Daniel Amos Message Board | Print: DA Discography Thoughts

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-30-2011 at17:51:

DA Discography Thoughts

I finally have the entire Daniel Amos discography. Smile

Here are some thoughts:

- The self-titled debut is better than I thought it would be... but it's my least favorite DA album and by a pretty large margin. The jazz touches are nice and you can hear a little of Terry Taylor's genius in a couple of places. However, this country-and-western/southern-gospel/southern-rock album has a lot more in common with what my dad listens to than anything I do.
I find it interesting that the band could have gone a number of different directions from this album... and I'm not even sure that Terry Taylor was the clear-cut leader of the group (Steve Baxter seems to have had a prominent role here). It's pretty amazing that the band who recorded Darn Floor - Big Bite started off with this album.

- Kalhoun is a lot different than the album before and after it. I think it has more in common with Mr. Buechner's Dream than any other DA record, and is in a similar vein as BibleLand and Songs of the Heart. It has a "raw" feel and is certainly not new-wave. In a lot of ways 1991 was the dawn of some vast changes in music styles, and it's not surprising that DA would be on the leading edge of that. There are some great songs, but the song order seems wrong to me. I think it starts too slow with Big, Warm, Sweet, Interior Glowing and I've always thought If You Want To should be close to the end (at least that's where I always placed it on mix-CDs).
Anyway, good effort by Terry and Co. and at an interesting time. Overall it's a pretty "accessible" album and might be a good starting point for someone just being introduced to DA.

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-30-2011 at19:24:

- MotorCycle is one of those albums that has been "rising" in my book for a little while now. In the DA discography it almost seems misplaced. I think it does better as a follow up to DFBB than it does bookended by Kalhoun and BibleLand. It is like combining DFBB with Horrendous Disc while throwing in just a little Fearful Symmetry. It has a Beatlesque pop-rock quality but doesn't sound dated. The songs fading into and out of each other give it a progressive-rock feel and perhaps it could be considered psuedo-prog.

Posted by sondance on 03-30-2011 at20:08:

RE: DA Discography Thoughts

quote:

Originally posted by Ritchie_az
I finally have the entire Daniel Amos discography. Smile

master ritchie - could i challenge you to find any Christian album recorded before you were born to not sound like something your father or his generation would listen to? the logic of that observation escapes me Wink

but not to worry - escaping logic is where i live.

the group at the time of that album was just discovering it had shifted from being a ragtag assemblage of Jesus Music singer-songwriters, to an actual proto-band-looking-for-a-drummer. but Terry was the spokesperson, if not the frontman back then, more a kind of hairy, charismatic-evangelical street-ministry deacon than the rocket-clad rickenbacker-twanging visionary he became.

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-30-2011 at21:06:

quote:

I meant the music my dad listen's to now. It sounds like the Gaithers or Rex Nelon or Oak Ridge Boys, etc., just a little too much for me....

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-30-2011 at23:48:

-Live Bootleg '82 is a good quality live album and is a notch above (in terms of quality) Preacher's From Outer Space and Live At Cornerstone 2000. Their renditions of Horrendous Disc songs are more straight ahead rockers than the studio versions, and it's also interesting to see the Doppelganger songs prior to their studio release. There are a couple songs that don't appear (as far as I know) on any DA album (maybe some that were written for Doppelganger but didn't make the cut?). And a Beach Boy's cover.
I would certainly like to see a couple more albums like it....

