Help TTK with Weird Post-"Jesus Christ Superstar" Religious/Ecology Compilation

[Teasing the Korean]

In January and February, I like listening to post-Jesus Christ Superstar religious "jazz-rock" concept albums. Closely related to this exclusive sub-genre would be early '70s concept albums about the environment/ecology, and concept albums about breaking loose and "finding yourself." Back-to-nature, back-to-basics, eschew-commercial-culture, live-simply-by-Christ's-example kind of stuff. Funny, but I'm not religious at all, nor was I raised with any religion.

Some albums that fit these aesthetics include lots of David Axelrod and Axelrod-produced stuff (The Bible, the Messiah, Mass in F Minor, Release of an Oath, Earth Rot, and to a a degree Songs of Innocence/Experience); Lalo Schifrin's Rock Requiem, and while it predates this period, the Lalo/Paul Horn Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts; Gary McFarland's America the Beautiful: An Account of Her Disappearance; Gershon Kingsley's Sabbath for Today; and Michel Columbier's Wings, which included "We Could Be Flying." Individual tracks may include Leonard Rosenman's "Hymn to the Bomb" from Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Little Marcy's "God is Alive Within You," which features a "rock" backing; The Ralph Carmichael/Pat Boone "The Addict's Psalm" from The Cross and the Switchblade; and some select tunes by Singers Unlimited and the Free Design.  You can also find the occasional money cut on early-70s Up with People albums. All of this has a distinctly early-70s vibe which, for me, goes nicely the bleakness of January and February. This is all very subjective, so assuming you have any idea of what I'm talking about, can you think of other examples of this kind of thing?

[felser]

Nat Adderley 'Soul of the Bible'.  Leonard Bernsteim 'Mass'.  Individual cuts would be The Rascals "See", Pacific Gas and Electric "Are You Ready", Tommy James & the Shondells "Crystal Blue Persuasion", Chambers Brothers "Love, Peace and Happiness".

Edited January 8, 2023 by felser

[Teasing the Korean]

8 minutes ago, felser said:

Nat Adderley 'Soul of the Bible'.  Leonard Bernsteim 'Mass'.  Individual cuts would be The Rascals "See", Pacific Gas and Electric "Are You Ready", Tommy James & the Shondells "Crystal Blue Persuasion", Chambers Brothers "Love, Peace and Happiness".

Thank you!

[felser]

"Look in the Sky" and "Can You See Me" from the first Glass Harp album.  Amazing Phil Keaggy guitar playing, and he was like 19 years old.

[JSngry]

Captain Obvious sez:

[felser]

28 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Captain Obvious sez:

Good point.

[Bluesnik]

2 hours ago, felser said:

Tommy James & the Shondells "Crystal Blue Persuasion"

That's a song I love, and which I discovered through Breaking Bad. It fit perfectly there.

[JSngry]

1 hour ago, felser said:

Good point.

The Alpha and the Omega afaic. 

[sgcim]

Judee Sill's three albums are full of that type of stuff, and her  friends from N. Hollywood also made albums like that, Lynn Blessing, Tommy Peltier, the late Bill Plummer, Russ Giguiere from The Association.

Chris Dedrick joined some Canadian cult, and wrote a lot of stuff for them.

Bryan MacLean from LOVE wrote a lot of Born Again stuff after he kicked heroin.

John Simon wrote some stuff for that underground movie about some commune that "My Name is Jack and I live in the back of the Greta Garbo Home for Wayward Boys and Girls came from. The list goes on and on...

[Rabshakeh]

Masters of Reality by Black Sabbath has a LOT of hippy christian themes, for reasons that I never understood.

[Rooster_Ties]

Eddie Gale‘s two Blue Note dates from the late 60’s both feel like close cousins to some other examples from this genre (those already mentioned) — although I can’t remember if they specifically have any religious overtones lyrically.

(They just seem like they’re cut from the same sort of cloth.)

Edit: Of course they both slightly predate the original Jesus Christ Superstar concept album (which was recorded in Oct 1969)

Edited January 9, 2023 by Rooster_Ties

[soulpope]

15 hours ago, sgcim said:

Judee Sill's three albums are full of that type of stuff ....

"Jesus Was A Cross Maker" .... btw superb cover version from The Hollies .... 

[danasgoodstuff]

5 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Masters of Reality by Black Sabbath has a LOT of hippy christian themes, for reasons that I never understood.

Ying/yang?  No Black Sabbath without a regular sabbath first, right?

[Joe]

5 minutes ago, danasgoodstuff said:

Ying/yang?  No Black Sabbath without a regular sabbath first, right?

They were all working-class Catholics. Only Catholicism produces that brand of "Satanism."

Also, as far as Christian rock concept LPs from this early 70s go, overlook Aphrodite's Child's 666 at your own peril.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/apocalypse-and-orgasm-the-crazy-story-of-aphrodites-child-666-vangeliss-cult-masterpiece

Edited January 9, 2023 by Joe

[soulpope]

29 minutes ago, Joe said:

Also, as far as Christian rock concept LPs from this early 70s go, overlook Aphrodite's Child's 666 at your own peril.

https://www.loudersound.com/features/apocalypse-and-orgasm-the-crazy-story-of-aphrodites-child-666-vangeliss-cult-masterpiece

Aptly described .... thnx for sharing ....

