Description
The self-titled debut album by the American soft-rock band The Pat Terry Group was released on Myrrh Records in 1975, a division of Word. The album was recorded and mixed by Steve Clark at Studio One in Doraville, Georgia; with Billy Ray Hearn and the band producing. Strings arranged and conducted by Bergen White. All songs written by Pat Terry.
The Pat Terry Group got together around 1973. Guitarist Sonny Lallerstedt and bassist Randy Bugg were playing with a band called Dove which was part of an evangelistic team that traveled out of Oklahoma. They finally came off the road with Dove and started playing together with singer-songwriter Pat Terry as The Pat Terry Group full-time after that. In his Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music, author Mark Allan Powell writes, “Terry appears to have had a natural gift for songwriting and from the start was able to craft tunes with melodies and structures appropriate to the lyrics. The Pat Terry Group albums succeed if only on the strength of the songs themselves.”
We came to the attention of Myrrh because one their regional sales reps became aware of what we were doing, and he came out to hear us play several times and got excited about it and he went back to the home office which at that time was in Waco, Texas, and he told the label, ‘You know, there’s some guys in Atlanta that are doing some really cool things that I think the label needs to hear.’ So he kind of introduced us to people at Myrrh Records and Billy Ray Hearn was the head of A&R at that time and we kind of hit it off with Billy Ray. We liked him a lot and he seemed to like us, so we signed a deal to make some records. I was really excited about that because I wanted to be able to take our music further than just what we were doing regionally in the South. I hoped that we would be able to travel all over the country and play.
Once the ink was dry on the contract, it was decided that our debut album would be self-titled and would be produced by Hearn himself, along with the group. Billy Ray wanted to record the album in Nashville. I was kind of stupid back then. I didn’t really realize how much great music came out of Nashville. I loved a lot of country music, but I didn’t feel like what we were doing was that strongly rooted in country, so when Billy Ray suggested that we record in Nashville we really resisted that. I remember Billy Ray telling me, ‘Look, Pat, the studios and some of the musicians in Nashville are some of the best in the world. I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to record there.’ So I tried to explain to him that we were wanting to connect with an audience of people who loved music that didn’t necessarily come out of Nashville; it came out of LA and New York, places like that. And frankly, we had some studios in Atlanta that were making a specific brand of southern rock music that I connected with musically. I felt like that was probably closer to the kinds of things that we wanted to do.
So we ended up recording at Studio One which is where the Atlanta Rhythm Section made all of their records. A lot of great southern rock records were made at Studio One. The fellow that did a lot of the engineering was available to help us make our record, so Billy Ray decided he would come and help us do it there. We had to work around the studio’s main recording schedule. Atlanta Rhythm Section was recording there at night, so they were there all night long and they didn’t leave until 9 in the morning and we would come rolling in around 10, and the engineer who had been up all night recording them had just grabbed 30 minutes of sleep and then he was back in the studio with us. I think Billy was really afraid that this was not going to be a very professional situation in which to work. But recording at Studio One was just a whole different level of recording than I had ever done before, and it turned out great.
Billy Ray came from a church music background. He didn’t know very much about pop or rock music, and whatever folk music he knew about was kind of filtered through the church youth musicals of the late 60s and early 70s. And they were kind of folk-music oriented so I think Billy Ray kind of thought about contemporary music in that way. But frankly, he liked our songs and he basically let us do what we wanted to do. I had real specific ideas about how I wanted things to sound. Billy Ray brought this sense of a little bigger production value, which basically meant that he wanted some strings and some orchestration on this album. Looking back now, when I listen to it I feel like it’s a little more ‘middle-of-the-road’ sounding than I would probably do today. But we had some really great arrangers. Bergen White, who had done great records for a long time, arranged strings for us and it was a thrill to kind of hear something different on the songs that I’d written. So it was a great experience.
Our first official album received great response. The people that liked our group obviously responded well to it and really liked it. The record label liked it very much – it was in keeping with what they wanted to accomplish to bring a more contemporary sound out to the Christian audiences. By the standards of that day, the sales figures were probably average. I think it might’ve sold between 15,000 and 20,000 copies which at that time was not too bad. [Pat Terry interviewed by Scott Bachmann, 2016]
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Gospel Music” – 3:18
A2. “Forget There Was A Yesterday (Romans 5:17-18)” – 3:49
A3. “You’d Be There” – 2:38
A4. “Holding On” – 3:25
A5. “I Can’t Wait” – 3:42
Side Two
B1. “That’s The Way” – 3:38
B2. “When I Go Passing On” – 2:40
B3. “When The Lord Comes Back” – 3:23
B4. “Tell Them What I’ve Done” – 3:07
B5. “Meet Me Here” – 3:28
Note: Simultaneously released on 8-track tape, cassette, and 12-inch vinyl LP by Myrrh Records.
CREDITS. Produced by Billy Ray Hearn and The Pat Terry Group. Engineered by Steve Clark at Studio One, Doraville, Georgia. Strings arranged and conducted by Bergen White. Photographer: Joyce Norman. All songs composed by Pat Terry.
Musicians: The Pat Terry Group – Pat Terry (Guitars, Vocals), Sonny Lallerstedt (Guitars, Vocals), Randy Bugg (Bass). Additional Musicians (“Special thanks to”): Chris Wolski (Keyboards), Mike Huey (Drums, Percussion), Stan Ruffin (Background Vocals), Jerry Hall (Pedal Steel).
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