Deep Dive: Russ Taff's *Medals* (Episode 21)
This week's podcast is part of an entire month of "deep dives," a little something that we are calling "Deep Dive December with the 3D's."
Here is the recipe. Start off with a heaping helping of great songs written by Chris Eaton, Roby Duke, Chris Eaton, Crissie Grossman Puig, Pam Mark Hall, and Russ & Tori Taff. Season to taste with the finest L.A. session players of the 1980s: Paul Leim, Nathan East, Neil Stubenhaus, James Newton Howard, Robbie Buchanan, Larry Williams, Dann Huff, Michael Landau, Paul Jackson, Jr., Bill Champlin, Tamara Champlin, Tommy Funderburk, Tata Vega, and Lenny Castro. What do you get? You get the album Medals, arguably Russ Taff's finest moment as a solo artist.
Medals also found Taff reinventing himself for the record. As Lucas W. Hendrickson writes in the 2001 book CCM Presents: The 100 Greatest Albums in Christian Music, "Medals...falls squarely between the 'former lead singer of the Imperials' vide found on his solo debut Walls of Glass and the troubled, introspective nature of