Shotgun Angel (song)

Last updated

Shotgun Angel is the title of a 1977 song written by Bill Sprouse Jr.

The song was inspired by the many all night drives to and from concerts by Sprouse and his band The Road Home. As the band traveled in two old vans, they kept each other awake by talking and singing over the CB radio. The conversations between Bill and his sound technician Mike Shoup and drummer Ed McTaggart became the idea behind the song. The band's name "The Road Home" proved prophetic for Bill when he died soon so young.

After Sprouse's untimely death at age 26, Shoup dug up an old 4 track tape of the song and asked Dom Franco of the Maranatha! group Bethlehem to add pedal steel guitar to it. When Daniel Amos heard it they decided to record the song and even named their second album after it. The band also enlisted Franco to play the pedal steel and Shoup and McTaggart to add the CB radio voices on the recording.

The song went on to become a popular song for D.A. in the years that followed, and would later be covered by The 77s in 1999 for the D.A. tribute album, When Worlds Collide .


Related Research Articles

Ed McTaggart is an American drummer and artist. He is best known as the drummer of the rock band Daniel Amos.

<i>Shotgun Angel</i> 1977 studio album by Daniel Amos

Shotgun Angel is the second album by Christian rock band Daniel Amos, released in 1977. It was their final album for Maranatha! Music and their last album performed in their early country rock sound.

The Doobie Brothers American rock band

The Doobie Brothers are an American rock band from San Jose, California, known for their flexibility in performing across numerous genres and their vocal harmonies. Active for five decades, with their greatest success in the 1970s, the group's current lineup consists of founding members Tom Johnston and Patrick Simmons, alongside Michael McDonald and John McFee, and touring musicians including John Cowan, Bill Payne (keyboards), Marc Russo (saxophones), Ed Toth (drums), and Marc Quiñones (percussion). Other long-serving members of the band include guitarist Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (1974–1979), bassist Tiran Porter and drummers John Hartman, Michael Hossack, and Keith Knudsen.

Pedal steel guitar Console-type of steel guitar with foot pedals to raise and lower the pitch of the strings

The pedal steel guitar is a console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all steel guitars, it can play unlimited glissandi and deep vibrati—characteristics it shares with the human voice. Pedal steel is most commonly associated with American country music and Hawaiian music.

Pure Prairie League American country rock band

Pure Prairie League is an American country rock band whose origins go back to 1965 and Waverly, Ohio, with singer and guitarist Craig Fuller, drummer Tom McGrail, guitarist and drummer Jim Caughlan and steel guitarist John David Call. Fuller started the band in 1970 and McGrail named it after a fictional 19th century temperance union featured in the 1939 Errol Flynn cowboy film Dodge City. In 1975 the band scored its biggest hit with the single "Amie", a track that originally appeared on their 1972 album Bustin' Out. Pure Prairie League scored five consecutive Top 40 LPs in the 1970s and added a sixth in the 1980s. They disbanded in 1988 but regrouped in 1998 and continue to perform as of 2021. The line-up has been fluid over the years, with no one member having served over the band's entire history. The band's most recent line-up consists of Call, long-time bassist Michael Reilly, guitarists Donnie Lee Clark and Randy Harper and drummer Scott Thompson. Among the other notable past musicians to have played with Pure Prairie League include guitarists Vince Gill, Gary Burr and Curtis Wright.

Whiskeytown Band that plays alternative country

Whiskeytown was an American rock/alternative country band formed in 1994 from Raleigh, North Carolina. Fronted by Ryan Adams, the group included members Caitlin Cary, Phil Wandscher, Eric "Skillet" Gilmore, and Mike Daly. They disbanded in 2000 with Adams leaving to pursue his solo career. Whiskeytown gradually expanded its sound outside the confines of alternative country while still maintaining its alternative roots.

Keller Williams American musician

Keller Williams is an American singer, songwriter and musician who combines elements of bluegrass, folk, alternative rock, reggae, electronica/dance, jazz, funk, along with other assorted genres. He is often described as a 'one-man jam-band' due to his frequent use of live phrase looping with multiple instruments. Keller Williams was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia on February 4, 1970, and began playing the guitar in his early teens. He later matriculated to Virginia Wesleyan College in Virginia Beach where he received his degree in theater. After college, he moved to Colorado to advance his music career and expand his repertoire.

Convoy (song) 1975 single by C. W. McCall

"Convoy" is a 1975 novelty song performed by C. W. McCall that became a number-one song on both the country and pop charts in the US and is listed 98th among Rolling Stone magazine's 100 Greatest Country Songs of All Time. Written by McCall and Chip Davis, the song spent six weeks at number one on the country charts and one week at number one on the pop charts. The song went to number one in Canada as well, hitting the top of the RPM Top Singles Chart on January 24, 1976. "Convoy" also peaked at number two in the UK. The song capitalized on the fad for citizens band (CB) radio. The song was the inspiration for the 1978 Sam Peckinpah film Convoy.

