We Need A Lot More Jesus And A Lot Less Rock And Roll (MP3s)

In about 1960 or so, Wayne Raney, a veteran harmonica player from Wolf Bayou, Arkansas, took a look around and concluded that the world was in pretty pathetic condition.  Rather than simply sit back and complain, however, Raney proceeded to write a song detailing his plan for getting things back on the right track. The record came out on Nashville's Starday label.

The song, We Need A Lot More Jesus (And A Lot Less Rock And Roll), was a catalog of modern ills that came with a decidedly religious recipe for correction.  Writer Colin Escott called it "gloriously anthemic" and I really can't add much to that.

It's almost too bad the song came out when it did, though; had it been written a decade later, Raney almost certainly would have worked up a verse condemning the hippie movement.

So here are the 11 versions I've unearthed.  Are there are others?  Almost certainly there are.  If you know any I'm missing, feel free leave a comment so I can continue the quest. 

No doubt, several of these recordings were made in completely in earnest, while others were made with tongue in cheek.  All of them are enjoyable, though.

Wayne Raney & The Raney Family   (2:16)  

Cowboy Copas  (2:07)

Sunshine Boys   (2:02)

Skeeter Davis   (2:23)

Gospel Quartet   (1:29)

Greenbriar Boys   (2:07)

Larry Donn   (2:14)

Dick Monda   (2:01)

The Gas Company   (2:01)

Linda Ronstadt   (2:28)

Nate Gibson & The Gashouse Gang   (1:58)   Nate's version, released in 2007 on his All The Way Home CD, is the most recent one here.  Gibson is a budding musicologist and the author of a forthcoming book that will likely be a mandatory addition to your library:  The Starday Story - The House That Country Music Built, which University Press Of Mississippi will publish a little later this year. 

                

Comments

[David]

There's a fairly well-known version of this by People (featuring Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman) on their album I LOVE YOU (Capitol ST-2924 [1968]).

[We Willy]

We notice that while you have posted an image of a Cowboy Copas LP with the song listed you haven't posted the song. We need a lot more Cowboy Copas and a lot less Linda Ronstadt.

[j]

Interesting cover for "The Gospel Quartet"

Not four, but three white women, or is that three images of the same woman?

[Listener Greg G.]

Willy - ha, that was pretty stupid of me. Thanks for pointing out the error, which has now been corrected.

[Mindwrecker]

I'll be darned, here I'd just discovered this song from one of your past posts (-I think?) and it was so catchy I had to learn it and add it to my songbook; and people always get a kick out of hearing/playing it. I didn't imagine there'd be a lovely second deluge of this song. Thanks!

[King Daevid MacKenzie]

...Chicago disc jockey Larry Lujack used the title line from the Ronstadt version as a running gag punchline on his WCFL afternoon drive show in the mid-'70s; it was the second-to-last thing he played (immediately before the customised 'CFL version of "Life is a Rock" by Reunion) on his last SuperCFL Top 40 airshift on 15 March 1976...

[aeolus]

Much enjoyment in Raney's original and all the covers. Thanks. After playing the Sunshine Boys and then the Gospel Quartet, this listener was really flummoxed. The two sound strikingly similar. Actually strikingly identical except for the Quartets slimmed down version. Also, Cowboy, nee Lloyd Estel, is designated as Hawkshaw Hawkins in the downloaded file and as artist in the embedded info.

[Listener Greg G.]

Damn, I guess when I changed the text on the blog to read Cowboy Copas rather than Hawkshaw Hawkins, I forgot about the need to rename the file itself and to re-tag it. I think it's fixed now, so thanks aeolus.

[Malcolm Canopener]

I'm wondering if The Gospel Quartet is an actual band, and not one of those releases like Crown Records used to put out, where the actual artist name has been changed. The reason I mention this is because I have a later Sunshine Boys LP which includes the exact same version of WNALMJ as it credited to The Gospel Quartet here (unfortunately my copy is 3000 miles away - so I can't check for other similarities). In any case, I'm just glad to have finally heard the original song. Needless to say, it rocks! Thank you, Malcolm

[Phud]

Raney also released a version on his own Poor Boy label. It may pre-date Starday.

[Wanda (Raney) Sutherland]

I am blown away after hearing this song (We Need A Whole Lot More of Jesus) recorded by so many different artist. I am Wayne Raney's daughter and sang on the original recording with my Dad and brother Zyndall. My brother and I were 15 and 16 years old at the time Dad wrote the song. To the best of my recollection the song was written and recorded in 1959. Dad passed away from lung cancer in 1993 in Batesville Arkansas, just a few miles from his birthday in Wolf Bayou, Ar.