Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Margaret Becker Michelle Pilar, more rock-oriented artists like Dana Key and PETRA, even Mark Farner (!), etc, I suddenly found myself making trips to the local Christian Bookstore to pick up the latest favorite song discoveries! Even my fellow employees ended up buying cassette tapes of those Christian artists! (though theirs were the more Jazz-oriented ones like TAKE6).
Usually when I liked a new artist, I could simply make my way down to the Christian Gift Shop and pick up the latest tape, but there were a few that never seemed to be available, and while there seemed to be no reason that they didn't have the latest Greg X. Volz, one of the other albums I really wanted wasn't available simply because it was too old and out of print, and that was "Inhabitants Of The Rock" by David and the Giants which I wanted because it featured one of my all-time fave songs called "I Can Depend On You".
I don't know quite what struck me about this song, but there was something about its utter simplicity that instantly hooked me, and thankfully, though an older song, the radio station (the late great KAIM) played it all the time! For years after that, I'd occasionally call up the radio station and request to have them play it (and of course they always did!), but aside from taping the song off the radio during one of those occasions, I still really wanted to have the song.
Then with the arrival of the internet and EBAY, a whole new avenue opened for me, and it was here that I thought I could actually get my hands of that song, and in the end, I found someone selling it on VINYL, and I had to make do with that.
When the album arrived in the mail, I was horrified to see that he record was slightly heat-warped (Ah! The maladies of an archaic format!) and for most of the album, it played slurry and made the needle jump! Fortunately, luck was on my side and one of the few songs that I COULD play was in fact I Can Depend On You!!!! Success!!
