I used to belong to a Christian music club. In one of their regular mailings, they included an offer for a grab bag of music. I forget what the price was but they would send 10 CDs for something like $15. I figured it would be a good way to find some new Christian artists.
One of the discs I received was Strong Hand Of Love: A Tribute to Mark Heard. One of my favorite pieces on this album was Pierce Pettis's cover of Nod Over Coffee.
I like to pick up sampler discs at the counter when I'm in Christian book stores. Recently I picked one up that included Pierce's Absolom. I started doing some internet search to see what I could find out about his music. The booklet with this disc included a pointer to Silent Planet Records. If you follow the artists link there, you end up at PasteMusic.com.
PasteMusic.com offers a lot of good music by fairly unknown artists. They have some of Pierce's music available for sale and some cuts off these albums are available in MP3 or RealAudio format. I downloaded what they had available and fell in love with his style and voice.
His catalog page there has a pointer to his page at Compass Records. I clicked on the link to his tour schedule and found he'd be appearing with Darden Smith at a location within an hour's drive from my home that Friday. I immediately bought tickets. (Compass appears to have rearranged their web site - if it were up to me, whoever redesigned the website would be fired for breaking all the old links.)
Darden Smith played for a little over an hour. I liked his style and a couple of the songs were really good so I ended up buying Sunflower at the intermission between shows. I had never heard his music before and came away quite impressed.
Pierce Pettis must have played for nearly two hours. He is simply amazing on the guitar and his songs come straight from the soul. I was almost in tears when he played Georgia Moon.
At the concert, I bought a copy of Everything Matters. Pierce signed the booklet for me. I asked him about the availability of his older albums and his recommendation was to search for web sites that sell used CDs or to find someone who has it and ask them to burn me a copy.
I've been out of work for about 5 months and without a full paycheck for about a year. I will be starting a new job soon and plan on buying the rest of his albums as soon as I start getting paid again. I'll probably end up buying his older albums off someplace like half.com.
In the mean time, I'm looking for web sites, message boards, mailing lists, etc. about Pierce Pettis. There was a signup sheet for a mailing list at the concert but I neglected to sign it. Internet searches have turned up very little except reviews of his albums and sites selling his albums. I'd also be interested in hearing from anyone that has his older out of print works. Please email me. If I receive any information, I'll post links on my music page.
July 9, 2003
I have been contacted by a couple of people due to this page which was originally posted on May 17. One has offered to send me some MP3's of Pierce's older Windham Hill recordings. The other is on Pierce's mailing list. He sent me Pierce's e-mail address to sign up and I received my first copy today.
I'm still interested in finding web sites or forums dedicated to Pierce Pettis. If you know of any, please mail them to me.
April 19, 2004
I have been contacted by several people regarding Pierce Pettis due to this page. It seems to rank pretty high on a Google search. Some people knew Pierce and were passing on information about him. Others were looking to get on the mailing list. I'll try to organize the information I have and put it up here in the near future. Keep those cards and letters coming!
July 13, 2004
I just noticed today that Pierce's web site is up. If you are interested in signing up for his newsletter, follow the 'contact us' link.