Glass Harp is a rock band formed in Youngstown, Ohio in 1968 consisting of Phil Keaggy, drummer John Sferra and bassist Daniel Pecchio. (More from Wikipedia)
Phil Keaggy is another pioneer in CCM that I have some familiarity with. He was in a 1960’s garage rock band from Youngstown, Ohio called the Squires and released a single called “Batmobile” that is included on Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 9. In 1968, he was a co-founder of Glass Harp, a band that became one of the most popular in Northeast Ohio and is now regarded as one of the earliest of the “jam rock” bands.
After the death of his mother from injuries in an auto accident, Phil Keaggy became a Christian; although he remained in Glass Harp, Keaggy began introducing Christian witness into their recordings. About the band’s second album, Synergy, Phil Keaggy is quoted in Wikipedia as having said: “That album was a real experience because I was able to sing ‘The Answer’, a song I wrote right after my conversion to Christ. And with . . . producers and an engineer that didn’t care about Jesus, I was surprised that out of 15 songs, one of the 10 that got on the album was ‘The Answer’. I praise Jesus for that work, because it’s just a simple song of testimony.”
Phil Keaggy left Glass Harp in 1972 and released his first solo album in 1973 called What a Day; the songs were all written when he was still with Glass Harp.
(July 2014)
