Unwilling To Shut Up & Sing
In our comprehensive interview, CCM pioneer Pam Mark Hall opens up about her career and the making of her last major label release, 1986's "Keeper."
“Keeper is my gospel album. Of all my product, that would be my ‘statement of faith’ record. Even though the early records are very, very specific about what the elements of my faith are, those are records of certainty. Keeper is a record of questions and mystery.”—Pam Mark Hall
In November of 2020, Pam Mark Hall and I sat down (via Zoom—as everyone was in that particular moment in time) to have a conversation about her long out-of-print 1986 album, Keeper. I’ve held it for intuitive purposes. There’s always a little voice directing the order in which I share my work and, this past week, I got the it’s time whisper on Pam’s feature. You can watch below!
Keeper is, for me, one of the most important CCM albums ever made for several reasons. While Amy Grant’s Lead Me On rightfully gets a lot of love for its introspection and stark honesty, Keeper, which preceded Grant’s album by two years, was an important brick in the road for that kind of album’s possibility.
When Keeper was released into the market in the summer of 1986, it marked a shift not only for Pam, but for a certain segment of the artists within the genre. While Pam was known—I might argue generalized—for a particular kind of certainty in her work (songs like her own “Not My Will,” Amy Grant’s “The Now and the Not Yet,” or Debby Boone’s “Morningstar), there was always an indication that there was something churning beneath the surface. While her 1984 Reunion release Supply & Demand may have provided the unshakable belief her listeners loved her for, “God Only Knows,” her contribution to Russ Taff’s Grammy-nominated Medals in 1985, alludes to the beginning of a deconstruction of sorts, a breaking apart of the assuredness that many associated with her work.
Like her label mate and collaborator Kathy Troccoli’s Images which was released the same year, Pam colored outside of the lines with Keeper. The album deviated from what the market and audience required to be commercially viable within it. “When we’re talking about the Christian industry, we’re talking about selling records to an audience that has a certain frame of reference, an audience that the industry caters to which wants…praise songs,” she told Musicline as production began in January 1986.
She selected singer-songwriter Wendy Waldman, an outsider to the world of CCM whose songs had been recorded by everyone from Judy Collins to Patti Austin, to produce. She took a more rock-edged approach, deviating from the acoustic folk of her early albums and from the electro-pop of the Keith Thomas-produced Supply & Demand. Waldman recalled to FolkWorks that Pam was the first person who sought her out as a producer. “I think my budget was $18,000, out of which my salary was $4000. I went over budget, so my salary was less. Here I am, a girl from the old country producing a Christian record. It was a tremendous learning experience.”
While Supply had attempted to introduce Pam—a Jesus Music pioneer—to a younger audience, Keeper found her embracing her artistic eldership. She told Billboard, “I know I’m not Pat Benatar or Joan Jett. To posture myself like that would be devastating. At the same time, I’m encouraged by a statement Wendy made to me early in the recording process. She said ‘Remember, when you think about it, some of the best rock ‘n’ roll today is being done by people in their 40s. An adult like Robert Palmer or Steve Winwood or Tina Turner knows how to use it to actually portray themselves in a song.” Contemporary Christian Music magazine’s Bruce A. Brown commended the “quality and reality of Hall’s lyrics, the carefully crafted arrangements, and the dynamic musicianship” of the album.
But also like Kathy Troccoli’s Images, Keeper was also abandoned in the marketplace. While the exquisite “Unexpected Places” almost cracked the CCM’s Adult Contemporary chart’s Top 10, the album did not crossover into the secular market, which was her hope. Campus Life magazine noted the dissonance between the pop market of the time with Keeper’s core, writing “If folk music fell into the ‘80s, it would sound like this. Pam Mark Hall has created a listening experience that remains palatable to pop tastes while giving us something more substantial to chew on.”
Had Keeper come out in 1988 when Tracy Chapman and Sinead O’Connor were breaking through with well-crafted, thinking people’s songs, there might have been a place for the album to land, but in 1986, less weighty songs like The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian” and Huey Lewis & The News’ “Stuck With You” were dominating the airwaves, leaving no room for the social justice-minded “Jesus In The Street” or “What Can I Do,” or the heart-wrenching “Jordan,” co-written with Rich Mullins.