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-31-2011 at00:01:

These things change with time, but right now I rank DA albums in this order, best-best to lesser-best:

1) Darn Floor - Big Bite
2) Doppelganger
3) Fearful Symmetry
4) iAlarma!
5) MotorCycle
6) Songs of the Heart/When Everyone Wore Hats
7) Mr. Buechner's Dream
8 ) Kalhoun
9) Vox Humana
10) Horrendous Disc
11) BibleLand
12) Live Bootleg '82
13) Shotgun Angel
14) Preacher's From Outer Space
15) Live at Cornerstone 2000
16) Self-titled Debut

Posted by brother joel on 03-31-2011 at09:17:

Today my personal ranking of the entire DA catalog is as follows:

1) Motorcycle
2) Songs of the Heart/When Everyone Wore Hats
3) Darn Floor Big Bite
4) Doppelganger
5) Kalhoun
6) Mr. Buechner's Dream
7) Vox Humana
Cool

Bibleland
9) Alarma
10) Horrendous Disc
11) Shotgun Angel
12) Live at Cornerstone 2000
13) Fearful Symmetry
14) Live Bootleg '82
15) The Revelation
16) Preachers From Outer Space
17) Daniel Amos (Self-Titled Debut)

Posted by sondance on 03-31-2011 at12:15:

quote:

Originally posted by Ritchie_az

quote:

I meant the music my dad listen's to now. It sounds like the Gaithers or Rex Nelson or Oak Ridge Boys, etc., just a little too much for me....

gasp, shudder... then i must demand you learn to make distinction between white gospel and Jesus Music as the progenitor of CCM, before it was assimilated into groups like the Gaithers, and became the fodder of most every "worship team" known to the church.

my apologies for this sidebar discussion but ain't nobody going to tell me folks back then sounded like the Gaithers. it was the other way around once CCM took hold. you can tell by when their hair got longer.

white gospel = bad
black gospel = good
Jesus Music = searching

Gaither!?!?!? where are my nitro tabs?

Jesus Music failed to leave room for Christian bands willing to offer a serious challenge to secular bands on their own turf. Probably the closest it got to that (and not very close) was street music and ministry. It was more comfortable staying in the fold and from that we get the concept of "music ministry", the best groups I can think of that articulated that form (in the early 70s) were Love Song and 2nd Chapter of Acts. Meanwhile there was Larry Norman who tried to be more artistic and less conformist but his early recordings were woefully done. I remember Bible college students playing his first album as if they'd received a gift from heaven and all I could think was:
on one hand we have Norman singing the lead guitar parts on a lousy album full of pretend rock songs and over here is Page and Plant giving us Baby I Want To Leave You ... what's wrong withe this picture? Stonehill was offering the first successful Christian songs and recordings with the potential to attract secular listeners to the Gospel. Norman was never able to let go his pretentious self imho. Stonehill did not have baggage like that cluttering up his connection to audiences.

meanwhile DA was finding its way through all that. you need to place their development into the bigger picture - the standards were evolving at the same time as the band.

holy bell bottoms! Gaither?! look what you started, man!

Posted by pegotico on 03-31-2011 at12:21:

RE: DA Discography Thoughts

quote:

Originally posted by Ritchie_az
I finally have the entire Daniel Amos discography. Smile

last week I finally got kalhoun and bibleland which completes my DA discog Big Grin

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-31-2011 at15:37:

quote:

Originally posted by sondance
gasp, shudder... then i must demand you learn to make distinction between white gospel and Jesus Music as the progenitor of CCM, before it was assimilated into groups like the Gaithers, and became the fodder of most every "worship team" known to the church.

my apologies for this sidebar discussion but ain't nobody going to tell me folks back then sounded like the Gaithers. it was the other way around once CCM took hold. you can tell by when their hair got longer.

white gospel = bad
black gospel = good
Jesus Music = searching

Gaither!?!?!? where are my nitro tabs?

Jesus Music failed to leave room for Christian bands willing to offer a serious challenge to secular bands on their own turf. Probably the closest it got to that (and not very close) was street music and ministry. It was more comfortable staying in the fold and from that we get the concept of "music ministry", the best groups I can think of that articulated that form (in the early 70s) were Love Song and 2nd Chapter of Acts. Meanwhile there was Larry Norman who tried to be more artistic and less conformist but his early recordings were woefully done. I remember Bible college students playing his first album as if they'd received a gift from heaven and all I could think was:
on one hand we have Norman singing the lead guitar parts on a lousy album full of pretend rock songs and over here is Page and Plant giving us Baby I Want To Leave You ... what's wrong withe this picture? Stonehill was offering the first successful Christian songs and recordings with the potential to attract secular listeners to the Gospel. Norman was never able to let go his pretentious self imho. Stonehill did not have baggage like that cluttering up his connection to audiences.

meanwhile DA was finding its way through all that. you need to place their development into the bigger picture - the standards were evolving at the same time as the band.

holy bell bottoms! Gaither?! look what you started, man!

