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Larry Norman, often referred to as “The Father of Christian Rock”, died at age 60 on Sunday. The complimentary title bestowed on Norman sounds like the ultimate left-handed rock compliment, making it seem as if he spawned a parade of goateed chubby guys strumming acoustic guitars and singing about Jesus. But Norman, a renegade in a musical genre that often rejects those with any opinion whatsoever, merits a moment in the mainstream spotlight for a life well-lived and vastly underappreciated–and even more importantly, he deserves a lot more attention from the industry to which he gave birth.
Larry Norman’s brother and frequent musical partner, Charles, distributed a press release yesterday that ran through the highlights of Larry’s career (of which there were many): among them were his 1969 album Upon This Rock, considered the first Christian rock record, and 1972’s Only Visiting This Planet, the title of which will likely be the lede for a number of obituaries in print and online.
Norman’s Wikipedia page is nearly apocryphal in nature, a testament to the nature of his stardom. Yes, he definitely opened for the Doors, the Who and Hendrix, and was an influence on the Pixies’ Frank Black. And he might have been consulted by Paul McCartney… who can say? That it’s even plausible, in the midst of his Beatles heyday, for McCartney to have known the name of some California singer-songwriter deeply into Jesus is evidence of how legendary Norman is in Christian circles. However–and follow me here for a soapboxy second–if someone had been this influential to a more popular genre of music (say, Lou Reed), they’d be lionized with an extensively reissued catalog, allowed to put out whatever their whims brought forth, coasting on whatever brilliant moment flickered once in the past. Instead, Norman’s obituary contained a thanks for “prayer and finance” in the past and a mention of likely future financial difficulties for his survivors. To be frank, that news is bullshit of the highest order.
If you found yourself curious about Norman’s music, good luck finding some to listen to. The iTunes Store features a remix album and a few scattered appearances. Amazon has a number of out-of-print titles for sale used at somewhat exorbitant prices. Thankfully, the Arena Rock Recording Company is releasing a collection of Norman’s music later this year, as well as an album of new material with Black and Isaac Brock, but how the Christian music business has treated Norman isn’t much of a surprise for anyone who’s ever tried to hear any of the seminal work of Christian rock’s pioneers. (The press release mentions that Norman’s music was banned from most Christian retailers due to his bold stance against racism.)
Daniel Amos, the Seventy Sevens, Lifesavers Underground: try to find music by any of the bands that paved the way for there even to be an alternative to mainstream Christian music, and you’re going to have a hard time finding it anywhere, or hear the artists who made it perform outside of one-off shows in depressingly small venues. If you’re Shaun Ryder, you can grab a bunch of ringers and you’ve got the Happy Mondays and an easy paycheck for a reunion show; if you were Larry Norman, you had to struggle financially for decades while bootleggers and resellers reaped whatever profit might be found in your recordings. There’s more money being used to market faith through music than ever, and the major labels are pulling in the profits through their Christian divisions. It’s time to give something back.
Rest in peace, Larry Norman. Your music inspired, challenged and amazed, both in its artistry and content. Let’s hope someone inside the industry that owes everything to you gets a clue and/or a conscience and gives your successors slightly better treatment.
Larry Norman [Official site]
Norman’s music was banned from most Christian retailers due to his bold stance against racism
!!!
Righteous rocker, indeed. Rest easy, Larry.
Stuff like this is what keeps me reading Idolator.
Great write-up, Dan.
Norman’s obscurity isn’t surprising considering the fly-by-night nature of a lot of Christian music companies in LA and Nashville. They’d slap out an album, press up a couple of thousand copies and then it was sink or swim for the artist.
Don’t forget about the U.S. Apple Corp, an early-70s Christian rock band that had a great song in “Elijah Stone” that actually received airplay circa ‘72 or so on Nashville’s AOR powerhouse, WKDA-FM! There were enough of these true believers in the late-60s/early-70s to put together several good compilation CDs.
Early Christian rock is a valid sub-genre, too often the target of ridicule by mainstream rockers, dismissed as heathens by pious Christians. Then again, does anybody remember when Amy Grant was marginalized by the CCR community for having the audacity to sing pop songs?
So sad.
@Rev.Keith: Word to that. When I worked in record retail, CCR and gospel labels were the absolute worst to work with. They would close up shop and wash their hands of unsold inventory all the damn time, then re-appear with a new distributor who wanted nothing to do with their old releases. Very un-Christian, if you ask me.
Well-done, Dan. I was bummed out for much of yesterday afternoon about this. Too many of these guys made great records that few people ever heard. Norman’s work — along with Daniel Amos, the 77s and Michael Knott — deserve a much larger audience. Maybe it’s just the cynic in me, but I don’t think they’re ever going to get it.
