"They're just Words fighting for control."

(Words studio session, 1980. Jake, Lynda, Gino, Bonnie, Bonnie's boyfriend Mark)

When Jerusalem Beginnings was finished, John DeHart and I had a falling out that didn't last for very long. But I couldn't wait to get back into the studio. I decided to do a solo album where I would play everything. The result? Let's just say I understand Dirty Harry when he warns that a man's got to know his limitations. I didn't. And while some of the songs weren't so bad, the idea of me playing bass and lead guitar was.

Fortunately, I did not attempt to do my own female back vocals. Bonnie Kotcheska worked her magic on those parts and was the only other person to work on the album.

In the time between Jerusalem Beginnings and Words, I had quite a few chances to polish the performing end of things. I got to do Judas in a church version of Jesus Christ Superstar, and I had even dabbled a little in acting at the local theater group. While I wasn't a very good actor, I certainly walked away from the experience learning a few things about stage-craft. For a short time I was performing with regularity, and copies of Beginnings were being sold faster than I could have hoped for. I was impatient, and that 1-year gap would be the shortest distance between releases in my career. Words copies didn't sell very well at all, and before I knew it I was back with DeHart and a reconstructed version of Jerusalem.

Words ended up featuring nine songs: Words, To Valhalla, Without The Lights, Babe, I Don't Want To Fall In Love With You, The Imaginary Wall, Where Is Everybody Going, I Don't Think That I Could Ever Let You Go and Closing Night.

While it was my least-selling album, it did offer some jumps in my attempt to be heard. The Imaginary Wall would become the first song of mine to ride the airwaves of a radio station. Our local rock station took some pity on me when I presented them with a tape, and they picked The Imaginary Wall for a limited amount of time and played it. It's still hard to explain how it felt to have my music coming through people's radios, but it didn't do much to kill the bug that was getting bigger all the time. This would also be the first album to be released under the G. E. Sassani name, and that has been the brand from that point forward no matter what band I happened to be running at any given time. So Words was an important step, even if it wasn't terribly successful.

Engineer Jake Hain	Gino
Gino playing bass	Engineer Jake Hain