The Rhonda McRorie Story

First of all, happy new year! 2026 promises to be a better year for giving all you hungry readers more to digest (and possibly get food poisoning). Today we have something quite special.

This is an Christian album by a lady named Rhonda McRorie. I first came across this album back in the summer of 2025 when I was still taking a break from this blog. The only items I picked up during my break were the absolutely irresistible finds. This was one album that I happily ignored. Not only that, I ignored approximately 100 copies of it. This isn't the first time I've seen a mass dump of album inventory, and it won’t be the last time either. I left all of Rhonda’s cold and lonely orphaned albums in the thrift store for some other "lucky" soul to find. Little did I know, this wouldn't be the last time I would encounter this album.

About a month ago, the album crossed my path again. The cover somehow burned itself in my brain with it's large pastel rainbow and it's giant cursive font boasting that Rhonda's soul is one of the free-est souls in existence. However, what I stumbled across was much more significant than a stack of 100 records...

I now had a chance to own the 2" master tapes of an album I passed up! Not only that, I had the potential to own three vinyl test pressings, two copies of the final product (one sealed), a 1/4" reel with a mono mix-down of one song (likely created for broadcast on AM radio) and a jacket-less floppy disk that was pretty much guaranteed to be full of errors. My desire to own all of this junk overtook me. Needless to say, I now own the soul that Rhonda put into her music.

First of all, I need to talk about the master tapes. After I acquired this lot, I noticed something that wasn’t quite right. Yes, these are the tapes that were used to record "Freedom In My Soul". However, Rhonda had a burning desire to record a second album but was apparently lacking the financial means to do so. In a horrific cost-cutting measure, Rhonda decided to utilize two of these master tapes to record her second album entitled "Better Tomorrows". Two-thirds of the original masters for “Freedom In My Soul” no longer exist. However, the entire “Better Tomorrows” album masters DO exist. 

Look! It's the Christian Sunrise used on thousands of Christian album covers!

I don't have a copy of “Better Tomorrows” (at least that I'm aware of, but there could always be one buried in my queue). I found a cassette copy on ebay, but I’m more than happy to wait for one to show up at a local thrift store. So what I ended up with are the master tapes for her SECOND album, plus three songs from her first album.

Rhonda didn't just re-use her master tapes to save money. She also recorded the second album at Maddock Studios which was likely a cheaper alternative to using Century 21 Studios. Recording albums in the 1980s was very expensive. I'm guessing she poured around $5000 to $10,000 into recording her first album, and that would have been 1980s dollars. I have no clue how many vinyl records were pressed, but the fact that all this money was spent to have a significant pile of the albums end up rotting in the thrift store is a kind of sad.

So how did I end up with all of this stuff?

Rhonda passed away on November 16th, 2016 at the age of 62. From the research I've done, it appears she had cancer at some point. She was survived by her husband Daniel, their daughter, and two sons who were from Daniel’s previous relationship.

Rhonda's husband Daniel passed away on April 22, 2025. He appears to have been a very zealous Christian, given his constant religious-based posts on his Facebook page and the names he gave to his first two children. It's quite obvious that Daniel had all of Rhonda's music stuff stored away until his estate was liquidated.

Rhonda wasn't a nobody. She had quite a few accomplishments in her life. She attended university and acquired a Bachelor of Music Education degree along with a Master's of Education degree. This became evident as I dug through the error-filled floppy disk. She became a Christian music teacher in her early 20s, conducted and directed many musical projects, and interestingly created a live musical called "Better Tomorrows”. This may explain why there are no copies (aside from the masters) of the “Better Tomorrows” album included in the lot that I acquired, since she would have likely sold them at the show. I can't confirm that “Better Tomorrows” was released on any format other than cassette, but that would make sense since cassettes were cheaper to duplicate than vinyl records. That’s why you’ll see a lot of Christian albums released only on cassette.

In her memory, the Rhonda McRorie Scholarship Fund was created. You can read about some of her achievements there if you wish to do so.

Given that I now own her entire music history (and error-filled school and choir documents), what happens now? Well, I'd like to get the master tapes transferred to a digital format at some point. This is a bit of an uphill battle. First of all, the tapes will need to be baked. That's not a problem since I already have experience baking tapes from transferring my Canned Peaches masters. The problem is gaining access to a 2" 24-track tape machine. Apparently the No Fun Club in Winnipeg has one. I have yet to contact them (there is no point during the holidays). It's likely going to cost a bit of money to transfer the tapes regardless of where I get it done. In the end, I would like to remix the tracks to my liking and then make them available.

You're probably asking yourself, "does this goof who writes for Classical Gas Emissions have the talent to mix an album?" Remember, I already recorded and mixed my own album (and there's a second one on the way!) They sound great!

After acquiring Rhonda’s masters, I went back to the thrift store and bought 10 sealed copies of the album along with three sealed cassette copies. I don’t know why I did that. Pity? Ownership? Brain damage from listening to too much bad music over the years? Perhaps all three. 

So now that I've told you the story behind “Freedom In My Soul”, what does the album sound like? Well, it's your typical 1980s Christian album. There isn't really anything spectacular about it. It bounces around from genre to genre, but mostly stays in the boring adult-contemporary genre layered with saxophone and Rhodes piano overdubs. This begs me to ask the question... Can Christian music ever NOT SUCK? Would a better mix make it more enjoyable? Will I be able to find out at some point? Will “Better Tomorrows” be awesome after I remix it? If I can get the tapes transferred, we might find out!

I ended up opening the one sealed copy that came with the master tapes and I digitized it for your enjoyment. I even gave it all my professional editing to make it sound close to perfect. As a side note, I actually like the musical arrangement on “Softly and Tenderly”. The song "Teach Me To Love" sounds like a rip-off of the Canadian national anthem. 

Listen to the tropical goodness of "Out on a Limb"!

Listen to "Teach Me To Love" and sing the lyrics of "O Canada" over it!

Download the entire Freedom In My Soul album!

To wrap things up, it’s nice to be back at blogging. So, how am I doing personally? Better! I’m on meds that have given me at least some of my life back. Although my body will never be the same as it was, I’m more functional now than I have been over the last three years which in turn has done a lot of good for my mental health. I'm not sure if I'll be able to physically handle a Junq Tour this year, but we’ll see. I still have an unfinished one to conquer along with tons of stuff in my queue. Regardless, I’ll see you in the next entry.