Phil Keaggy

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Guitarist Phil Keaggy is still trying to blend his faith with serious rock music

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Guitarist Phil Keaggy is still trying to blend his faith with serious rock music

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- On the day he became a Christian in 1970, guitarist Phil Keaggy returned home seeking the perfect song to help him wrestle with the changes in his life.

With his rock trio Glass Harp, he was already a rising star in mainstream music, touring across America and recording a Carnegie Hall live album. He was also in a "tender place" after losing his mother a week earlier. Flipping through his records, he found Eric Clapton's soaring "Presence of the Lord" from the "Blind Faith" album.

"I have finally found a place to live just like I never could before," sang Keaggy, performing this week at the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. "I know I don't have much to give, but soon I'll open any door. Everybody knows the secret. Everybody knows the score. I have finally found a place to live, in the presence of the Lord."

This was a symbolic choice, since "I bought that album because I loved Cream," said Keaggy, referring to the blues-rock trio that made Clapton a superstar. "There was so much yearning in that song, for God, for a sense of peace. I found it comforting and I listened to it over and over, at least a dozen times."

But trying to combine Christian faith with serious rock music created a dilemma, when Keaggy entered what record-industry pros have long called CCM -- Contemporary Christian Music. Most of his 55 albums were first sold in Christian bookstores, instead of mainstream music chains. In recent decades, he recorded his influential acoustic-guitar albums, such as "Beyond Nature" in 1991, on his own, in a home studio.

"CCM never really understood me," said Keaggy, the day after his concert drew fans from 35 different states to the Cove auditorium. "I'm not sure that CCM understands what I'm trying to do today. It doesn't matter anymore."

With his digital home studio and links to musicians nationwide, Keaggy has made a variety of solo and collaborative instrumental, as well as vocal, recordings with colleagues blending pop, rock, jazz, ambient electronics and what CCM leaders call "worship" music. But his latest project represents another attempt to mix Christian content with mainstream rock.

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Spiritual journeys: Phil Keaggy and Jeff Johnson's instrumental art on strings and keys

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Spiritual journeys: Phil Keaggy and Jeff Johnson's instrumental art on strings and keys

While recording his "Beyond Nature" album, Phil Keaggy spent many hours doing three things -- playing acoustic guitar, taking long walks in the woods and reading books by C.S. "Jack" Lewis.

"I took all that in and it influenced the music, which was quiet and contemplative and that fit with that moment in my life," said Keaggy, in a recent interview. "All of that was connected. … I think you can feel a spirit behind that music."

So it isn't surprising that this 1991 classic included song titles such as "Brother Jack," "Fragile Forest" and "Addison's Walk," referring to a Magdalen College footpath that Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Oxford friends often walked while discussing literature, faith and life.

While "Beyond Nature" was an instrumental recording, the liner notes included this Lewis quote: "Nature is mortal; we shall out-live her. … Nature is only the image, the symbol; but it is the symbol Scripture invites me to use. We are summoned to pass in through Nature, beyond her, into that splendor which she fitfully reflects. And in there, and beyond Nature, we shall eat of the tree of life."

So this was a "Christian" album, one inspired by the apologetics of Lewis? That's the kind of question musicians often hear after recording instrumental music during an era in which "Christian music" debates almost always focus on lyrics.

"I just play," said Keaggy. "I don't try to analyze all that."

In recent years, Keaggy has recorded a series of instrumental albums with keyboardist Jeff Johnson, who -- like the guitarist -- has for decades mixed folk, rock, jazz, classical and Celtic music into a style that writers struggle to label. Both record most of their music in home studios on their own terms. Both draw the attention of critics outside the "contemporary Christian music" niche.

The duo's latest work, for Johnson's Ark label, is "Cappadocia" -- taking its name from an arid, volcanic region in what is now Turkey. Early Christians hid in this isolated haven during persecutions and the Apostle Peter addressed his first epistle to "exiles" in several places, including Cappadocia.

Johnson visited this region in 2017 and was stuck by remnants of Christian life, from pieces of frescos and engravings to a rose-shaped window in a sanctuary carved into a hillside. Thus, the disc includes song titles like "Chapel of Stone," "Parousia (A Presence)" and "That Which is Hidden."