Description
Hot Coals is a live album by the British singer, songwriter, and producer John Pantry, released in the UK on Marshalls in 1981 (Catalog number MRT 1003). In 1983 the album – re-titled Not Guilty: Live with Fresh Air and featuring new cover artwork – was released in the US by Pilgrim America, distributed by The Benson Company. All songs written by John Pantry except “One by One” written by Chris Norton and Ricky Everett.
The album brought together the vocal talents of several experienced British Christian musicians, credited on the album as Fresh Air; singer-songwriter Phil Potter, Steve Buckley, Donna Carey-Owen, Julie Costello (née Moon, later of Trade Secret fame), as well as Sue McClellan of Parchment fame. (Fresh Air actually released a self-titled album on Marshalls in 1982.) John Pantry also staged his own Hot Coals show complete with a guy on a motorbike and a hoop of fire.
(Trivia: Marshalls – a British gospel label established in the beginning of the 80s – by now had taken over the Pilgrim and Grapevine labels and John Pantry was in the job which led to him eventually running Kingsway Music. On the album cover the British musician, producer, and record executive John Pac, originally a co-founder Parchment – the very first act to emerge from the embryonic UK Christian music scene to make the British mainstream pop charts, is given a “special thanks” for “believing in us.” In 1976 Pac had been appointed as A&R Manager at Pilgrim Records, where he produced well over a hundred albums.)
Starting his career as a producer and engineer, John Pantry made some respected ’60s recordings and dreamed of success in the mainstream. In the ’70s he worked with some of the earliest Christian pop artists in the UK, producing their earliest efforts. In the mid ’70s he once again stepped into the spotlight with the seminal UK Christian pop record ‘Empty Handed‘. ‘Hot Coals’, released in 1981 was recorded at a time when Pantry was still one of the most popular Christian music acts in the country and I was a student at Leeds Uni and working for his management team in the summer. It was actually my idea to credit the entire audience that attended the gigs in London and Halifax where this was “recorded”. The idea was for a full band to record live in the old fashioned way. Sadly due to some technicalities, the only thing on here which is live is the audience noise! Pantry and musicians retired to a recording studio soon afterwards and recorded the whole album again from scratch. Scandalous I know but there you go. The end result as you’d imagine sounds perfect with its live feel, and a fine selection of songs from Pantry’s pen. Highlights are the title cut with the full-on band arrangement and the inspiring «Not Guilty» from an era when Christian artists sang passionately and obviously about spiritual stuff on non worship albums. «Skin Deep» reflects the futility of being stuck in a 9-5 existence and «Power» and «Love Is A Fire» are both funky little numbers which allow the horn section to blow and both have those unforgettable catchy choruses. I remember the whole production was reprised on the Greenbelt mainstage in ’81 complete with all the participants dressed smartly in yellow ‘Hot Coals’ T shirts. Things were done differently back then! Listening again nearly 20 years later, I have an obvious affection for the album and the memories it brings back and I’m struck by how much Pantry sounds like Gilbert O’Sullivan in places! [Mike Rimmer, Cross Rhythms, March 2010]
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Hots Coals” – 4:32
A2. “Before the Flood” – 3:19
A3. “Skin Deep” – 3:17
A4. “One by One” – 3:58
A5. “Not Guilty” – 4:48
A6. “Time (Takes No Prisoners)” – 3:47
Side Two
B1. “Beware Your Heart” – 3:57
B2. “Shepherd’s Song” – 3:40
B3. “Love is a Fire” – 3:40
B4. “Power” – 2:43
B5. “Thank You” – 5:00
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by Marshalls.
Not Guilty: Live with Fresh Air is the US version of Hot Coals, released by Pilgrim America in 1983
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