Phil Keaggy Band: Emerging (1977)

Tracks:

1. Theme
2. Where Is My Maker?
3. Another Try
4. Ryan's Song
5. Struck By The Love
6. Turned On The Light
7. Sorry
8. Take A Look Around
9. Gentle Eyes 

After the How The West tour wrapped, Phil headed back to New York State and his regular gig, as front man to his own group, The Phil Keaggy Band--a boogie band similar in style to Orleans (of "Dance With Me" and "Still The One" fame), another upstate band of note.  Featuring guitarist Lynn Nichols, keyboardist Phil Madeira, bassist Dan Cunningham and drummer Terry Andersen, the group grew out of Keaggy's residency at the Love Inn Christian community.  Later that year, they released their lone album, Emerging, a breezy set of soft rockers that gave listeners a chance to hear the guitarist in a true ensemble setting.  

What they hear is Phil finally getting to mesh with a group and do some real playing, which is probably his most exuberant of the decade.  The songs are generally uptempo light funk and the band settles into a tasty groove, with occasional help from saxophonist Ray Papai.  The rhythm section is tight, as Nichols, Cunningham, and Andersen keep the groove going through the whole album.  They give Phil a fast, smooth canvas on which to paint, and his solos are fairly hot and bright, flowing in a somewhat jazzy vain, with a cleaner and thicker tone than he flashed on West.  His vocals are also fairly wild, and for the first time he pulls out his falsetto grace notes on "Turned on the Light," the funkiest tune on the record, complete with rock scream and a capella vocal break.

The players are more than just backup ringers; Madeira has several solos on organ and piano and even sings his own "Struck by the Love."  He also wrote "Theme," a catchy instrumental that sounds just as its title suggests; indeed, it sounds like the house band's theme for a late-night talk show.  It leads into "Where is My Maker," a fast mover based on the book of Job that moves (somewhat oddly) into a blistering shuffle.  

Phil also has a couple of mellower acoustic numbers that deal with the death of his infant son, "Ryan's Song" and "Gentle Eyes."  The former is a heart-rending number whose lyrics were written by a fellow believer, and the latter closes the album on a tender note, as the singer comforts his wife after the bitter loss.  The couple would suffer several miscarriages before the birth of their son Ian in 1981.

The best song on the album is "Take a Look Around," another funky number with a nice rock beat and fast playing from Phil.  The lyrics inspire the album title with the sketchy couplet, "There's a kingdom emerging/And to me that's very encouraging."  But what makes the song great is the two-minute jam at the end that echoes everything from the Tommy "Overture" to "Theme from Mahogany":  Phil goes everywhere on this bit, hitting all of his sweet spots and then some.  

It's a shame that PKB couldn't have made at least one more record together, as they definitely had a style of their own and probably were the funkiest bunch of musicians that Phil would ever collaborate with.   It's no surprise that Nichols and Madeira were key in producing his 1992 retro-rock masterpiece, Crimson and Blue:  They brought back the spirit of a certain time and place when boogie and gospel could dance the night away together.