This is the third part of a five-part interview with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Richie Furay. You can find the first part here and the second part here.
The conversation shifts to faith. Furay became a Christian during the early days of the Souther-Hillman-Furay Band in no small part due to the ministering of fellow member, guitarist Al Perkins. Perkins played on dozens of the albums that came out of the Maranatha Music world in the 1970s, a branch of the Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa ministry led by the late Chuck Smith. In later years, Furay would spend two-plus decades as pastor of a Calvary Chapel in Colorado. When Furay came to Christ, he and his wife, Nancy, were separated. Salvation did not equal instant reconciliation. At any point during those early days of faith, did Furay think, “Wait a minute — I thought things were supposed to get easier now?”
“Sure. When I became a believer, I called Nancy. I was in Aspen. SHF was rehearsing there for two weeks, and she wouldn’t go to Aspen with me; she just stayed home. When I finally called her after Al Perkins had led me to the Lord … she had accepted the Lord earlier, but when I called and told her, there was dead silence on the other end of the phone. It was a very devastating thing. I thought this was the thing that was going to tie the marriage together. When it didn’t happen …
“At that time, we had been married for seven years and had been separated for seven months. It was, ‘Isn’t it supposed to be real good now?’ But it doesn’t always work that way, even with a believer. Believers have difficult moments in their lives, and those moments are to teach us to trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not to our own understanding, but to see what the Lord is molding and shaping. We’re trying to be conformed in the image of Jesus, and I mean, certainly you know he went through the most rigorous thing we can even think of — ‘let this cup pass from Me.’”
A fact warranting highlighting is that Furay’s time in the pulpit was not that of a former rock star seeking a new career, but instead a wholehearted commitment to ministry. How does he see his raw introduction to Christianity as having helped him in his time as a pastor; having been through the fire enabling him to speak with authority to people who were going through fire because he had been through it himself? “When you have gone through it, you can say, ‘I know what you’re going through. I know what you’re feeling. I know exactly because this is happening to me.’
“Now, there are some things people could come to me with and I’d go, ‘You know what? I understand … but I don’t understand, because I have never gone through something like that. But, I’ve gone through pain. I’ve gone through hurt. I’ve gone through disappointment. I’ve gone through so many different things like that.’ I’d like to think that I can identify with people in a moment where they’re really hurting, because I’ve been really hurting before.”
In reading Furay’s autobiography, throughout the story of his salvation and the rugged, albeit ultimately successful, struggle to heal his marriage, there is an unstated yet omnipresent theme of the breaking, or soon-to-be-breaking, helping the broken. It’s a curious element of human nature how, for so many, it’s far easier to give grace to others than to give it to ourselves.
Furay smiles as he replies, “I wrote something very similar to what you just said in a song called ‘Someone Who Cares’ (on the 1978 album ‘Dance a Little Light’). I want to reach out to the brokenhearted.
“I had people who were very helpful to me who, without them, I don’t think I would’ve made it. Maybe I would have. I had Steve ‘Bugs’ Giglio. He’s a dear friend of mine. I’m telling you, he was by me every single moment. He was my road manager at the time. I lived with him for a time. I had John Mehler and his wife, Linda. I lived with Tom and Maryellen Stipe, who had just gotten married. I also lived with Al Perkins and his wife. These people took me in. They didn’t know me from beans. I was a broken man. This was during my separation from Nancy. They helped us reconcile.
“Now, Bugs and his family are broken. Al Perkins, who led me to the Lord … I couldn’t help him and his wife when things fell apart for them. John Mehler … couldn’t help him. I don’t know why.”
TOMORROW: Why good music goes unheard.
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