Randy Matthews - Plugged In

There were a couple of years where I was predominantly buying "Christian" albums from a little bookstore that had a small feature wall where they'd display the new music that just came out. There were some amazing records that I still look back fondly on. There were also more than a few spectacular duds that I tried hard to like, but never quite got there.

I knew who Randy Matthews was as I had been "gifted" a number of albums and in the small pile of records was a double live album called Now Do You Understand, from 1975 that was just Randy and a guitar. It was pretty cool, and he was a great storyteller. It wasn't my favourite album but it was classic early Jesus Music, and when I saw his new album on the wall, it looked like a rock record. Randy no longer looked like a wild hippie. His hair was cut, and his beard was gone, although I'm not sure how comfortable it was standing there plugged into a socket. Conveniently there was a turntable and a bunch of demo records in the store, so I put it on. I got most of the way through the opening cut, "Plugged In," and it was a decent rock song, and I left with the record under my arm ... after paying, of course.

The album actually holds up pretty well. A lot of Christian music suffered from a bad case of "soundslikeshititis," and Plugged In still sounds full and the performances are really solid. The album was recorded at Scruggs Sound Studios in Nashville and was digitally mixed and mastered, which was still pretty rare back in 1981. Randy Scruggs is credited on the record for his guitar work, as was Gene Sisk, who provided keyboards. The core band here was Louie Weaver on drums, who would later join Petra, Allen Holmes played guitar and co-wrote most of the songs, and David McCaskell was on bass. Judging by the credits and Randy's note, "Al, Dave, Lou - you guys are the best! Long may we run." There seemed to be the promise of more to come - but there wasn't. When he released his follow up, Streets of Mercy, in 1987 they were nowhere to be heard. Heck, poor Louie was replaced by a drum synthesiser.

I have no idea if the album stiffed, or what. A lot of my friends had this album and we all thought it was pretty cool. Music distribution that depended on little bookstores to move product always seemed like a pretty flawed business model. Apparently he had released an album a year earlier with the same core band, but I never saw it, as I'd have picked it up if I even knew it existed. Although now that I know it's out there, it's on my radar. Who knows, one day I'll find a copy.

I hadn't thought of the album in decades, and then I saw a copy and figured it was worth a shot. Even back in the day some of this felt a little heavy handed, particularly "Loud Shroud," which I suppose was incontrovertible proof of Jesus' existence.

For all my cheap shots about Christian music, I have to admit that this is still a really solid album, and honestly the songs aren't unwieldy musical bludgeons to drive home the message. The songs are all anchored in Randy's faith, and that's just fine with me. Randy himself vocally would venture into Joe Cocker territory on occasion, but the band was playing it tight down the middle. There was just enough crunch to give the songs a nice punch, but it wasn't hard rock either. It was straddling that sort of no man's land between decades.

It was a pleasant surprise to be honest. I remembered the album as being really good, but I wasn't sure if that was due to my narrow window of experience at the time, or if this was actually good.

It was good.

Very good.

Can I get an amen?