Description
The self-titled debut album by the American pop/rock band Prodigal was released on Heartland Records in July 1982, as the label’s first effort. Later distributed by Priority Records, the gospel division of mainstream label CBS Records. (According to an article featured in the January 8, 1983 issue of Billboard Magazine, entitled “CBS gospel wing expands horizons”, “Heartland debuted in 1982 with two releases – the group Prodigal’s self-titled LP and a recent LP by John Blake, but neither has been distributed nationally. Beginning in February, Priority will distribute those LPs, plus all new Heartland releases.”) The album was recorded by Greg McNeily and Gary Platt in the Full Sail Dream Machine 24-track mobile recording studio on various locations in Florida with Jon Phelps producing. (Phelps, formerly vocalist and guitarist of Suncast, was president and part owner of Heartland). Mixed by Platt at Fifth Floor Studios. The album cover artwork is notable for mimicking M. C. Escher’s Relativity and features imagery inspired by each of the song titles.
Three of the tracks on the album (“Hard Bargain,” “I Don’t Know Who You Are,” and “Want You Back Again”) actually were recorded with session players backing band members Loyd Boldman and Rick Fields. They are the original demos recorded with producer and label president Jon Phelps, for the purpose of pushing the band to secular labels. (Those three tracks were never re-recorded for the album.)
Prodigal features Loyd Boldman (July 19, 1954 – April 22, 2014) on keyboards and vocals, Rick Fields on guitars and vocals, and a rhythm section consisting of Mike Wilson on bass and Dave Workman on drums and vocals. Prodigal was noted for having three lead singers, as Boldman, Workman and Fields would trade off lead vocalist duties depending on the track. Boldman generally handled the rock-oriented tracks, while Workman and Fields split the more pop and new wave-focused material. Where other artist bemoaned the struggles, pain and realities of life on this spinning globe, Prodigal placed themselves within that reality and expressed those struggles from one who is intimately aware and experienced with those struggles.
Prodigal is a new band from Cincinnati whose first album also marks the debut of a new record label. If this release is any indication, both would appear quite promising. Judging by the quality of production as evidenced in the overall sound of the record, this is an album that was carefully produced with direction and purpose.
Thematically, ‘Prodigal’ (Heartland HRC 101) looks at life in a series of musical vignettes that deal with a group of characters familiar to many of us with our experience “in the world”. There’s the «Busy Man», the «Sleepwalker», the «Invisible Man», and of course, the «Prodigal». All of these songs serve as fine portraits of that which is symptomatic to the sickness in our modern culture (the lonely, preoccupied, alienated, etc.).
Musically, the band draws on such secular influences as Supertramp, 10cc, and Atlanta Rhythm Section. Surprisingly, though, the more clear-cut references seem to be with Christian bands Fireworks and Glad. It should be noted, however, that none of these resemblances approximate “rip-off”, nor do they detract from the strength of musical and lyrical integrity present throughout the album. ‘Prodigal’ is an impressive first outing by four versatile and talented musicians whose ministry bears the promise of more to come. [Thom Granger, CCM, September 1982]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/prodigal/1078794666)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Invisible Man” – 4:10
A2. “Easy Street” – 4:08
A3. “Fire With Fire” – 4:15
A4. “Sleepwalker” – 2:53
A5. “Want You Back Again” – 3:50
Side Two
B1. “Prodigal” – 1:10
B2. “I Don’t Know Who You Are” – 2:35
B3. “Need Somebody To Love” – 4:02
B4. “Busy Man” – 3:40
B5. “Hard Bargain” – 4:00
B6. “Prodigal (Part Two)” – 0:46
B7. “Sidewinder” – 6:34
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by Heartland Records. In 2014 the band released a 30th Anniversary Limited Edition 3CD Set featuring the Prodigal, Electric Eye, and Just Like Real Life albums on individual CDs. Each album was restored and remastered from the original analog master tapes by Gary Hedden. Remastered once again in 2018 (by Rob Colwell of Bombworks Sound) and re-issued on CD by Retroactive Records with enhanced packaging (including a multi-page insert with lyrics, liner notes and vintage band photos) and featuring the following bonus tracks: “Sound Sheet Magazine AD” (6:21), “Invisible Man Outtake” (4:06), “Hard Bargain” (with guitar solo) (4:40), “One More Time” (Live at 5th Floor Studio) (4:14).
