* En anglais uniquement
In several respects, the Pilgrims were much like many British 1960s groups that never got to release a record, or barely released anything. They played imitative British Invasion music with a heavy R&B slant, occasionally using a more Merseybeat-based approach, with derivative original material and crude, energetic instrumentation. The big difference was that the Pilgrims wrote and performed a wholly Christian-based repertoire, with songs proselytizing about joining the Christian faith for devotion to God and Jesus Christ. Christian-based rock bands were much rarer in the early '60s, when the Pilgrims formed in London, than they would be in later decades, and in some ways what they were doing was radical, even if their lyrics were awkward and the execution heartfelt but gawky. The Pilgrims were not instrumentally tame, however; they favored a fairly gritty R&B-blues-based brand of British Invasion rock, complete with some harmonica and fuzz guitar. The songs and playing were leagues below the Rolling Stones, the Pretty Things, the Yardbirds, and the like, but the music was not nearly as reserved and conservative as some might have assumed given their lyrical focus.
Playing in secular clubs as well as churches, the Pilgrims performed throughout the 1960s, using different lineups. They also taped some of their originals, and in 2004 the CD Telling Youth...The Truth compiled 21 tracks from these recordings, made between 1962 and 1967. The CD was dedicated to original member John Hubbard, who wrote much of the material before dying of leukemia in 1966.
© Richie Unterberger /TiVo