UNKNOWN MEMBER OF THE MONAHANS FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH HIGH SCHOOL YOUTH CHOIR - Without Jesus (from Eternity, United Sound 4285)
There are literally tens of thousands of these records filling thrift bins across this great nation. And when i say "these records" I don't mean this particular release, but Christian and gospel records in general. It's the reason custom outfits like Century and United Sound existed. The people that owned the various regional custom franchises didn't expect to find stars, but were more than willing to take your check and master tapes (or record you themselves) and press up a few 100 or few 1000 copies of your effort. It was up to the artists or organizations themselves- usually churches or schools- to actually distribute the release. There was not really any type of quality control involved as far as talent went. Money talked.
This early 70s release on the United Sound imprint comes from Monahans, Texas. Of the 13 tracks all but just one are youth group choral efforts and that one is a nice acoustic folk original titled "Without Jesus" that is uncredited. Certainly not amazing, but interesting for an original song by a teen kid with a guitar from Monahans.
As a sidenote... John Hildreth of Lubbock is listed on the label as the United Sound agent. In the 60s Hildreath had been the regional rep for Century Customs.
Also... as noted by Lisa Wheeler in the comments below these Monahans teens didn't have to travel far for the cover photo. Bordering the east side of town and stretching from the south all the north into Nuevo Mexico is a line of sandhills. Some of the biggest and grandest hills fall outside of the Monahans Sandhills State Park. But the park is hard to beat as a place to spend an afternoon digging holes and surfing sand.
3 comments:
Love the cover! Looks like those Monahans kids didn't have to travel far to take the picture--hahha!
That said, the cover screams they careened into a sand dune, the bus broke down, they're days away from help (and water),and they are about three days tops from going all Alfred Packer on each other! Maybe they are waving for help?
That's hilarious... We actually did get stuck in the sand dunes off an FM late one night... luckily a couple of stoners on 4-wheelers showed up and pulled us out... they were like angels... they came in from nowhere and headed back in the same direction...
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