Peter Rowan American musician

Peter Rowan is an American bluegrass musician and composer. Rowan plays guitar and mandolin, yodels and sings.

Daniel Amos American rock band

Daniel Amos is an American Christian rock band formed in 1974 by Terry Scott Taylor on guitars and vocals, Marty Dieckmeyer on bass guitar, Steve Baxter on guitars and Jerry Chamberlain on lead guitars. The band currently consists of Taylor, guitarist Greg Flesch and drummer Ed McTaggart. Over the band's career, they have included keyboardist Mark Cook, drummer Alex MacDougall, bassist Tim Chandler and keyboardist Rob Watson with sounds that experimented with country rock, rock, new wave and alternative rock.

John McFee American musician

John McFee is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and multi-instrumentalist, and long-time member of The Doobie Brothers.

Up on Cripple Creek 1969 single by The Band

"Up on Cripple Creek" is the fifth song on The Band's eponymous second album, The Band. It was released as an (edited) single on Capitol 2635 in November 1969 and reached No. 25 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Up on Cripple Creek" was written by Band guitarist Robbie Robertson, with drummer Levon Helm singing lead vocal.

<i>Friends and Legends</i> 1973 studio album by Michael Stanley

Friends and Legends is the second solo album by Michael Stanley. The album title refers to the backing musicians accompanying Stanley on the album, which was recorded at Applewood Studios in Golden, Colorado. The basic band on all tracks was Barnstorm, composed of Joe Walsh on lead guitar and synthesizer, Joe Vitale on drums, flute, synthesizer and backing vocals, and Kenny Passarelli on bass. In addition, three members of Stephen Stills' Manassas performed: Paul Harris on keyboards, Joe Lala on percussion and Al Perkins on pedal steel guitar, and the band also included saxophonist David Sanborn. Among the backing vocalists were Richie Furay and Dan Fogelberg. In keeping with the collaborative spirit, J. Geils assisted with production of the saxophone tracks.

Allen Shelton was an American five-string banjo player mostly known for being a member of the bluegrass band Jim & Jesse and the Virginia Boys since the 1960s. Shelton was born in Rockingham County, North Carolina on July 2, 1936. Shelton started playing the banjo when he was fourteen. His father Troy Shelton was a guitar player mainly, but also played mandolin and banjo. A local musician named Junior Biggs showed him some three-finger style rolls.

Buddy Emmons Musical artist

Buddy Gene Emmons was an American musician who is widely regarded as the world's foremost pedal steel guitarist of his day. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1981. Affectionately known by the nickname "Big E", Emmons' primary genre was American country music, but he also performed jazz and Western swing. He recorded with Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, The Everly Brothers, The Carpenters, Jackie DeShannon, Roger Miller, Ernest Tubb, John Hartford, Little Jimmy Dickens, Ray Price, Judy Collins, George Strait, John Sebastian, and Ray Charles and was a widely sought session musician in Nashville and Los Angeles.

Matt Ellis (Australian musician) Musical artist

Matt Ellis is an Americana genre singer-songwriter from Sydney, Australia. Based in the U.S. since 2005, Ellis just released a new single, "Desert Gold".

Lloyd Green Musical artist

Lloyd Lamar Green is an American steel guitarist noted for his extensive country music recording session career in Nashville performing on 116 No.1 country hits including Tammy Wynette’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E” (1968), Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors” (1973), The Oak Ridge Boys’ “Elvira” (1981), and Alan Jackson’s “Remember When” (2004). Green was a one of an inner circle of elite recording studio musicians known colloquially as the Nashville A-Team. In a career beginning in the mid 1960s and spanning a quarter-century, Green performed on more than 5000 recordings helping to create hits for scores of artists such as Charley Pride, The Byrds, Johnny Cash, The Monkees, Don Williams, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, and many others. His 1968 performance on the Byrds' landmark album Sweetheart of the Rodeo, influenced generations of non-mainstream country guitarists. He was featured on Ken Burns' Country Music documentary film in 2019. Green was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1988.

<i>Where I Come From</i> (New Riders of the Purple Sage album) 2009 studio album by New Riders of the Purple Sage

Where I Come From is the fourteenth studio album by the American country rock band the New Riders of the Purple Sage. It was recorded in 2008, and released on the Woodstock Records label on June 2, 2009.

Sons of Bill

Sons of Bill is a band from Charlottesville, Virginia founded by brothers Sam, Abe, and James Wilson, along with bassist Seth Green and drummer Todd Wellons. The band took their name from the Wilson brothers' father, Bill Wilson, a musician and professor of philosophical theology and Southern literature at the University of Virginia where the band initially formed. The band's album Love And Logic is their most successful to date; it was called "a classic roots-rock record for the modern age" by Rolling Stone, and "one of those delightful surprises that music so rarely springs in the age of digital access and constant, instant discovery" by British newspaper The Guardian.

Ralph Mooney Musical artist

Ralph Mooney was an American steel guitar player. He was inducted into the Steel Guitar Hall of Fame in 1983. He was the original steel guitarist in the Strangers.