''Shotgun Angel'' is the title of a 1977 song written by
Bill Sprouse Jr.
Bill Sprouse Jr. (aka Willy Sprouse Jr., d. 5 September 1975) was a Christian evangelist, singer and songwriter, and the musical force behind two groups (both called The Road Home) in the early 1970s. Bill recorded several songs for Maranatha! Mu ...
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
Citizens band radio (also known as CB radio), used in many countries, is a land mobile radio system, a system allowing short-distance person-to-many persons bidirectional voice communication among individuals, using two way radios operating on ...
. The conversations between Bill and his sound technician Mike Shoup and drummer
Ed McTaggart
Ed McTaggart (born July 10, 1951) is an American drummer and artist. He is best known as the drummer of the rock band Daniel Amos.
McTaggart joined DA in 1976, after years of playing with Bill Sprouse Jr.'s band The Road Home.
In the 1980s, McT ...
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!
Maranatha! Music is a Christian music record label which was founded as a nonprofit ministry of Calvary Chapel in 1971. The label is distributed by Capitol Christian Music Group, a division of Universal Music Group, Universal Music.
Background
...
group Bethlehem to add
pedal steel
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 p ...
guitar to it. When
Daniel Amos
Daniel Amos (aka D. A., Dä) is an American Christian rock band formed in 1974 by Terry Scott Taylor on guitars and vocals, Marty Dieckmeyer on bass guitar, Steve Baxter (musician), Steve Baxter on guitars and Jerry Chamberlain on lead guitars. ...
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
The 77s (alternatively spelled the Seventy Sevens, the 77's, or simply 77's) is an American rock music, rock band consisting of Michael Roe on vocals/guitar, Mark Harmon (musician), Mark Harmon on bass guitar, and Bruce Spencer on drums.
Histo ...
in 1999 for the D.A.
tribute album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78 rpm records coll ...
, ''
When Worlds Collide
''When Worlds Collide'' is a 1933 science fiction novel co-written by Edwin Balmer and Philip Wylie; they also co-authored the sequel ''After Worlds Collide'' (1934). It was first published as a six-part monthly serial (September 1932 through Fe ...
''.
1977 songs
Citizens band radio in popular culture
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