Phil Keaggy

For more than twenty years, Phil Keaggy has contributed his versatile guitar skills to the contemporary Christian music landscape. Raised in a Catholic household of ten children in Ohio, he developed an early passion for music, devoting countless hours to recordings by Johnny Ray and Elvis Presley and beginning to mimic the latter by the time he turned four. Additional styles broadened his listening, and he acquired solid grounding in classical repertoire. His initial instrument was a late-'50s Gretsch Anniversary; at ten his father presented him with a Sears Silvertone, and by the close of fifth grade he was performing for the entire student body. Three years afterward he joined the Squires as a professional musician.

During his junior year of high school in the late '60s, Keaggy and his longtime associate, drummer John Sferra, formed Glass Harp. The group quickly earned recognition as one of the era’s most inventive power trios, although commercial breakthrough remained elusive due to their short-lived original run. Signed to Decca, they crisscrossed the country repeatedly and cultivated a loyal following captivated by Keaggy’s rapid-fire solos and exploratory textures. At their peak they supported major bills featuring Iron Butterfly, Yes, Traffic, and Chicago.

The sudden attention proved intense for musicians still so young, and amid the late-'60s climate Keaggy encountered and experimented with drugs. Everything shifted on February 14, 1970, when, while enduring a difficult LSD experience in a hotel room, he learned his parents had suffered a head-on collision in Ohio. His mother passed away shortly afterward, prompting a spiritual crisis that culminated in his becoming a born-again Christian. In the early '70s he began sharing his faith with often surprised Glass Harp audiences after shows.

Keaggy departed the band in 1972 and issued his debut solo effort, What a Day, the next year. He devoted an extended period to work within a Christian fellowship and also married. Since that time he has issued well over thirty albums, receiving praise for both his instrumental mastery and his songwriting, which spans the Beatlesque pop heard on Sunday’s Child to quieter instrumental pieces. He periodically reunites with his former Glass Harp bandmates for special concerts while continuing to issue solo recordings, among them the 2006 release Roundabout.