness” here and there, wavering between grandiose progressive rock and typical pop music sound trends and vocals of the day, and the liability of Jim Backus as the Voice of God. (He was marvelous, and could be a dramatic actor with a real stage presence when called upon to do so: look at his performance as James Dean’s father in REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (WB, 1955). Unfortunately this superb rock opera is almost forgotten today, since the LP album has been out of print since about 1975, and it is not available on CD. We think it was a neat idea to do the whole rock opera as a “concept album” package overview of the entire Bible, with Record/Tape 1 being the Old Testament, and Record/Tape 2 being the New Testament. A fine assortment of talented artists, actors, singers and songwriters contributed their all to making this a memorable stage and musical experience. Most noteworthy is pop singer Donnie Brooks (“I’ll Build A Doll House”, “Mission Bell”, and “Round Robin” were some of his best hit singles in the early 1960’s), as Jesus of Nazareth, in a remarkable musical rock-vocal characterization: his vocals are superb. Also noteworthy is the setting of mood and atmosphere by the orchestra with a progressive rock musical style of pounding drums and wailing electric guitars in the over-the-top Overture intro. And of course, the very dramatic ending with the Voice of God and the thunderclaps – it still gives us goose pimples!
Musical highlights include: the catchy “Forty Days And Nights” (Noah’s Ark); “Joseph, Beloved Son of Israel”, (the late 1960’s musical style here reminds us of The Monkees’ “Last Train To Clarksville” ); “Let My People Go”; “The Ten Commandments”, and “He’s The Light of the World”; “Hosanna”; “The Trial”, “The Road”, “The Cross”; “He Will Come Again”. We really like the Biblical perspective of “Prophecies of the Coming Messiah” and “Prophecies of the Coming of the End of the World”. P.S. Producer Ray Ruff is making a new digitally-remastered CD release, preserving the original LP format, with a full libretto, to be released commercially by Summer 2004. Our rating: **** Highly recommended. [Review by Donald John Long, 2001, one-way.org]
How did the album project for TRUTH OF TRUTHS come about, and what was your inspiration? When did you become a songwriter, and about how many songs did you write for TOT? You certainly hired a lot of great singers and songwriters for this enormous project. TOT has a large scope and calls for people of vision to put it together.
Ray Ruff: Well, Don, believe it or not, that project actually got started in the late 1960s. Contrary to popular opinion, it really had nothing to do with the other Rock Opera JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. I actually had the idea first, to do a rock musical version of the Bible including the story of Jesus Christ, from a Biblical perspective, since I’ve been a Christian for many years, this was a personal pet project of mine. Those other guys over in England [Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice] were working on their JC SUPERSTAR project completely unknown to me. Many have wrongly thought that I did this project as a fundamental Christian rebuttal to JCS, but I didn’t. It’s just one of those amazingly close coincidences that TOT and JCS are so very similar, even right down to the album cover packaging which is so remarkably similar. JCS was released in October 1970, just about six months before we released TOT in April 1971 at Easter Sunday. We were working on TOT beginning in June 1970 and when JCS came out we were flabbergasted, but it just made us even more committed to getting TOT finished, to the point where I actually rushed it too much to complete it in time for Easter week in 1971 and if I had it to do over again I would have taken a little more time with it and done a few things a little differently with the final mix. I started writing TOT in mid-1969 after developing an outline of the show in 1968, and it really began to come to life after The WHO’s TOMMY Rock Opera came out in the summer of ’69. I decided to shift the whole thing from an elaborate stage musical to a Rock Opera because TOMMY, the first Rock Opera ever released, was a revolutionary new idea and I wanted TOT to be like that. We developed a terrific overture, a strong movie soundtrack-like theme which was as dynamic and had a lot of punch like TOMMY’s did. I love it.
[Excerpt from an interview with Ray Ruff done by Donald John Long, July 2003, as featured on one-way.org]
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CREDITS. Concept by Ray Ruff. Biblical Research by Rev. Raymond Harrison, Jr. Th.M and Ray Ruff.
Produced by Ray Ruff. Orchestra Conducted by Sidney Sharp, courtesy of Warner Bros. Records, Burbank. Arranged by Ernie Freeman & Dick Hieronymus. Engineered by Stan Ross, Bruce Schultz, Goldstar Studios, Los Angeles, and Tommy Oliver, Baker Bigsby, Village Recorders. Mastered at Mastering Lab, Doug Sax. Album Cover Art & Graphics, Libretto Design: J.L. Levy Graphics Inc. Layout Photography by Richard Nagasawa. Digital Remastering by Hank Waring, FDS Labs, Palmdale, California. Graphics HD Reduction and Mastering for CD release by Nationwide Disc Manufacturing, Richland Hills, Texas. Webmaster: Blazonco.com
Cast Credits:
Voice of God: Jim Backus. Lead Vocalists: Donnie Brooks (Jesus), Dick & Sandy St. John (formerly Dick & DeeDee); John & Mike Mancha; Lise Miller; Patti Sterling (Virgin Mary), Dave Rene, Ben Short; Pat Liston of the Friends And Brothers; Lloyd Schoonmaker; Don Great; Doug Gibbs (Moses); Val Stöecklein*; Backup Vocals: Leads: Sonny Carver, Scott Thompson, Roberta Watson, Patrice Holloway (courtesy of Capitol Records); Backups: Andrea Albin, Janie Mickens Lovett, Doris Thompson, Karen Bourne, Judi Brown, Joanne Willis, Karen Ditto, Jessie Richardson, John and Herb.
Orchestra and Rock Musicians: Bill Kurasch, Sidney Sharp (violin, piano), Christine Walevska, Hal Blaine (drums & percussion), John Guerrin, Larry Carlton (guitars), Dennis Budimir, Reine Press, Larry Muhoberak, Gary Coleman, Joe Osborn, John Raines, Art Zungolo, Ralph Schaeffer, Ray Kelly, Harry Hyams, Sam Boghossian, Paul Hubinon, Tony Terran, Ed Stanley, Julie Jacob, Bill Fritz, Sinclair Lott, George Price, Robert Enevoldsen, Lou McCreary, Dick Hyde, Joseph DiFiore, Henry Ferber, Tibor Zelig, Arthur Maebe, William Hinshaw, Jerry Cole, Ray Pohlman.
Copyists: Arthur Freeman, Robert Gibson, Vi Gibson.
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