The Messengers Quartet

Pontiac, Michigan

Recorded June 1983

Trivia: This is the first “real” album we ever recorded. It was quite an undertaking for us at the time to come up with the money and travel to Crusade Studios in Flora Illinois. Crusade was located about an hour and a half southwest of Terre Haute Indiana, about an 8 hour drive for us. There were other studios closer to home, but Crusade was a “Christian Based” studio specializing in religious music. Plus, it was where all of our favorite groups had gone before: The Silvertones, The Harmony Four, The Harbor Lights, The Gloryland Quartet, and The Melody Boy’s, for whom Crusade was just a short drive from Farmersburg Indiana. We suspect that The Melody Boy’s used Crusade first partially because it was so close to home, and then everyone else followed because their results were so good.

It cost about $2200 up front to make a record at Crusade. To come up with part of the money we asked twenty different families (include our parents!) to each give us $50 in advance and in return we would give them this album along with any others we might eventually record. This “record club” raised $1000 dollars. We had some money from the proceeds of the “Home Brew” tape we had made and we loaned the quartet the balance needed.

The Coes, Dillards, and Girdleys all camped nearby Flora on that first trip. We recorded on Saturday and they made a long weekend out of it. For budgetary purposes, recording in those days was a one day process; take a few tries at singing the song, and then mix it down to stereo and move on to the next song spending about an hour on each song. With 12 songs on an album, a recording session took about 12 hours, all done in one day! We followed that pattern again for our next project, “In The Sky”, but beginning with the “We Shall See Jesus” project in 1985, we took one full Friday to record and then until about 2pm on Saturday to mix down. Then we would drive back to Anderson Indiana for a big concert Saturday night. Record sales at Anderson would cover the cost of the trip!

He Set Me Free
For Even Me
Who Am I?
Medley: The Sweetest Song I Know / Amazing Grace
Hide Thou Me
Heaven’s Jubilee
Looking For A City
Listen: He Gave Me Something Worth Living For
Heavenly Love
Sheep and Shepherd Medley
Stepping On The Clouds