OK, Bill Gaither sounds like early DA... is that better? Actually, that "sound" (southern gospel) pre-dates Jesus Music by about 50 years, but that's neither here nor there (or somewhere or elsewhere...)....

I'm simply saying that Daniel Amos on that first album doesn't sound anything like the band they would become just five years later. And that is quite astonishing to me. What motivated that "original" sound and what motivated the "new" sound they would later create? Those two "sounds" are worlds apart... and the lyrics are world's apart, too.
I'm not saying one is "right" and the other "wrong"... just that they are so different. I find it interesting.

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-31-2011 at15:38:

Thumb Up!

RE: DA Discography Thoughts

quote:

Originally posted by pegotico

quote:

Originally posted by Ritchie_az
I finally have the entire Daniel Amos discography. Smile

last week I finally got kalhoun and bibleland which completes my DA discog Big Grin

Posted by joey on 03-31-2011 at17:41:

Cool

quote:

Originally posted by Ritchie_az
These things change with time, but right now I rank DA albums in this order, best-best to lesser-best:

1) Darn Floor - Big Bite
2) Doppelganger
3) Fearful Symmetry
4) iAlarma!
5) MotorCycle
6) Songs of the Heart/When Everyone Wore Hats
7) Mr. Buechner's Dream
8 ) Kalhoun
9) Vox Humana
10) Horrendous Disc
11) BibleLand
12) Live Bootleg '82
13) Shotgun Angel
14) Preacher's From Outer Space
15) Live at Cornerstone 2000
16) Self-titled Debut

only doing top 5...they are all good...

1. dfbb
2. the alarma chronicles book set
3 when everyone wore hats book set
4. mbd
5. kalhoun/motor cycle... (the next book set in a perfect world....) Big Grin

Posted by sondance on 03-31-2011 at20:28:

quote:

Originally posted by Ritchie_az
Those two "sounds" are worlds apart... and the lyrics are world's apart, too.
I'm not saying one is "right" and the other "wrong"... just that they are so different. I find it interesting.

agreed!

Posted by Audiori J on 03-31-2011 at21:08:

In case a few new people don't know, sondance was there at the start of DA and was actually a member before they were called DA.. he has a unique perspective.

Posted by Ritchie_az on 03-31-2011 at21:47:

quote:

Originally posted by Audiori J
In case a few new people don't know, sondance was there at the start of DA and was actually a member before they were called DA.. he has a unique perspective.

Didn't know. That's pretty cool. Is he on the Jubal recordings?

Posted by sondance on 03-31-2011 at23:39:

if you hear a high tenor harmony, sounding a lot like my aunt ferne's piglets when they were neutered, that is probably me... listen to track 20, if you hear a harmony line between the melody and high notes and sometimes below the melody that is me. i had a tendency toward subliminal harmony parts, you don't know they're there until they're not.

regretfully the Ain't Gonna Fight It track 13 slated as Jubal's is not us - there are no harmony parts, it is just Uncle Terry. The DA recorded version is what we sang except my harmony part was better being neutered and all Big Grin

DA contacted me not long after my departure and asked what i was singing on a certain chord because they could not duplicate it, and i told them but they did not use it in the DA version, don't know why. i have a copy of the Jubal's version around here someplace and can post if i find out how.