[felser]

54 minutes ago, Joe said:

They were all working-class Catholics. Only Catholicism produces that brand of "Satanism."

They always seemed more muddled than satanist to me anyways.  First album felt like cartoon posturing.  'Paranoid' didn't strike me as particularly religious, more a story of alienation.   'Masters of Reality' talked more about God than about Satan, and had Satan subservient to God, if I remember.  I checked out at IV as it was so musically inept, and never checked back in.  

Consider, these are lyrics lifted directly from "After Forever" on 'Masters of Reality':

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear, yes I think it's too late

 

[mjazzg]

4 minutes ago, felser said:

They always seemed more muddled than satanist to me anyways.  First album felt like cartoon posturing.  'Paranoid' didn't strike me as particularly religious, more a story of alienation.   'Masters of Reality' talked more about God than about Satan, and had Satan subservient to God, if I remember.  I checked out at IV as it was so musically inept, and never checked back in.  

Consider, these are lyrics lifted directly from "After Forever" on 'Masters of Reality':

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear, yes I think it's too late

 

Number of times I listened to that as a young teenager and never really listened to the lyrics. Count me as very surprised.

[gvopedz]

1 hour ago, Joe said:

overlook Aphrodite's Child's 666 at your own peril.

Hard to forget the song that includes the voice of Irene Papas...

[Teasing the Korean]

This is great.  Thanks all for the recommendations!

[Rabshakeh]

23 hours ago, felser said:

They always seemed more muddled than satanist to me anyways.  First album felt like cartoon posturing.  'Paranoid' didn't strike me as particularly religious, more a story of alienation.   'Masters of Reality' talked more about God than about Satan, and had Satan subservient to God, if I remember.  I checked out at IV as it was so musically inept, and never checked back in.  

Consider, these are lyrics lifted directly from "After Forever" on 'Masters of Reality':

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
That God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear, yes I think it's too late

There's one tune that rhymes something like "God is cool" with "Are you afraid they'll think you're a fool". I can't remember it exactly. As a young youth it struck me as one of the silliest rhymes not on a Lou Reed record.

On 1/9/2023 at 8:37 PM, Joe said:

Also, as far as Christian rock concept LPs from this early 70s go, overlook Aphrodite's Child's 666 at your own peril.

Great one! 

The frame narrative is so portentous and 1960s. It makes no sense. 

I love that it was Demis Roussos doing the vocals as well. Abigail's Party flashbacks every time I hear the lyrics "the next one was a green".

[Teasing the Korean]

"Slow Change" by Bobby Hutcherson and Eugene McDaniels nicely fits this aesthetic.

Here is what I have compiled so far.  I was limited to tracks I have digitally.  The tunes are in no order.  I just hit "shuffle."  2 hours and 24 minutes.  I plan to add some of the suggestions from this thread if I can find them digitally.

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Teasing the Korean

[felser]

3 hours ago, Teasing the Korean said:

"Slow Change" by Bobby Hutcherson and Eugene McDaniels nicely fits this aesthetic.

 

That depends on how you interpret the "God is watching, God is dying, slow change" chorus.  If you take a trinitarian view where God the Father is watching God the Son die as propitiaton for our sins, initiating the slow change through God the Spirit (which is what I believe is reality, but not necessarily the purpose of the lyrics), it does fit perfectly.  If you take a Nietzche "God is dead" view, it is antithetical to the aesthetic.  I suspect McDaniels mostly  just liked the way the words sounded and the aura they infuce, rather than deeply pondering their meaning.

Edited January 13, 2023 by felser

[Teasing the Korean]

5 minutes ago, felser said:

That depends on how you interpret the "God is watching, God is dying, slow change" chorus.  If you take a trinitarian view where God the Father is watching God the Son die as propitiaton for our sins, initiating the slow change through God the Spirit (which is what I believe is reality, but not necessarily the purpose of the lyrics), it does fit perfectly.  If you take a Nietzche "God is dead" view, it is antithetical to the aesthetic.  I suspect McDaniels mostly  just liked the way the words sounded and the aura they infuce, rather than deeply pondering their meaning.

I'm not necessarily going for lyrical meaning as much as overall musical and lyrical vibe.  "Mass of the Holy Bomb" from Beneath the Planet of the Apes similarly fits the overall mood, as does Axelrod's Earth Rot album, though neither of them reflect anything in the Abrahamic texts, to my knowledge. (I was raised with no religion and am not at all religious.) Similarly, "We Could Be Flying" and "Born Again" are not religious per se, but they are about new beginnings.  This project is much more about a particular early 70s aesthetic that I remember as a kid.

[Joe]

On that vibe, then, there's also the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil.

 

 

[Teasing the Korean]

2 hours ago, Joe said:

On that vibe, then, there's also the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's Volume 3: A Child's Guide to Good and Evil.

They made a third album?  I know of only two.