This is the fourth of a five-part interview with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Richie Furay. You can find the first part here, second part here, and third part here.
The conversation shifts back to music. While it may seem that Furay abandoned the pop music world in the early 1980s, this was not the case. Certainly, he pulled back as he focused on his ministry, but he never shut the door on his past. Furay continued to play the occasional show and put out albums, both secular and sacred. In 1997, he released “In My Father‘s House,” followed by “I Am Sure” in 2005, both of which are a blend of upbeat and pastoral Americana praise and worship music, featuring songs he unfailingly performs in concert to tremendous response. Prior to this, in 1982 Furay recorded “Seasons of Change” for the Myrrh label, thus placing himself in the company of artists such as Maria Muldaur and Billy Preston who around that time also made excellent albums for the label, yet never sold a lick as Myrrh’s promotional campaign for same consisted of hoping people would recognize the performer’s name while flipping through the new release section of their local Christian bookstore’s music section en route to picking up whatever Amy Grant currently had on tap.
The question comes up regarding “In My Father‘s House” and “I Am Sure.” It is striking how there are these two gentle Americana praise and worship albums in a universe where pretty much everything coming out of CCM these days sounds more like U2 than U2 itself. Does Furay listen to current CCM at all?
“No. I feel like it’s almost like country music today. It’s cookie-cutter. It all sounds alike. You can tell how it’s going to flow, where it’s going to build, how it’s going to break down, and how it’s going to end. It’s frustrating.”
He adds, “I was invited to an event being held by a friend named Dean Fearing down in Texas. He was a chef at The Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas. It was around the time ‘I Am Sure’ came out (2005). Billy Ray Hearn (NOTE: Hearn was one of the industry-side pioneers of contemporary Christian music, founding Myrrh and later Sparrow Records) was one of the guys going down to this event that Dean had every year, and I brought him a copy of ‘I Am Sure.’ I was hoping he’d say, ‘Yeah, this is pretty cool — I want to put this out.’ When we talked about it after I had given it to him, he said nobody would play it. He said, ‘I’ll give it to my son who’s running the company now, but nobody will play it because it’s not in that mold and that’s the way it is.’”
All was not lost. “I got my satisfaction from one of my dear friends, Gayle Erwin. I don’t know if you know Gayle or not. He’s a (Bible) teacher. He was driving from Los Angeles to Oregon one time, and he told me later, “That record got me all the way up there.” He’s a great teacher. (NOTE: Subsequent to this interview, Erwin passed away.)
The two easiest jobs in the world are writing inadequate documentation and insufficient worship songs. As anyone who has attempted writing a worship song can attest, composing one of quality is one of the most challenging things a songwriter can attempt. It has to have a strong enough melody to stand on its own, but it has to be a simple enough melody for the untrained to sing. It has to be Scripturally accurate, and it has to be something that enhances bringing the congregation into a place of worship. Which leads to the question: which is more difficult — writing a good worship song, or writing a good song for the pop charts?
Furay laughs as he modestly replies, “Well, I don’t know, because neither one of my attempts at either one has really made it!”
He pauses before continuing, “I write what’s in my heart. When Scott (Sellen) and I were writing together, that’s what we did. We’d toss things out and do things and write what we felt.”
There are also practical factors at play. Furay and his generation come from an era when record labels, record store chains, and local radio stations were the overwhelming factors in determining whether an artist or band had a chance at success. Social media and the internet did not exist. Word of mouth was not a TikTok video gone viral, but rather a line in a locally printed and distributed fanzine sitting on a record store counter. Regardless of the current generation’s derision that its predecessors still believe phones are primarily tools for talking to other people using our voices, the truth is fans of Furay’s music are far more likely to seek entertainment in the familiar and are often unaware of when their favorite artists make new music due to the near-complete eradication of the 20th century’s music industry operational system and no great interest in perusing countless unfiltered new artists hoping to find something enjoyable.
As Furay explains, “With ‘In My Father‘s House’ and ‘I Am Sure,’ one of the tough things was that they were done really in-house rather than on a record label as were some of my other records. ‘The Heartbeat of Love’ was an album that had no label behind it. It prevented people from hearing it very much. People who knew me heard it and loved it. The people that need to hear something on the radio 50 times before they can go, ‘Yeah, I think that was really good, you know …’” A shrug says it all.
TOMORROW: Conservative and unapologetic about it.
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