212. This Time Thru – DeGarmo & Key

THIS TIME THRU (1978)

DeGarmo & Key

The very first album I ever bought with my own money.

As a 13 year old taking care of a neighbor’s lawn I saved money to begin regularly purchasing my own music. The first album I bought at The Pink Lady Christian Bookstore (yeah, I know…a story for a different post) was DeGarmo & Key’s “This Time Thru.” I would buy it several more times until it finally found release on CD over a decade later.

Built upon the blues, D&K originally created progressive rock with a decidedly intelligent approach. Eddie DeGarmo’s Hammond organ and Dana Key’s “Robin Trower” like blues guitar mastery lead a band that was musically light years ahead of most CCM at the time.

But not only did they write good songs and perform them well, D&K also brought production values and artistic ingenuity into an industry built primarily on an “evangelism first” mandate. Here we have instrumental intros, progressive changes, musical diversity and a never ending desire for quality.

“Emmanuel” starts with a gentle, classical acoustic guitar intro before Key’s heavier blues guitar rips through and takes the listener by the throat. the later recorded live version would be a nearly 10-minute instrumental delight. “Addey” follows as a strong acoustic ballad that would be rerecorded later and remains a classic. Easily a Top 50 song of all time. Another ballad that could crack that list would be “Alleyways of strife.” Here it is Key’s vocals that shine brightest.

The more country influenced “Only the Meek Survive” would have fit nicely on the first two Daniel Amos albums. “To Far, Too Long” fits the initial description of progressive rock with many instrumental breaks, time signature changes and creative musical direction changes. The cover of the classic “Wayfaring Stranger” is an album highlight and contains some of key’s best guitar playing on the entire album as well as giving DeGarmo moments to shine.

The album, though, is built around “In the Days of Thy Youth/Chase the Wind.” Though not a medley in the truest sense the former instrument introduction leads directly into the latter’s classic and progressive rock masterpiece. Everything works on this song. Lyrically, musically and creatively this is D&K at their very best. Starting slow, building and then going full force into a killer progressive rock song that sounds like one written by Kerry Livgren.

The same can be said for the album closing title track. Here again the more progressive influences shine. In fact, the entire “side Two” of the album ranks amongst the best sides to an album in CCM history.

Several years later many initial fans would complain about the musical direction change with the more synthesized approach, and it is the passion for this initial debut that caused such displeasure amongst the long term fans. Brilliant from first note to last, i\any reasl fan of Christian Rock cannot be without the album.