Pictures R U, LW! 70's

Pictures R U, LW! 70's

We just published a series of our profile pictures, at which time, I promised to present a similar serial display of our group pictures. I will show here not just 'official' group pictures, but some other classic snaps, as well. In a way, this has already been done with the video we did for our award-winning song, "Love's in a Name", where I was 'telling the story' of Living Waters leading up to the time I made it. That video is here:

Love's in a Name

We first started after some of us had moved from Maine to the retreat center in Massachusetts. We provided music for retreats and such at first. Here is a very early pic, circa 1975; Jim Gagnon, second from the left, in the rear, was our first drummer. Kathy & Joline were our female singers. Notice me, Mark Lajoie in the back right rear. I was really wounded and inward still. Being in this loving group and using my talents helped me come out as time went on. Our first 'uniform' idea? Simply white shirts!

back: Eddie, Jim, Mike, Mark; middle, Danny, Chuck, Dave; front: Joline, Kathy

This is one of our very first concerts as "Living Waters" in the "Charismatic Hall" stage area under the Chapel. We look very stiff, and we were still using music stands.We probably were not travelling yet!

Here we had graduated to our first real 'uniform':  blue water-colored ruffled shirts and whatever you would call those dresses. Look at that hair! We had gone to see Lighthouse perform at the charismatic community in Ann Arbor, and over time started adding lights, drama and a thematic show program in imitation of them.

Circa 1978, we began to play at the other end of the hall and Jim Babish and others helped us with a sound system and such. Omer began to 'book' us in various places. Here is a picture from that time; L to R are Mark, Danny, Chuck on horn, Jimmy on drums, Joline; unseen Dave on bass, Mike on piano. Because it's capo 2, it looks like we are playing the Lighthouse song, "God So Loved the World". We started turning up the volume and playing our own songs, too:

The dance troupe, "Rejoice", joined us around this time and several drama people. We had a dashiki period in the late 70's for quite a while. We converted a school bus and began to do hundreds of concerts over the next few years. We posed for a full group picture with the colorful dashikis here. Below that, pictures of our concert on Concord, MA green for World Peace Day during this time. Mark, Greg & Dave in our classic "Guitar Brothers" picture; Tony, our new drummer, began to call us that and many other classic names at this time. Tony joining us? well, that's a whole other story, isn't it!:

In the 80's, we began to really hit our stride with our Covenant House connection and the "Prodigal Daughter" show, the dark blue tshirts, the Christmas show, and some real multitrack recording. Stay tuned for the next installment!

Peace & Love & JOY,

Mark LaJOIE!