Description
Way Back Home is a studio album by the American singer, songwriter, and guitarist Phil Keaggy, originally released on Pan Pacific Records in 1986. A remixed version of the album featuring bonus tracks as well as new cover artwork was released by Sparrow Records in June 1994. The new track “It Could’ve Been Me” was co-written by Keaggy and Sheila Walsh.
Phil Keaggy’s last acoustic album was the 1992 recording, Beyond Nature, a technically and musically brilliant collection of instrumentals, many inspired by the life and writings of C. S. Lewis. Way Back Home has him returning to an acoustic setting, this time with vocals.
In the liner notes, Keaggy says of this album, “I wish to make this album Way Back Home a tribute to family, parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren. I have a heritage I wish to express in this album. Of all the music I’ve written, these songs mean the most to me.” These comments accurate reflect the thematic focus of this collection of songs: The family as home, the “place” where we come from, and from which we draw our sustenance.
This is a sweet album! Its sweetness comes, not from mere sentimentality, but from deep gratitude and joy expressed musically. The sweetness of this expression comes in part from musical understatement: The guitar work is seldom flashy (although if you try to figure some of it out, you’ll find yourself challenged!), and the production is very light. Keaggy wrote several of the songs for his children – one was even partly composed by his 13-year-old daughter Alicia, who sings it with him – and the tenderness of these songs contributes to the sweetness of the collection. Keaggy and his wife, Bernadette, lost five children in premature births before they gave birth to Alicia, Olivia, and Ian; Keaggy’s devotion to his children thus has a poignant intensity that is often evident in his music for them.
The changes made in the tracks from the original 1986 release are all in the direction of making the production more sparse: some harmonized vocal lines and guitar parts are now performed by a single voice or guitar, some string accompaniment is toned down or eliminated, some instrumental solos are shortened or eliminated. This sparseness lends the songs an accessible simplicity despite their emotional and harmonic complexity.
The album opens with the quietly reflective title track, a musical remembrance of the tragic farm accident that took one of Phil’s right fingers when he was four years old (yup, he makes all that guitar magic with only four fingers on his right hand!). Instead of sadness, the song evokes a quiet joyfulness at the recognition of one’s need to look back at important incidents in the past to guide life in the present. The final verse makes explicit the motivation for much of the album:
Way back home in the childhood of my past, I ask,
what becomes of a man
who leaves behind the memory of youth,
instead of looking back to live again.From there, half of the songs deal directly with themes of family; past family remembered fondly, present family celebrated in song. The rest of the songs deal with various spiritual themes, many of them explicitly Christian. Some themes touched on include prayer, freedom found in surrender to God, and the mystery of the incarnation. The lyrics for several of these songs are poems from Christian devotional literature that Keaggy has set to music. There is also a gorgeous, inventive musical dramatization of part of the Noah legend of the Old Testament, combining Celtic-flavored harp-like arpeggios on the guitar with unusual rhythmic movement. Many of the songs are ballads, but some are up-tempo numbers, including «It Could’ve Been Me», an evocative tune whose melody and vocal phrasing are reminiscent of Bruce Cockburn (whom Keaggy greatly admires). Several songs have a noticable Celtic or British influence (Keaggy is a devoted fan of John Renbourn), while others have a uniquely “Keaggy-esque” flavor, with influences as diverse as 60s folk and rock, turn-of-the-century impressionistic music, and modern jazz-fusion.
The album ends with two songs about marriage, both marriage new and marriage old. The first is «Here and Now», a very pretty sung blessing written for the wedding of friends of Phil’s. The final song, «The 50th», is a moving instrumental/spoken tribute to Phil’s grandparents, who celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in 1948, three years before Phil was born. For the occasion, their family recorded blessings and wishes of family members young and old on a 78rpm record. These spoken blessings of 46 years ago fade in and out throughout Phil’s nine minute instrumental composition, which is based loosely on the folk song, «There’s no place like home» (recall the album’s title…). Phil takes this simple, almost superficial folk melody and makes it *deep*, alternately bouyantly joyful and poignant. Near the end he modulates and segues into «Dear old dad», and the 78rpm recording fades in with his extendend family of 1948 singing this song to his grandfather – Phil accompanying his family three years before he was born! It’s a touching moment, and a fitting end to a sweet album. The guitar playing throughout Way Back Home is magical, but especially so in «The 50th» (which, by the way, Phil plays in the highly unusual tuning, EEBEBB).
