Day by Day

Description

Day by Day is the third full-length album by the American singer and songwriter Vonda Van Dyke, released on Myrrh Records in November 1971, a division of Word. The album was recorded by Les Ladd in Nashville, Tennessee; with Billy Ray Hearn producing. Arranged and conducted by Rick Powell. Featuring three songs written by Vonda Van Dyke as well as covers of “Hallelujah Brother” (a song written by Randy Matthews and recorded on his 1971 debut album Wish We’d All Been Ready), “Day By Day” (written by Stephen Schwartz for the original cast album Godspell), as well as “I Just Want To Celebrate” (Rare Earth’s Top-10 hit single).

Word Records would launch their Myrrh label late 1971 to provide a platform for the new “Jesus Rock” that was beginning to break through. Day By Day (catalog number MST-6501-LP) was the second album released on Myrrh Records, Word’s first contemporary label. It was pre-dated by Larry Hubbell and the Mission’s Save a Soul (catalog number MST-6500-LP), and as well followed by Randy Matthews’ All I Am Is What You See….

A new look and a new sound. Day By Day finds Vonda graduating into that familiar early Myrrh pop-rock-gospel-ballads style via material like «Mighty Clouds Of Joy», «Say I Do», the Godspell title track, Randy Matthews’ «Hallelujah Brother» and three of her own songs. Some electric guitar twanging around in there amidst the soulful brass and gospelly background vocals. No major waves here, but does have a cover of Rare Earth’s «I Just Want To Celebrate» that rocks pretty solid. Produced by Billy Ray Hearn, arranged and conducted by Rick Powell. [Ken Scott, The Archivist, 4th edition]

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “Day By Day” – 2:38
A2. “Love Starts With You” – 2:42
A3. “Hallelujah Brother” – 3:40
A4. “Talk To The Man” – 1:58
A5. “Our Lords Prayer” – 2:40

Side Two
B1. “Mighty Clouds Of Joy” – 3:14
B2. “Say I Do” – 2:58
B3. “I Found A Friend” – 2:50
B4. “I Just Want To Celebrate” – 2:48
B5. “Sweet Sweet Jesus” – 2:52

Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and 12-inch vinyl LP by Myrrh Records

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Word Starting In ‘Jesus Pop’. (Billboard Magazine, November 6, 1971).

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Word Records Spreads Sacred Music’s Message. Now It Plans To Build A Jesus Rock Label With A Mod Sound. (Billboard Magazine, August 19, 1972).

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In the second half of the 1960s Ralph Carmichael founded Light Records, and Billy Ray Hearn started working with him. He helped Carmichael and Kurt Kaiser develop the concepts for their youth musicals Tell It Like It Is (1969) and Natural High (1971), and became their marketing director. This led to his doing the same thing for Jimmy Owens’ musical, Come Together (1972), as he became known as the “contemporary guy.” Over the next 4 years Hearn worked overtime helping to shift the musical direction of Word Records and the Evangelical church, and after producing a number of musicals for children and youth he began the Myrrh label, in 1972. He had tapes that were sent in from many of the new Christian music artists that weren’t signed to a record label yet, like the 2nd Chapter of Acts, Phil Keaggy and Randy Matthews, to name some. They saw where Hearn was going and wanted him to take them with him. The Myrrh label introduced Word’s audience to an entirely new kind of Christian music, called Jesus music. Many of the people who played it came out of the “peace, flower child and hippie movements” that were the counter culture of the 1960’s.