In our interview, Pam and I discuss in-depth the making of this album, and its release, which coincided with her divorce, that she says ultimately led to the end of her relationship with the label. Her analysis of the confines of a woman’s place in CCM, the effects of sexism and ageism, what she describes as the demand to “shut up and sing,” and the ways that that patriarchy and capitalism impacted her relationships with her peers who were women is stunning and rare. It certainly should make those familiar and unfamiliar with Keeper listen to it with a deeper context and begin inserting it into conversations with projects like Leslie Phillips’ 1987 release The Turning and Russ Taff’s 1988 self-titled album, projects regarded as definitive CCM albums.
Don’t miss the two albums she has made since: 1993’s Paler Shade and 2017’s Mangle The Tango, which chronicle her journey since 1986. To purchase her work, visit pammarkhall.com.
If you want to contribute to the work that is happening here, I encourage you to either become a paid subscriber or contribute to the GoFundMe that I’ve set up for the New York Community Choir book! I am grateful for your support!
TIM: Regarding your most recent post in your journal, "Unwilling To Shut Up & Sing: A comprehensive interview with CCM pioneer Pam Mark Hall; opens up about her career and the making of her last major label release, 1986's 'Keeper'", I have to say, of ALL your writings, posting, written interviews, perspectives & video chats, this chapter with Pam Mark Hall, is by far, BY FAR, the most fully opened, detailed, thorough and all across the board, most embracing interview yet! (...and believe me, since my introduction into working in the world of CCM Radio since about 1979, I've heard them ALL, from the most "way-out-there" to the very most "homogenized, pasteurized & saccharine-filled" discussions & interviews, I've laid ears upon!)
From my years at KWVE, when we featured "OUR GOD REIGNS" from the "SUPPLY AND DEMAND" project, to my KYMS days where we featured "UNEXPECTED PLACES" from the "KEEPER" project and finally to my KKLA days where I premiered to Los Angeles radio "LOVE'S POSSIBILITY" from the "PALER SHADE" project, Pam Mark Hall's lyrics, music & song, has been to my collection of great gems & audio jewels as no doubt, your treasure chest contains very much the same.
I believe I must have read through your introduction & viewed the dual-screen video at least THREE TIMES...as to not miss a single fact, observation or detail...before joining in here, on the discussion board.
Just for the "technical" detail, I have "SUPPLY AND DEMAND" on vinyl album, but BOTH "KEEPER" & "PALER SHADE" on compact disc. I do not believe many prints were made of "KEEPER" in the digital platter form, but I was one of the "fortunate" ones, to obtain and STILL HAVE my copy. I am both blessed & humbled by that. Well, being in music & operation direction at many broadcast facilities throughout the beginning of time...when the earth's soil & radio waves were still cooling...the "picking" of recorded music, through early promotion, comes fast & leaves early!
While I was hosting the "S.N.P." program on KKLA, Los Angeles from 1994 to 1996, almost weekly, I would air something from "PALER SHADE". Later, music that emulated Hall's 'seeking possibility', I would host on my "THE MOODS OF SUNDAY NIGHT" program on S.R.N. from 2007 to 2014.
Well enough of my boisterous 'historical doings'; you're ability to 'bring-up-to-date' the precious life & times of Pam Mark Hall (Video LIVE, from her DOUBLE-WIDE!) was more than just a placement in the annals of your great & introspect interviews, but the one that ever most clearly, "hits-it-right-out-of-the-ball-park"! Your concern, kindness, love, countenance & compassion you have for your guests, goes way farther than the most experienced, average radio network interviewer. (yup...and I've been around some of those "extra sanctified" ones as well, unfortunately...)
I remember my days...years & even decades ago...when I sat with my two table top microphones with Margaret Becker in the green room of The Galaxy Theatre in Santa Ana, CA...with Twila Paris a couple years after and finally with extraordinary worship leader to women, Rita Springer, with The Vineyard International...some of the key elements I tried to bring into focus, were some of those same very points of dialogue & life's experiences, that you so successfully were able to, layout on the table for us to learn from, with ease.
I can only hope that many of those in "today's world" of CCM, that is so incredibly 'radically different' from the days that gentlemen kin to us, explored in eras past & times long gone, can gleam some sort of semblance & direction from...by following the popcorn trail, left behind, by interviewers that put forth the very uncommon level of respect, empathy, "homework-doing" and simple "LISTENING" to your guest, that today's world, seems so empty & void of; a vacuum, just dreaming to once again...be filled.
Thank you Tim, my great brother, for sharing your God-given skills of concern, compassion, love & care during your times of round table & talk. Our world today, needs such.
Anthony Ochoa
CCM Radio Broadcaster
Los Angeles, CA
(retired)
So good to hear you and Pam Mark Hall in conversation. Kudos to you both--and gratitude.