A full-page advertisement for Prodigal’s self-titled debut album was featured in the October 1982 issue of CCM Magazine.
AREA 312 Rock & Metal Vodcast. S5. Ep. 1 (Recording Date: 10/12/24): Rick Fields & Dave Workman Interview! (PRODIGAL)
Before Prodigal’s first, self-titled album, there was another LP that got scrapped, except for one song which was chopped and added as bookends. That album was put together in 1976-77, tentatively entitled Honey in the Rock. The album was 9 songs long, only one of which wound up gracing their self-titled album.
Heartland Boosts LP
NASHVILLE – Heartland Records is promoting its debut gospel album, “Prodigal,” at Christian book stores and coffee houses via mass distribution of a Soundsheet preview. The six-minute-play flexible disk simulates a radio broadcast during which the album is introduced by “DJs,” the members of Prodigal are mentioned and excerpts from the songs are played.
David Brown, vice president and general manager of the Altamonte Springs, Fla. label, says 3,000 copies of the disk will be sent to stores and concert venues in 25 markets as soon as the albums have been distributed. “We don’t want people looking for the album before it’s out there,” he explains. Official release date for the album is July 1.
In addition to the Soundsheets marked for giveaways and bag stuffers, Brown says the disk will also appear in the July issue of “Contemporary Christian Music.”
If the promotion is counted a success in the original 25 markets, Brown adds, it will be extended to others. [A note featured in Billboard Magazine (Gospel Section), June 19, 1982]
Prodigal – 30 Anniversary Limited Edition 3 CD Set, Silver Orb Media, 2014.
Maybe those RIYL comparison posters are still around in some Christianny bookshops? Such-and-such band band with a evangenghetto label recording contract and Campus Life’s approval is Recommended If You Like so and so evil, heathen noisemakers having hits on Godforsaken secular radio. At least as often as as such comparisons were right, they were humorously, ridiculously off base.
But Prodigal managed the trick of being as good as, and quite possibly better, than their general market points of comparison. The spiritual gravitas of their most thoughtful lyrics smartly fit the dynamic bombast and instrumental bravura of the same kind of prog pop that the Cincinnati quartet’s fellow Midwesterners, such as Styx and Kansas, were laying down to accompany-per the latter combo’s Kerry Livgren and John Elefante notwithstanding-generally more ponderous and dippier ruminations.
That’s not to say Prodigal (possessing one of the best names for a Christian-comprised rock act ever?!) stayed aesthetically static during their 1982-85 recording tenure. Their eponymous debut sounds structured like a concept album, but including a couple of a capella interludes can lend that impression. Among harder rockers like «Fire With Fire» and the concluding tour de force of «Sidewinder», they interpolated some sly fusion jazz chording a la Ambrosia on a couple of cuts, including «Easy Street». Somehow a country-vibed go at what sounds like a straight man-to-woman love song, «Want You Back», does nothing to disrupt the album’s flow. If an overarching theme can be ascertained from the set, it’s one of deceived, lonely, preoccupied humanity coming to recognise their need for reconciliation with their Maker. Pretty closely paralleling the story of the wayward son in the parable of Jesus’ from which the guys got their collective moniker, yes?