On a somewhat personal note, I can’t help but remark on the exquisite tone of the guitars on this recording. This is partly testimony to excellent playing and engineering, but it is also testimony to the fine luthery of James Olson, who built the two steel-string acoustics that Keaggy uses on this recording. [Tom Loredo, July 1994]
Updated notes on Way Back Home by Phil Keaggy:
After all these years, the Way Back Home album project is still one of the sweetest and most memorable albums I’ve recorded! I originally recorded around 1985 for the Pan Pacific label – a private indie label started by my then manager and co-producer Bob Cotton. When I returned to the Sparrow label in 1994, I asked my record company if they’d be interested in re-releasing this collection of songs. They happily did and I made some choices about the tracks.
I removed «The Reunion» on the re issue as it also appeared on ‘The Wind and The Wheat‘ album, and since CDs afforded more music time than vinyl, I took the opportunity to add more tracks such as: «She’s a Dancer», «It Could’ve Been Me», «Father/Daughter Harmony» and «The 50th». The album then became a joining of both devotional material and family songs.
Some folks have noticed the exclusion of some string and woodwind parts and other various changes such as my penny whistle part replacing the soprano sax on «A New Star». I did that change because my original demo had those exact parts that we later flew in on the multi tracks. I also resang every song that was on the original album from 1985 with the exception of «Olivia» and «Way Back Home». After almost a decade the songs became more important to me and I felt, since I had the opportunity to re sing those songs, I would do so.
So here we have both versions of the album for those prefer one over the other. Also, there are a number of demos that were made prior to the final recordings. May God bless you as you draw closer to Him and your precious family and loved ones…
– Phil Keaggy, Nov. 4, 2019
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/way-back-home/724527781)
CD tracklist:
01. Way Back Home – 4:19
02. A New Star – 3:36
03. Father-Daughter Harmony – 4:26
04. It Could’ve Been Me – 5:12
05. In Every Need – 4:58
06. She’s a Dancer – 3:00
07. Let Everything Else Go – 4:55
08. Olivia – 3:27
09. Once I Prayed – 3:15
10. Noah’s Song – 4:01
11. Maker of the Universe – 3:12
12. Be in Time – 4:25
13. Here and Now – 2:42
14. The South – 9:21
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Sparrow Records. Available at Bandcamp along with a Deluxe Bonus Disc: https://philkeaggy.bandcamp.com/album/way-back-home-1994
https://philkeaggy.bandcamp.com/album/way-back-home-deluxe-bonus-disc
CREDITS. Produced and Arranged by Phil Keaggy. Recorded at Weddington Studio, North Hollywood, CA; Whitefield Studios, Santa Ana, CA; Salt Mine Studios, Nashville, TN; The Dugout, Nashville, TN. Original tracks engineered by Bob Cotton, Peter Hayden, Thom Roy and Eddie Keaggy. Remixed and engineered by The Incredible Russ Long With Second Engineer Martin Woodlee. Mastered by Ken Love at Mastermix. John Walls Strings and Woodwinds arranged by Tom Howard. Art direction by Karen Philpott. Design by Sara Remke. Photography by Ben Pearson.
Musicians: Phil Keaggy (Guitars, vocals, electric bass, recorders), Alicia Keaggy (Vocals), Olivia Keaggy (Additional Harmony), Blair Masters (Keyboards), Allan Bradley (Piano), Danny O’Lannerghty (String bass), David Stone (String bass), Alex Acuña (Drums), Ken Lewis (Drums, percussion), Brad Dutz (Percussion). String Section: Pavel Farkus, Gail Cruz, R. F. Peterson, Ken Burwood-Hoy. Jim Isaacs (Oboe, English horn), Jon Clarke (Clarinet, soprano sax, oboe), Ian McKinnell (Cello).
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