Chuck Girard, who has Top 40 success in the early 1960s with the surf band The Hondells and the song “Little Honda,” and who in the late 1960s throughout the 1970s was a vital cog in the creation of “Jesus Music” (later known as contemporary Christian music) with the band Love Song and as a solo artist, graduated to eternal glory on August 11, 2025, after a bout with cancer. Girard was 81.
Quoting from a review of his final album “Moonrise Serenade,” which was released in 2024:
Back in February 2023, the movie “Jesus Revolution” documented through dramatic representation the birth of the Southern California Jesus movement, led by the late Chuck Smith, pastor of Calvary Chapel Santa Ana. The era’s soundtrack was provided by a bunch of saved hippies playing music previously thought utterly incompatible with church, namely various flavors of rock’n’roll. Spearheading this new creation in Southern California was the band Love Song, led by Chuck Girard.
Girard had music industry credibility, having first reached the Top 20 in the early ‘60s with The Castells and, in 1964, achieving a hit in the surf music genre as a member of The Hondells and providing the lead vocal for their biggest hit, “Little Honda.”
After the salvation, due in no small part to Smith’s ministry, of all the members of Girard and company’s late ‘60s band Love Song, the ensemble became something of a Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa house band, routinely playing at the church whenever not on the road playing anywhere and everywhere possible, preaching the Gospel and sharing the music. After the band’s course had run, Girard went on to a lengthy, successful solo career.
Love Song’s eponymous debut album, released in 1972, was a revelation. While on the softer side of things, it was a legitimate rock‘n’roll album designed for a marketplace that, to that point, had held such music at arm’s length, if not farther. The album featured songs such as “Little Country Church” dedicated to Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.
The album also had a #1 hit … in the Philippines. No, really.
Love Song’s second, and as it turned out, final studio album of new material came out in 1974.
Following Love Song’s discontinuation, as the band’s main songwriter and vocalist, it was natural that Girard would pursue a solo ministry. His 1975 debut album, recorded with the help of all the members of prog pop band Ambrosia, among others, featured “Sometimes Alleluia,” which has made its way into many a Sunday morning service over the years.
Girard continued to record and perform throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, although he significantly slowed down after 1980’s “The Stand.” Although not mentioned by name in the 2023 Greg Laurie biopic “Jesus Revolution,” actors portrayed Girard and Love Song numerous times throughout the movie’s sections featuring Chuck Smith and the ministry he led at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa.
The average K-LOVE or Christian music fan under 60 has, in all likelihood, never heard nor heard of Love Song or Chuck Girard. This is to their detriment. In addition to creating a catalog of classic songs that have withstood the test of time, it is no exaggeration to say that without Girard and Love Song, there would have been no path, or at best a far more rugged one, for church music to have expanded in the 1970s beyond strictly traditional hymns. Girard was from a time when everything was for the ministry, as there was no money coming in from singing rock music with Christian lyrics. His music reflected the sun, sand, and surf of Southern California rock in the early 1960s as popularized by The Beach Boys and others, yet with the added benefit of letting the Son of God shine through as His light danced upon the full immersion ocean water baptism by the sea.
How joyful the reunion in Heaven must have been when Chuck Smith welcomed Chuck Girard Home. Godspeed, Chuck.
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