"Dear Mr. Jesus" - Powersource

I know what you mean...this song seemed all the rage at the time but petered out quite quickly.

Odd thing is...this still gets played as a Christmas record. It's in rotation when the station I listen to most often (WTSS) switches to all-Christmas late in the year. Odd thing is...it's not really a Christmas record when you listen to the lyrics. In fact, one of the DJs at this station doesn't even know where the group came from. He's said they got the song off a reel-to-reel tape and he even thought they might be Canadian! (I guess he doesn't have a Billboard chart book!)

According to some price guides I've seen, the 45 appears quite hard to find.

Edited by torcan

I remember hearing it a couple times on the radio, but that was it. Then I think I heard an excerpt on the news, and that some people were objecting to it as a bit morbid.

I think it was a very short-lived novelty hit that was primarily regional. It didn't appear on the top 40 airplay/sales breakdown in Billboard at the time, so it couldn't have been that big nationally.

Gee, you don't think the news media would actually exaggerate something, do you?

crapfromthepast wrote: This was a very local hit. I don't remember it being played at all in the New York City area or in Rochester, NY, where I was going to school at the time.

That's interesting because, according to the Time Magazine article (amazingly, I found it online!), it was Scott Shannon at New York City's WHTZ-FM who helped break the record nationally. I have the song on Powersource's Shelter from the Storm CD and on the back paper tray insert, it has the aforementioned ASCAP statement about being "one of the most requested songs in the history of radio" along with a quote from Dan Rather of CBS Evening News saying: "Americans can't seem to hear it enough" (not that I ever regarded Mr. Rather as a very credible source in general), so I'm having a difficult time understanding how "Dear Mr. Jesus" could've been a "very local hit". Yet the #61 chart peak seems to suggest otherwise, so it's certainly possible the airplay generated in the Dayton market wasn't representative of national response.

torcan wrote: I know what you mean...this song seemed all the rage at the time but petered out quite quickly. Odd thing is...this still gets played as a Christmas record. It's in rotation when the station I listen to most often (WTSS) switches to all-Christmas late in the year. Odd thing is...it's not really a Christmas record when you listen to the lyrics. In fact, one of the DJs at this station doesn't even know where the group came from. He's said they got the song off a reel-to-reel tape and he even thought they might be Canadian! (I guess he doesn't have a Billboard chart book!) According to some price guides I've seen, the 45 appears quite hard to find.

That's funny, torcan, because I too thought "Dear Mr. Jesus" was promoted as a Christmas record at the time (even though none of the lyrics suggest a holiday theme) because it got a lot of airplay in the weeks leading up to Christmas, but I don't remember hearing another spin at radio after December 25 had passed.

Brian W. wrote: I think it was a very short-lived novelty hit that was primarily regional. It didn't appear on the top 40 airplay/sales breakdown in Billboard at the time, so it couldn't have been that big nationally. Gee, you don't think the news media would actually exaggerate something, do you?

Point well taken!

Edited by Todd Ireland

None of my local record shops in CT carried this 45 in late 1987. Although there was defintely a "buzz" about this song at the time, none of it was coming from my neck of the woods. I had numerous retail 45 connections all over the state. But being a Hot 100 charter and all, I asked my "go-to" retailer to special order it for me. And they tried to do me the favor, but soon reported back that their usual distributors didn't have it/carry it. So, chart completionist that I was, I was getting desperate. I didn't want to use my "radio connections" and mislead PowerSource, because we weren't ever gonna play the song on-air. So, for one of the only times in my life, I obtained an address for PowerSource Records somewhere (P.O. Box 916, Bedford, TX 76021 - just got it off my 45!), wrote them a letter, ordered 10 45 copies (to make their responding to me worth their while) and also included a "guess-estimated", generous money order. I soon got a return parcel, which also included a "bonus" LP. This certainly wouldn't be the first time where patchy distribution channels affected a song's ultimate chart position. I seem to recall that this was a situation where the "points" the song generated in order to appear on the BB Hot 100 were garnered 99% through sales. ANY airplay was, I suspect, due to the "wow/publicity/novelty" factor, and, Scott Shannon's push notwithstanding, "Dear Mr. Jesus" obviously sold best in areas where it was both supplied to radio, and more easily purchased by consumers than it was for me up here in the Northeast. (I'm betting at least half the 45's were sold right in Texas!) Perhaps our buddy Chuck from Mediabase has old radio info on this song, and could confirm my memory on this. And, despite the religious tone of the song, and the fact it was out during the 1987 holiday season, I don't recall at the time that it was considered to be a "Christmas" record (and my Whitburn book has no "X" (holiday record designation)) next to it. We never did get a copy of this 45 sent to us at our radio station when it was current, and no "indie" record rep ever called us about the song (and we were always a R&R/Billboard, etc. "reporting" station that got great record service from the labels.) FYI, the ONLY other time in the 80's that I remember having to write a label in order to obtain a stock 45 back in the 80's, was just 11 months before Powersource, when I had to personally write "Oak Lawn Records" in early 1987 to obtain the #80 hit by Uptown, "(I Know) I'm Losing You".

Edited by jimct

At the bottom of my 45 label, below the group name "PowerSource", it also says in a pretty large font, (solo: Sharon). And since there was primarily a young female voice heard throughout the record, I'm not the least bit surprised that your station would've opted to use her name as the "artist", instead of "PowerSource", John.