Description
Exit is an album by the American folk-rock band Glory Road, independently released on Hand In Hand Records in 1977. The album was recorded by Jeff Nelson at Nelson Studios in Phoenix, Arizona; with Bernie Rolfe of New Beginning fame producing (“project director”). Strings arranged by Rolfe.
Glory Road were the most accomplished band out of the Open Door Fellowship/Hand in Hand Coffeehouse scene in Phoenix in the mid 70’s. The band was originally put together by Bernie Rolfe – the mastermind behind the New Beginning album – with most of the members were barely out of high school and they started out as a country-folk band – you can hear some of that on a few of these cuts. Sometime after that, Greg Williams joined on bass and moved things in a more rock oriented progressive direction. That’s what coused this album to be kinda skitzo on this album with the Rolfe tunes kinda country and the Williams tiunes more spacey and rockish.
First time I heard this Arizona progressive country rock private press resulted in a jaw-drop of silence. Not a shabby cut on here, with several stretching out into exceptional. «Exit-Glory Road» for instance opens the album with a classic artsy progressive hard rock guitar overture. Several middle-ground rural acoustic songs follow bringing to mind the music of Horizon, The Way, and Sons Unto Glory. On the quieter side are a pair of dreamy soft-psych tracks: «Straight Gate» delicately utilizes flute and reverse guitars for an other-worldly texture, while the equally mesmerizing mostly-acoustic «New Jerusalem» achieves a similar effect with trippy synths and wah-wah guitar Greg Williams delivers some brilliant acoustic and electric guitar solos throughout. [Ken Scott, The Archivist]
The schizophrenic nature of the album is actually it’s best feature in my opinion. There are basically two kinds of artist in terms of making albums. There are those who plough a particular furrow and don’t depart. Now, those bands may knock out boring, turgid, one dimensional works or they may knock out absolute knockouts that last forever within a genre.
And there are those that are diverse. Their raison d’etre is to explore different avenues and so musically their works are all over the place. Sometimes, that makes for frustrating rubbish. More often than not, at least in the music I listen to, you get fantastic stuff. Both kinds of band are valid and I love ’em both.
Glory Road were obviously swayed by the country rock sound and the songs in that vein on this LP are lovely. Similarly, they had that side that needed to push out further and they satisfied that element too. I think they did it well. Actually, quite alot of the early christian artists had that diversity – for instance, Resurrection Band‘s first two albums are a case in point, one being hard rock, the other being all folk. Larry Norman explored many different sounds, many of the country rock bands did so too. Most artists that came from folk rock did.
Rock music is itself a continual hybrid that developed out of a fusion of C&W, blues, music hall, jazz and churchy sounds so in a sense, Glory Road were simply doing what came naturally to rockers. Their schizophrenic musical path was akin to a child walking. It just came naturally… [grimtraveller]
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Exit – Glory Road” – 7:17
A2. “Sing And Shout” – 2:20
A3. “Straight Gate” – 5:52
A4. “Which Way To Go” – 3:03
Side Two
B1. “Follow Me” – 3:28
B2. “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” – 3:05
B3. “New Jerusalem” – 5:05
B4. “Hosanna” – 6:40
Note: http://www.bernierolfe.com/30th_Anniversary.html
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