Artist:The 77s
Song:Ba Ba Ba Ba
Album:All Fall Down
On the surface, The 77s look and sound like a typical New Wave band from the early 80s. But they were performing Jesus Music or as it would become known, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM). As Jesus Music pioneer Larry Norman said about The 77s "They are too Christian for the Radio, too radio for the Church." In the early 80s, there was interest from secular record companies to sign CCM artists and cross them over to pop. But by crossing over to pop, acts like The 77s risked alienating their fanbase. Soul was a natural extension of Gospel so there wasn't the same problem. The 77s were formed in 1979 in Sacramento as Scratch Band. By the time they recorded in 1982, the band name was changed to The 77s. The lead singer and main songwriter of The 77s is Michael Rowe. Other members were Mark Tootle on guitar and keyboards, Jan Eric Volz on bass and Mark Proctor on drums. They performed every weekend at Warehouse Christian Ministries (WCM). In 1982, WCM started Exit Records and released The 77s debut album Ping Pong Over the Abyss. Singer, songwriter and producer Charlie Peacock was also at WCM but he already had a contract with A&M Records. He had Exit sign a distribution deal that would increase record sales. Other religious labels like Word had already started doing this. So The 77s 1984 album All Fall Down was released on A&M. Peacock produced the album. Rowe wrote most of the songs including Ba Ba Ba Ba. By this time, drummer Aaron Smith replaced Proctor. Smith had been with another Exit band Vector. Ba Ba Ba Ba reached #4 on the CCM Rock chart. In the video, they resemble other bands of the era. So they are trying really hard to cross over to pop. But it never happened. All Fall Down is available as a digital download. For the 1987 album The 77s, they switched to Island Records. And despite positive reviews from Rolling Stone among others, the album went nowhere possibly because Island spent all their promotion money on U2's The Joshua Tree. Of course U2 is the most successful CCM crossover band of all time. That was it for The 77s. They split up in 1992. Roe still leads a version of The 77s and he releases albums on his own label. He has also recorded several solo albums. He kept the band name to make it easier to get live bookings. Here's the video for Ba Ba Ba Ba by The 77s.
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