Dw. Dunphy of Popdose.com in his succinct, piquant notes to the anthology, insists that the second Prodigal album Electric Eye found the band at the peak of their powers. They must have agreed, since its 1984 release date sets the anniversary date for which the collection’s named. Here, all but one of its ten songs clocks in under five minutes, and the jazziness and country influences are shed. Duly compensating are intermittent extra-musical sound effects, occasional electronic vocal processing, and a darker sense of humor. A lyrical undercurrent stressing the ways in which technology and societal pressures dampen humanity’s spiritual longing complements the first album. Were Daniel Amos not so smart alecky (and given to new wave at the time) or Mark Heard so seemingly inconsolably forlorn, one could imagine either indulging in the nuanced Wizard Of Oz analogy of «Emerald City» or the titular track’s scenario of doomed man cave self-satisfaction. Between the weightier textual explorations, they may have invented art rock ska with «Shout It Out»; if it’s not actual crowd interaction toward the tune’s end, it’s a more than reasonable facsimile.
The last album from 1985, Just Like Real Life, continues the previous album’s themes, but stressing the cost wrought to humanity by the inspidness of pop culture and materialism. Leftist crtics might read it as a a response to the downside of Reagan era prosperity, but from a more polished, brawnier aesthetic than either U.S. hardcore punk or the various expressions by UK pop and indie rock acts against the perceived heartlesness of Thatcher’s capitalistic ideals. The intertwining of politics and spirituality aside, Prodigal ends their tenure with their most commercial sound. Every song clocks in under four minutes, and danceable new wave elements pervade a majority of its 11 songs. The latter quality makes it comparable to Vector among contemporaneous Christian market peers and The Fixx in the rest of the world. Lyric references from the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau to Mickey Rooney’s serial monogamy witness to their wit and compassion, albeit with a heavier-handed touch than the equally dance-oriented Daniel Amos of the time was plumbing. But as with mid-’80s D.A. in their less parodist moments, Prodigal kept the Lord between the lines, making their body of work exemplary of implicitly Christian rock as pre-evangelistic and biblical worldview expression. Such music as Prodigal’s reiterates the likely shame it was that much of the CCM industry didn’t have the inroads to the general market that may have allowed the band to have become a precedent for the kind of crossover success Skillet and Lifehouse are having.
Apart from celebrating the three decades or so since the band was active, Limited Edition is fortuitously timed for another reason. The band’s singing keyboardist and songwriting vocalist, Loyd Boldman, died earlier this year, just as mastering of the set was being completed. Thusly, this package memorializes both an intelligently godly band and the man who led it with such gusto. Once this deluxe package sells out, a savvy classic rock reissue label (if there are such things?) would do well to keep Prodigal’s legacy in print, too. [Jamie Lee Rake, The Phantom Tollbooth, August 2014]
CREDITS. Produced by Jon Phelps. Arranged by Prodigal. Engineered by Greg McNeily and Gary Platt. Recorded in the Full Sail Dream Machine 24-track mobile recording studio on location at: Ocoee Civic Center, Ocoee, FL; Jon’s Living room, Winter Park, FL; The warehouse next to Anthony’s Mushrooms, Altamonte, Springs FL; The Potter’s Wheel (crowd response for Invisible Man), Jacksonville, FL. Mixed by Gary Platt at Fifth Floor Studios, except track B5 mixed by Andy deGanahl, Bee Jay Studios. Additonal engineering by Andy deGanahl, Dana Cornock and Paul Thompson. Assistant Engineers: Paul Thompson and Steve Moller. Thanks to Bruce Reid and Jeffrey Hangst for the Lotus Espirit / Porsche 928 shootout on track B4 (the door slam was a ’74 Fairlane). Thanks to the CVG Fire Dept. for allowing us to record a United Airlines flight taking off for the intro of track B2 (“You only get one shot, guys.”)
Musicians: Loyd Boldman (Keyboards and Vocals), Rick Fields (Guitars and Vocals), Mike Wilson (Bass), Dave Workman (Drums and Vocals). Additional Musicians: John Blake (Acoustic Guitar on track A3), David Philbrick (Soprano Sax on track A5), Jim Hettinger (Synth Programming). Turley Richards (Background Vocals on tracks A5 and B5). Loyd and Rick recorded track A5, B2, and B5 at Bee Jay Studios 7/1980 with: Shane Keister (Keyboards), Jon Goin (Guitar), Jack Williams (Bass), David Kemper (Drums), Farrell Morris (Percussion).
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