Description
Shotgun Angel is the sophomore studio album by the American country-rock band Daniel Amos, released on Maranatha! Music in June 1977, distributed by Word. The album was produced and recorded by Jonathan David Brown at MartinSound Studios in Alhambra, California; and was mixed by Brown at Producer’s Workshop in Hollywood, California. Strings arranged and conducted by Jim Stipech.
According to Contemporary Christian Acts (a publication that changed its name to the better known Contemporary Christian Music the following year, 1978), “Shotgun Angel is a giant step forward for contemporary Christian music“, while Campus Life stated that “This record is a flat-out winner. Brilliant” and Cornerstone Magazine wrote “Not until now have we seen an album that is as versatile, professional, or as serious musically as is Daniel Amos’ Shotgun Angel.”
Although Daniel Amos’ previous release – their self-titled debut album – was largely country, this album marked the start of a return to the band’s pre-label musical roots, rock & roll, which took some of their country fans by surprise. Shotgun Angel was half country-rock and half rock opera. Side two of the LP featured lush orchestrations and a string of rock songs linked together in a way that was reminiscent of The Beatles Sgt. Peppers album. Back in the day the band even made a number of concert performances with a full orchestra backing them.
The album is named after one of the songs featured on the album, a song written years earlier by Bill Sprouse Jr. for his band The Road Home. After Sprouse’s untimely death at age twenty-six, Mike Shoup dug up an old four-track tape and asked Dom Franco of the Maranatha! Music signed country-rock group Bethlehem to add pedal steel guitar to the song. When Daniel Amos heard it they enlisted Franco to play the pedal steel and Mike and Ed to add the CB radio voices on the recording. Not only did it become a popular song at the time for Daniel Amos, it would also become the title of their second album.
When this animal hit the shelves in 1977 I doubt anyone was really prepared for it. I can just picture folks putting a needle to their latest slab of freshly acquired Jesus music and going “Woah, what on earth is this?!” Well if Larry Norman’s Upon This Rock started the ball rolling, Shotgun Angel turned it all on its head and realized new possibilities. Yes, Christian music could actually be creative! The pure and simple “country” style of the debut by this time had evolved into “country rock” — «Black Gold Fever» and the title track (“got an angel ridin’ shotgun and he’s ridin’ with you all the way”) in particular – but also went far beyond that, most notably the conceptual rock epic comprising the whole of side two. It’s brilliantly creative opus thematically depicting the end times, starting with the orchestral «Bereshith Overture», on through various Revelation themes such as the mark of the beast (“he’s gonna do a number on you”), and culminating in the second coming where believers are met by a «Posse In The Sky». The original release comes in a textured single-slip cover, followed by a gatefold second press with catalog number MM032A. A pivitol album that remains absolutly important today. [Ken Scott, The Archivist, 4th edition]
“I’m gonna lay it on you
Where the rubber meets the road,
It’s the Lord talkin’ to you
On your radio”‘Shotgun Angel’ is the latest incredible creation by Daniel Amos. This album breaks through many of the traditional boundaries set by contemporary Christian music. It is such a departure from the “normal way of doing things” that you’ll have to have an open mind as you listen to the album. You’ll have to laugh as you hear «Meal» – a song that is virtually a “musical cartoon.” Side 2 will sober you up in a hurry, however. It’s about the end times … the antichrist and the Second Coming. Get out the lyric sheet and your Bible when you listen, Editor’s note: ‘Shotgun Angel’ is a giant step forward for contemporary Christian music. It should inspire other musicians to break some of the molds they’ve cast themselves in. [Contemporary Christian Acts magazine, July 1977 – Vol 1, No 5]
Shotgun Angel (Collector’s Edition) + Bonus CD (Rock & Religion Radio Show) / Born Twice Records
As any longtime follower of Christian music will know, Daniel Amos were a seminal band who in the ’80s particularly took Christian rock into uncharted territory. This album from 1977 was the transition between the country of their self-titled debut album and the Beatles-esque rock of ‘Horrendous Disc‘ a year later. There are influences aplenty here including Queen and Pink Floyd mixed with vocal Eagles style harmonies (just listen to the title track and «Posse In The Sky») which would feature in similar bands of the time such as the Sweet Comfort Band. Outstanding tracks include «Praise Song» with its encouraging lyrics and the humorous, country track «Meal». There are instances of rock opera such as «Finale: Bereshith Overture» and «The Whistler» which both take you by surprise the first time you hear them. The transfer quality is remarkably good given the age of the original recordings with only tape hiss noticeable.
