“Welcome Back” (1971) – Love Song * Written by Chuck Girard * LP: Love Song * Label: Good News Records
Love Song were one of the best-loved “Jesus People” groups within that seventies movement. The song “Welcome Back” is special because it’s loaded with so much emotion: lead singer Chuck Girard’s soaring lead; the repentant backup singers’ heartbroken harmonies; and the melancholy melodica suggesting regret + relief. As a whole, the Love Song album is the ultimate aural signifier of the movement’s California roots. By the time the final track plays (“Feel the Love”) you can hear and feel the sun-streaked waves of baptism washing over grateful heads of long hair. Girard, by the way, is the man who did the Mike Love sendup on the Hondell’s 1964 “Little Honda” recording, although a stand-in mimed it for the group’s TV appearances. A clip is available of Love Song performing the song live on a local program that also featured other So Cal Jesus scene notables: Pastor Chuck Smith of the Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, Duane Peterson, publisher of the movement’s Hollywood Free Paper, and Lonnie Frisbee, the popular young evangelist who appeared to be the Son of God’s double.