Reach For The Light (Herald HR-5166) 1975
The Herald label always seems to be championing MOR guys in leisure suits, so it’s nice to see an exception like the semi-long-haired male foursome Manna. Though somewhat amateurish especially in the vocals, Reach For The Light does offer some pleasant moments of more-or-less unadulterated rural/country light rock. Ten original songs, a handful with light orchestration. Stand-outs include the novelty ‘Transcendental Meditation’ and the Way-like ‘I’m Being Guided’ which contains a fairly decent electric guitar lead. Closes with a personal challenge from manager Jim Hile. (Ken Scott – The Archivist).
A special thank you to Chuck for providing the music.
Tracks:
| Song # | Song Title | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | New Morning Son | 2:53 |
| 1-2 | Love that Never Fades Away | 3:50 |
| 1-3 | Transcendental Meditation | 3:13 |
| 1-4 | Song of Life | 3:39 |
| 1-5 | She was America | 3:56 |
| 2-1 | Reach for the Light | 3:00 |
| 2-2 | Forevermore | 2:50 |
| 2-3 | The Warmth of your Eyes | 3:38 |
| 2-4 | Show Yourself in Me | 3:55 |
| 2-5 | I'm Being Guided | 2:53 |
| 2-6 | A Personal Challenge | 1:20 |
great effort.
Hey fellows you said that all of Manna’s songs were original. You are misinformed. My twin brother, Boyd Amason wrote the song Transendental Meditation. We were one of the first Artist on the Hearld lable. We recorded the TM song on our first album. Our record producer, Erv Lewis played our song for them and they decided they would also record our song. Their version was a lot different than ours. It was more folk style. We were glad they wanted to record our song. I hope you can get a chance to hear our version, If you can find it. If you can’t I’ll try to download a copy and send it to you, just let me know. I can remember the evening Boyd wrote the song, we were in concert on a university campus coffeyhouse, we had taken our first break when a fellow came up to us and said that he was into TM and other eastern religions , he could not understand why we would limit ourselves to JESUS. Boyd sat down wrote the words to the song in about 15 minutes. When we started our next set Boyd sang the song for the fellow, I had to learn it on the spot(he was always doing that to me). The main line of the song says “Transendental Meditation or Scientific Cogitation, Just don’t Match the Revelation of the Holy Word of the Lord, don’t try to Eastern-nise, just keep your Christian eyes on the Bonified Word of the Lord.” By the way we were the guys wearing the Plaid Jackets. We will never live that down. In fact in the 30+ years we toured throughout the US and overseas we never once wore jackets, that was the record labels Idea. All I can say is “Don’t judge a book by its cover. ” Just a note to set the record straight, thanks. Floyd Amason of “The AMASON TWINS”.
Floyd,
Thanks for the correction and some history thrown in to boot. I’m looking for a copy of your album will let you know in a day or two.
I was able to locate a copy of your album. May I have permission to post your album on my site?