Richie Furay Interview, Part Three: The Breaking Helping the Broken
This is the third part of a five-part interview with Rock & Roll Hall of Fame member Richie Furay. You can find the first part and the second part in earlier installments of this series. This piece focuses on the faith journey that reshaped his life and ministry.
The conversation turns deeply personal as Furay explains how faith arrived in the midst of chaos, not as an instant fix but as a process. Al Perkins, a fellow musician, played a pivotal part in that introduction to Christianity, and the ripple effects reached into Furay’s marriage and later into a long pastoral calling. This is not the tidy conversion story people expect on stage between songs.
Furay recounts how conversion and domestic pain collided on the road. “Sure. When I became a believer, I called Nancy. I was in Aspen. SHF was rehearsing there for two weeks, and she wouldn’t go to Aspen with me; she just stayed home. When I finally called her after Al Perkins had led me to the Lord … she had accepted the Lord earlier, but when I called and told her, there was dead silence on the other end of the phone. It was a very devastating thing. I thought this was the thing that was going to tie the marriage together. When it didn’t happen …
“At that time, we had been married for seven years and had been separated for seven months. It was, ‘Isn’t it supposed to be real good now?’ But it doesn’t always work that way, even with a believer. Believers have difficult moments in their lives, and those moments are to teach us to trust the Lord with all our heart and lean not to our own understanding, but to see what the Lord is molding and shaping. We’re trying to be conformed in the image of Jesus, and I mean, certainly you know he went through the most rigorous thing we can even think of — ‘let this cup pass from Me.’”
That tension between expectation and reality is a repeating theme in Furay’s story. He emphasizes that salvation was not a neat plot twist that made personal life easy; it introduced new obligations and deeper questions instead. He frames hardship as a tool that shapes character rather than a punishment to be escaped.
Furay’s later decade of pastoral work was no celebrity sideshow; it was a committed life in the pulpit and the pews. He says his own wounds made him relatable and useful to others walking through dark patches. The credibility of someone who has been through the fire matters in a ministry setting.
“When you have gone through it, you can say, ‘I know what you’re going through. I know what you’re feeling. I know exactly because this is happening to me.’
“Now, there are some things people could come to me with and I’d go, ‘You know what? I understand … but I don’t understand, because I have never gone through something like that. But, I’ve gone through pain. I’ve gone through hurt. I’ve gone through disappointment. I’ve gone through so many different things like that.’ I’d like to think that I can identify with people in a moment where they’re really hurting, because I’ve been really hurting before.”
There is a persistent image in Furay’s narrative: the broken helping the broken. It runs through his music, his memoir, and his public reflections, and he admits the irony freely. For many people, extending grace outward is easier than offering it to themselves, and Furay’s songs try to bridge that gap.
“I wrote something very similar to what you just said in a song called ‘Someone Who Cares’ (on the 1978 album ‘Dance a Little Light’). I want to reach out to the brokenhearted.
He names the people who kept him upright when his life felt unglued: friends, road managers, and bands of followers who took him in without asking questions. “I had people who were very helpful to me who, without them, I don’t think I would’ve made it. Maybe I would have. I had Steve ‘Bugs’ Giglio. He’s a dear friend of mine. I’m telling you, he was by me every single moment. He was my road manager at the time. I lived with him for a time. I had John Mehler and his wife, Linda. I lived with Tom and Maryellen Stipe, who had just gotten married. I also lived with Al Perkins and his wife. These people took me in. They didn’t know me from beans. I was a broken man. This was during my separation from Nancy. They helped us reconcile.”
There is humility in Furay’s account about limits and unanswered questions, especially where friendships later frayed. “Now, Bugs and his family are broken. Al Perkins, who led me to the Lord … I couldn’t help him and his wife when things fell apart for them. John Mehler … couldn’t help him. I don’t know why.” He refuses metaphysical platitudes and accepts that love is not万能 and cannot always prevent suffering.
The arc of the interview traces a kind of realignment: from rock stages to quiet churches, from public applause to pastoral care. Furay’s story is not a conversion myth but a slow remaking, and the music that came out of it carries both ache and consolation. That duality is what keeps the songs alive for people who find a mirror in the lyrics.
TOMORROW: Why good music goes unheard.
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One of the first sports bloggers, starting in 2003 independently covering NASCAR and later branching out to other beats, the writer also covers faith and music on a long-running podcast. He hopes to see his favorite teams triumph and keeps in touch with readers on social platforms. Tags: CHRISTIANITY, MUSIC
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h/t: Red State
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