Face to Face Bill Booth Revival Machine

Bill Booth Revival Machine

The Bill Booth Revival Machine (BBRM) was an English Christian rock band from Bromley, southeast London. The band was composed of Hans Knutzen (electric piano & vocals), Wes Little (guitar & vocals) Geoff Parr (bass guitar) and Lionel Prodgers (drums & vocals).

The band was formed in January 1970 and continued their fine work established in The Salvation Army for 'contemporary music-making' by such luminaries as The Joystrings who led the way with regards to evangelising through popular music in the 1960s. BBRM maintained an excellent quality of both playing and singing and, doubtlessly, inspired many other young people to form groups. By the 1980s there were dozens of Salvation Army rock groups around the UK, chief among them who played at the Greenbelt Festival of Christian Music in 1986, recorded several albums, as well as touring extensively in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and France.
BBRM recorded their only LP, 'Face to Face' in January 1975. It is dominated by the Honer Electra-Piano keyboard playing (and extensive use of the schaller rotosound effects unit) of singer/keyboardist Hans Knutzen and several of the songs on that album became part of the wider Salvation Army music repertoire - most notably the title track and 'Jesus Is All I Need' which is now part of the official SA tune book and has been re-arranged for Songsters.

Like the joystrings, and a number of other Christian bands of the era, the group used Jennings and / or Vox amplification equipment, and guitars, extensively, along with the then essential (and innovative) home brew range of equipment manufactured by bass player Geoff Parr that were inherited by a number of latter bands in the 1980s.

The studio album recorded by BBRM was produced and engineered by Cross Rhythms at ICC studios in Eastbourne. An interesting feature of the album cover was the way the artists were represented by ASCII art text images - a new innovation of the time, and typical of Geoff Parr's involvement in cutting edge technology.