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| Andrus Blackwood & Co. LIVE (1980) Greentree Records • R-3570 |
Producer:
Phil Johnson
File Under: CCM/Pop
Time Capsule-Worthy Track:
Jesus You're So Wonderful
This otherwise modest live recording spawned a single that became a mega-hit. It was a bit of a novelty song, a 50's knock-off that gave Terry Blackwood and Sherman Andrus a chance to goof around a little and elicit a few laughs from the audience. It had been previously released as a track on the pair's 1978 2-record set titled Following You. Who could've predicted that Jesus, You're So Wonderful would dominate CCM radio charts at the #1 position for TWENTY straight weeks in 1980-81.
"Jesus You're So Wonderful was mostly Sherman's idea," Terry Blackwood told me in July of 2020, "and I just added my touches. We never dreamed it would be so popular."
I also reached out to Sherman Andrus. "Jesus You're So Wonderful just took off," he said. "We had been singing it with great success but recording it live was just a bonanza for us. The glasses that I used were Gary Chapman's, who had some good friends in our band. The skit that we did was first done at a festival called Ichthus in Wilmore, Kentucky in 1978. I was prancing all over the stage like James Brown."
Now apparently, Sherman would ask the audience members to please not rush the stage. "Yeah, the whole deal about not having our security with us and asking them not to charge the stage, that started in Wilmore, Kentucky," Andrus remembers. "No one knew us, so we had to create an illusion of being popular."
Wait...what?! Sherman had been a member of two of the most iconic franchises in Christian music history - Andrae Crouch & the Disciples and The Imperials...and Terry, also an Imperial, had backed up Elvis Presley and had a last name that was synonymous with Gospel music...and no one knew them? Maybe it was because Ichthus was more of a rock festival.
So back to the story, with Sherman Andrus begging the crowd to not charge the stage: "Well, that was like saying sick 'em to a dog," he said. "That song is what put us on a roll."
Recorded in a hotel ballroom in Evansville Indiana for just $12,000, this record is part concert/part worship service. Several of AB&C's smooth, radio-friendly pop tunes from Grand Opening and Following You are included here as well as a tune that Terry and Sherman had previously made popular with the Imperials (Give Them All to Jesus). But the group also takes time to minister with audience-participation praise and worship on tracks like He's Here Right Now, Bless That Wonderful Name, and If You Abide In Me.
Sherman does most of the talking, at one point exhorting the crowd with, "If anyone should have an abundant life, it's those of us who've found the very Author of life, Jesus Christ." Speaking of the crowd, they were knowledgeable, greeting the intros of several recognizable songs with applause.
Terry and Sherman are not known as songwriters, but they had an excellent track record when it came to evaluating the work of talented writers like Phil Johnson, Tim Sheppard and Bruce Hibbard. And to be non-family members, Terry and Sherman had a great vocal blend. Karen Voegtlin also added her voice to the mix on several songs to thicken things up with some 3-part harmony. Terry is one of the finest, smoothest lead singers in the history of Christian music, and several songs on this record feature Sherman's effortless falsetto (which reminded me in a really good way of the Imperials Live album from 1973).
But let's face it, the hit that opened side two is what this record will always be remembered for.
"A guy named Steve Fromm wrote Jesus You're So Wonderful," Terry Blackwood told me. "I think we captured the essence of what he was trying to do with that song. Church youth groups sang it. We always brought some up from the audience to sing the background part with me. It was just such a fun song. People loved it and we did it for the rest of our tenure as a group."
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