I'm listening to that CD now - before i forget, for what it's worth, the recordings that have an other-worldly over-saturated flanging effect are the ones made at Katy Haselden's house.

while understandable (i think) i'm amazed anyone would find early DA similar to southern gospel. this is not a point of debate or disagreement.
it is at least ironic as no one in the band would have been found within 100 feet of such recordings.
i will probably go to my early grave convinced that southern gospel assimilated more contemporary sounds AFTER mid-70s Jesus Music became popular... they never used any accompaniment but a piano until then, always wore suits with real haircuts and no one played an instrument or wrote songs, they just sang somebody's else's material, usually about 50 years old, on sheet music - they seldom created their own arrangements.... the guys that made that first album wore jeans to church, had long hair, played their own instruments, had no previous involvement with any gospel music, wrote their own songs, and created their own performance arrangements.

white gospel throughout history ALWAYS shows up late to the party in borrowed clothes (polyester leisure suits come to mind) and consequently is never taken seriously but has in fact served as a great source of amusement for the rest of us... once it became indistinguishable from CCM, the monster was complete... and what a fitting metaphor: it looks alive but is not, wears a suit (albeit somewhat ill-fitting), walks about mostly stiff-legged with its arms held out straight to hug anyone who comes near, cannot utter intelligible language buts tries all the same, is larger than life, stop me somebody - i suspect that idea might be woven into a TST lyric someplace... once or twice

Posted by Ritchie_az on 04-01-2011 at00:04:

quote:

Originally posted by sondance
white gospel throughout history ALWAYS shows up late to the party in borrowed clothes (polyester leisure suits come to mind) and consequently is never taken seriously but has in fact served as a great source of amusement for the rest of us... once it became indistinguishable from CCM, the monster was complete... and what a fitting metaphor: it looks alive but is not, wears a suit (albeit somewhat ill-fitting), walks about mostly stiff-legged with its arms held out straight to hug anyone who comes near, cannot utter intelligible language buts tries all the same, is larger than life, stop me somebody - i suspect that idea might be woven into a TST lyric someplace... once or twice

That's pretty much the picture in my head whenever my dad plays his favorite albums....

Posted by pegotico on 04-01-2011 at11:59:

quote:

Originally posted by sondance
i have a copy of the Jubal's version around here someplace and can post if i find out how.

nice, hope you can

Posted by ahanson on 06-02-2011 at20:54:

My attempt at objectively ranking the Daniel Amos studio catalogue comes out thusly, trying to take into account how well each album has held up over time, and also what it meant in the context of when it was released.

1. Alarma
2. Motorcycle
3. Doppelganger
4. Horrendous Disc
5. Mr. Buechner's Dream
6. Shotgun Angel
7. Darn Floor Big Bite
8. Fearful Symmetry
9. Vox Humana
10. Kalhoun
11. Bibleland
12. Songs of the Heart
13. Daniel Amos

Posted by lobo1023 on 06-03-2011 at10:42:

Gospel and DA

Sondance - I hear you. As someone who traveled for years drumming for a Gospel group, what we played was so far astream from what came out of Daniel Amos in 76 (I quit the group in 1975). Never an original song but very derivative of the "hierarchy". The smaller groups waited until the Oak Ridge Boys, Andre Crouch or Imperials made a song popular and then we copied it at the churches at which we performed, I mean "ministered". I still hear "Jesus is Coming Soon" and "The Blood Will Never Lose Its Power" in my dreams. Looking back I realize how really different times were for Christian music. Every weekend (Friday - Youth Concert, Saturday - Hymn Sing, Sunday - Worship) we'd traipze out the catalog of Bill Gaither, Lanny Wolfe, Mosie Lister, Dottie Rambo and Andre Crouch songs. Half the time, I either used the altar as a drum stool (due to space limitations) or sat the concert out as a lot of churches didn't realize that drums were being added to the solo piano and the kindly Deacon would inform me of "policy". No matter, I was along for the "cool" factor, a lame attempt to appeal to the "young people". I was the only one who had hair over my ears. I look back and marvel how far we have come and how albums like Daniel Amos were so instrumental in changing things. My entire album catalog changed from nothing but Couriers, Oaks, Happy Goodmans, Eastmen, Cathedrals and Imperials to anything being put out by Maranatha and Word. It was life-changing.