Disc two contains 26 tracks including demos and alternative mixes. One track «Jonah And The Whale» is new, but it is not up to the quality of the songs elsewhere – you can see why it never made it to the final album. This, although interesting, does not offer long time listening enjoyment especially as songs are repeated with slight differences, although the studio chat is interesting. Overall an enjoyable album though probably only hardcore Daniel Amos/Terry Scott Taylor completists will get much from disc two. [Stephen Luff, Cross Rhythms, February 2014]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/shotgun-angel-collectors-edition/453080966)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Days And Nights” – 2:20
A2. “Black Gold Fever” – 3:01
A3. “Praise Song” – 3:51
A4. “Father’s Arms” – 4:26
A5. “Meal” – 2:07
A6. “Shotgun Angel” – 3:41
Side Two
B1. “Finale: Bereshith Overture” – 2:19
B2. “Lady Goodbye” – 2:29
B3. “The Whistler” – 2:57
B4. “He’s Gonna Do A Number On You” – 1:57
B5. “Better” – 2:24
B6. “Sail Me Away” – 5:04
B7. “Posse In The Sky” – 4:35
Note: Simultaneously released on 8-track tape, cassette, and 12-inch vinyl LP by Maranatha! Music. The original vinyl release came in a textured single-slip cover, followed by a gatefold second press with catalog number MM032A. Re-issued on CD by Maranatha! Music in 1990, manufactured and distributed by The Benson Company. In 2001 Millenium 8 Distribution released the Shotgun Angel: 25th Anniversity Issue CD which includes three previously unreleased live tracks from the same era (“Jonah & The Whale”, “Takes A Heartache” and “Farther Along”), plus a bonus CD containing an old ‘Rock & Religion Radio Show’ with Terry Taylor and Jerry Chamberlain discussing the album.
Remastered and released in 2011 as a double-CD Deluxe Edition in a gatefold digipak by Stunt Records, distributed by Born Twice Records. Featuring the full album restored and repaired including correcting digital glitches found on previous re-issues, along with an added disc featuring more than 25 bonus tracks including unreleased songs, rare 4-track demos, studio outtakes, remixes and more; a 24 page booklet with more than 30 previously unseen photos. Available at Bandcamp:
https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/shotgun-angel-deluxe-disc-1
https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/shotgun-angel-deluxe-disc-2
https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/shotgun-angel-deluxe-disc-3
July 1, 1986, The Revelation was released by Daniel Amos on Frontline Records. The album contains a remixed version of the classic side two of Shotgun Angel, and added for this new collection were narrations between songs by Calvary Chapel Pastor Chuck Smith, reading from the Book of Revelation. Also featuring a new song, “Soon!”. Available at Bandcamp: https://terryscotttaylor.bandcamp.com/album/the-revelation
Gatefold Cover Artwork
Gatefold Cover, Inside
Jonathan David Brown engineering during the Shotgun Angel sessions in early 1977. Brown produced, recorded, and mixed the album.
Daniel Amos – Shotgun Angel, Deluxe Edition, 2011
This classic tsunami of melody gets the full re-issue treatment that it deserves.
Shotgun Angel catches Daniel Amos in transition from country to rock artists and shows how intuitively they connect with both genres. It shows too that a great batch of songs can not only last decades, but gain in stature in the process. There are no gimmicks to create an explosive effect here; their keyboards are hardly Wakemanesque, and their style eschews the kind of anthems that excite stadia full of held-aloft phones.
These songs have lasted because they are so inherently strong. They may be humble, short little things – and they were particularly snappy for the mid-70s, when they were written – but each one is enjoyable and memorable in its own way and nearly every one still makes you want to join in. It is a tsunami of melody.
Daniel Amos shows vast ambition here. Country is about as safe a genre as you can get, but here were a group of musicians, plainly at home with its conventions, but pushing out the boundaries of sound and style – something that they were also doing for Christian music (which was no less a conservative environment). Their label, Maranatha Records, were just about to pull the plug on proper music, chopping its output down to just children’s songs and praise music, so what pressures may have also been put on the band in the recording process?
The album consisted of two sides. The first was a mix of country-inspired tracks with touches of humour, while the second was a whole suite of songs about Christ’s return (a theme they would return to fifteen years later on Kalhoun).
If the material he had to work with was already superb, producer Jonathan David Brown has treated it with great respect and skilfully brought some diverse sounds together. The band’s tight harmonies help to unify the sound and he has added some tasteful strings to a lot of the disc, which both softens and warms it.
