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Guest for December 16, 1999:
PHIL KEAGGY |
For the past three decades, Christian rocker Phil
Keaggy has worked under the tag "the greatest guitarist nobody knows"
largely because he turned his back on mainstream success years ago. With over 30 musical
releases to his name, Keaggy stays true to his faith-driven lyrics…"The true believers/ Stand on every word You say/ The true believers/ Made
alive in Christ today."
Phil Keaggy's guitar style remains an eclectic swing from rhythm and blues to Celtic
droning to folk country.
One of Phil’s most talked about assets is his voice, often compared to that of,
ex-Beatle, Paul McCartney’s (reputedly a Keaggy fan). |
"I love being creative and I love being able to
make music and make people happy, but it doesn't matter to me what the numbers are -- it
could be 50 people in a room or 1500. I'm just grateful that at 44, I can still sing and
play and have a great joy doing it. I'm definitely receding on top, I've got gray hairs,
and I'm a little more portly than I used to be, but I love life. I love what God has done
in my life. " |
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Phil grew up with five brothers, four
sisters, and his Mom and Dad, so it's not surprising that a diversity of musical styles
would fill the Keaggy household. And so the impressionable Phil, second to the youngest,
grew up with the music of Debussy, Ravel, Vaughn-Williams, and Montovani filling his ears,
as well as Elvis, the Everly Brothers and their contemporaries.
Phil's dad bought a $19 Sears Silvertone guitar, and Phil started picking out melodies, a
string at a time, on his own. By the end of his fifth-grade year, Phil had played before
his entire student body -- his first paying gig.
By eleventh grade, Phil was a member of Glass Harp, a band signed to
Decca Records, playing on the same bill with such well known late-'60s groups as Yes,
Humble Pie, Janis Joplin, Traffic, Chicago, and Iron Butterfly. Even though Phil came
along at the end of the psychedelic '60s hippie movement, the circles he traveled in were
not at a loss for drugs. |
| After touring, Phil returned to his home
town with the rest of the band. He was at the drummer's house when the call came. It was
his older brother Bill who broke the news. When that car strayed into his lane, Phil's dad
had neither the time nor the maneuverability to avoid impact. The Corvair, with its engine
in the rear, offered little protection as the metal crinkled like foil. There were no
safety belts. Phil's dad and little sister lived; his mom lingered for a week, suspended
between this world and the next, before life left her body. A week after the funeral,
Phil Keaggy became a Christian through his sister Mary Ellen's urging, but his mother's
influence. "I felt like something came in and cleansed my body, cleansed my spirit,
cleansed my soul -- three parts of me. It just washed through me. I felt a burden lift; I
felt different." Phil Keaggy was at home in the love of God. |
"I did get together with a group of other brothers for reading
and prayer and that's been really helpful, a kind of firming up of the foundations. We
don't talk about making music and stuff, but where we are in our lives and the way we
relate to our society, keeping in touch with the here and there as we go upon our
pilgrimage so that we can be salt and light as human beings filled with God in this world.
Jesus spent most of his intimate time with a circle of friends (Peter, James, and John).
His most precious times seemed to be spent with His Father." |
Click to listen to a few songs:
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In time, faith reshaped every facet of
Phil's life; it is not surprising that it would also change his music. Songs that
showcased hazy questions and the search for meaning, gave way to exuberant expression s of
new-found faith. Phil even began to detect the fingerprints of God on hardship -- not so
much as something God would cause to happen, but as something God could transform. In his
kindness, wisdom and expertise, God could bring good out of even the worst of experiences.
He saw this truth as his own mother's death brought him closer to the kingdom -- a truth
that was severely tested as he and his wife lost five children to miscarriage and
premature birth. Over these 25 years, album by album, Phil's music has chronicled this
odyssey of growing faith. |
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