It is almost impossible to pick out highlights, as they flood the whole work, but «Father’s Arms» reveals the influence that the Eagles must have held over this 1970’s Californian band, with West Coast harmonies, genre-blending and some well-placed guitar licks.
At the other end of their spectrum is the quirky «Meal», an extended metaphor about being hungry for spiritual food, which comes complete with “carrot choir, celery symphony” and some watery sound effects among the tricks that Brown uses so successfully.
The title track (the only piece not written by the band and a starting point for the album) is simply perfect country rock. Something about the vocal work and strings brings out the poignancy of many of these tracks.
«Bereshith Overture» opens the finale that takes up the entire second half, with tracks merging into each other. This is particularly effective between «He’s Gonna Do a Number on You» and «Better» as a computerized clerk rhythmically cries “next, next, next, next…” When piano joins in, the end of one piece becomes inextricable from the start of the next.
Several of these pieces make this like a mini rock-opera, with a cast of different characters voicing the lyrics as the Anti-Christ comes to fool the world, the Church gets carried away and Christ returns with «A Posse in the Sky» (to emphasise the country tone).
Very sadly, Norman Barratt – one of the best Christian guitarists to emerge from the UK – died recently. Much of this album reminds me of his work in the Alwyn Wall Band from around the same time. A few dashes of pedal steel complete the sound of this adventurous album, which we would now brand Americana.
Disc 2
The new bonus disc has been thoughtfully assembled in three sections, telling the story stage-by-stage and keeping each section in album order. Three early four-track demos include «Posse in the Sky» and «Father’s Arms» alongside the inferior «Jonah and the Whale», which never became a part of the project. The other two were already surprisingly well-formed.
Then we get virtually the whole album as pre-production demos. At this stage, the band sounds relaxed and jams out the end of «Father’s Arms» as well as showing more of the fun of «Black Gold Fever». Terry Scott Taylor’s formidable lyrical skills also help:
“Goin’ down to Texas, where you can’t see the top of their hats
That’s fat-cat country, ‘thank you, honey, put the money in the sack’
Makin’ oil my middle name, gonna play the rich man’s game.”Then, after a few studio snippets, the gems come out: alternate takes of nine tracks. This is where we can sense the decisions that the band and producer made and how the album might have sounded. Some pieces are unchanged, but «The Whistler» feels very different, given a sparser and darker treatment, while «Sail Me Away» is also very stripped back, almost sounding à capella at the beginning. «Meal» features less of the carrot choir and more of the Rolf Harris-meets-Looney Tunes vocals. It is also interesting to hear the band-played demo of «Bereshith Overture», which was to be a piece played by strings.
Apart from the interest in seeing the process develop, this disc works as fresh versions to enjoy in their own right, and because they have all been kept in album order, they can be played as a genuine alternative.
There are small complaints about the package, which is generally very well put together in a three-part Digipak. There is nowhere to keep the twenty-page booklet, which contains full lyrics and plenty of photos, but no commentary on the band or disc.
But I will happily put up with that for a release that brings out the full glory of a humble collection of songs that shows craft and creativity. It is an eighteen-wheeler-full of great tunes. [Derek Walker, The Phantom Tollbooth, 16 October 2011]
CREDITS. Produced by Jonathan David Brown. Strings arranged and conducted by Jim Stipech. Recorded at MartinSound Studios, Alhambra, California. Engineered by Jonathan David Brown. Mixed by Jonathan David Brown at Producer’s Workshop, Hollywood, CA. Mastered by Ken Perry at Capitol Records, Hollywood, CA. Cover Concept by Daniel Amos. Art Direction, Design and Layout by Neal Buchanan. Photography by Larry Frowick. Inside Photographs by Scott Lockwood.
Musicians: Daniel Amos – Terry Taylor (Guitars, Lead and Background Vocals), Mark Cook (Keyboards, Lead and Background Vocals), Jerry Chamberlain (Guitars, Lead and Background Vocals), Marty Dieckmeyer (Bass, Background Vocals), Ed McTaggart (Drums, Percussion, Background Vocals). Additional Musicians: Alex McDougall (Percussion), Robert Petry (Percussion), Pete Jacobs (Clarinets on track A2), Dom Franco (Pedal Steel Guitar), Frank Marocco (Accordion), Dan Amos (Carrot Choir, Celery Symphony on track A5), John Benson (Eefin’ on track A5), Mike Shoup (C.B.).
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