Thanks a lot for posting this. Larry Norman was a great artist and I am glad to see him getting some well-deserved recognition on this site.
@Charlie Kerfelds Jetsons Tee: Stuff like this is what keeps me reading Idolator.
Great write-up, Dan.
Seconded. Not just a great writeup, by far the most thorough writeup, beyond basic biographical details, I’ve seen anywhere. Nice work, Mr. Gibson.
I think the problem is once people noticed that Christians (the more zealous ones) will snap up artists based on their ‘beliefs’ alone, more and more people got into it for the Xtian money.
=( Which is sad really. I hated being told I could only listen to Christian music at times, though my parents were pretty lenient. Most of that came from my grandmother, I actually had a book of various rock artists and why Christians shouldn’t buy them. Metallica suprisingly ducked the list somehow, being newcomers when it was made.
Thank YOU Jack Chick. I could listen to Michael Jackson and Metallica.
I saw the owner of Arena Rock yesterday and got a chance to talk with him about Larry for awhile. I guess he was super excited and humbled that someone wanted to reissue his work, and was really looking forward to it, which makes it all the more sad that’s he’s not going to get a chance to see his work back in print.
I haven’t heard one single negative thing about the guy, before or after death, which seems like a pretty true testament to what an amazing individual Larry Norman was.
Thanks for the article Dan.
@futurehorse
“I haven’t heard one single negative thing about the guy.”
Then you weren’t paying attention. Larry is the reason Daniel Amos’s epic “Horrendous Disc” has not been properly rereleased. He came to a verbal aggreement with the band, then reneged, planning to put out his own version on Solid Rock. He also had a highly contentious falling-out with labelmate Randy Stonehill. This is from Christianity Today’s obit:
“He was diagnosed with bipolar trauma and clashed with fellow singers like Randy Stonehill and Daniel Amos, who said they were mistreated financially and personally….
“Stonehill declined to take questions from Christianity Today about his relationship with Norman, but in a statement, he said… ‘For as brilliant and insightful as Larry was, I’m not sure that he understood himself completely, Stonehill said. ‘This issue became apparent in the way he consistently seemed to “derail” relationships throughout his life.’
“Stonehill said that he and Norman experienced friction and distance for 20 years before standing on stage together for the last time in 2001….
“David Di Sabatino, who is working on a documentary on Norman that will be released later this year, said that the 1980s were a real turning point for Norman.
“‘He implodes on a personal level, his marriage unravels, his peers want him to be more accountable, and he throws a fit. From that point on, something degenerates inside of him,’ Di Sabatino said. ‘He’s like King David. The highs are higher than most and the lows are like, “whoa.”‘
“Di Sabatino said Norman was unpredictable and often exaggerated stories.
“‘There’s a possibility that he’s living in Thailand and this is all a ruse. That might offend a lot of people, but that’s how he was,’ Di Sabatino said. ‘I don’t believe that, but then again, if you told me that’s where he was, I wouldn’t bat an eye.’”
It’s fairly common knowledge, if you’d paid attention over the years, that something snapped in Larry; that he was deluded if not just plain crazy; that he made ludicrous claims such as being the father of rap music; that he screwed friends and business partners finanacially and personally; that he had three or four great albums, and the rest was dreck.
That said, he truly was a staggeringly important figure in CCM.
“clashed with fellow singers like Randy Stonehill and Daniel Amos”
The writer for Christianity Today was aware that Daniel Amos isn’t an actual singular person, right?
It’s really cool that this is on Idolator (makes me love the site that much more). Norman was obviously a complicated person but most of the heroes in the Bible have major flaws too.
Great write-up.
Yeah, I’ve heard a lot of stories about his personal shortcomings — an awful lot of people I respect seriously disliked him. Still, his contribution to music was mammoth.
@growler: Wow, seriously, I had no idea any of this stuff existed. I guess that’s what I get for starting to love the guy’s music right before the prospect of a mini-resurgence. All I’ve heard have been stories from people who have interacted with him directly, which have been nothing but a total love-fest, and I guess I just assumed it was across the board. That’s what I get for living the in hipster-bubble that is Portland, and for, well, not reading.
@Dan Gibson: Was the writer aware that Daniel Amos was a band name, not an individual? No, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t. And all of the “warts and all” remembrances are pretty dead-on, from what I know about the guy. (Chris Willman at EW and Andy Whitman at Paste both have good posts up now.)
That said, he’ll be missed, and it’s been a great day of listening to Larry’s “trilogy” (which is, um, easily obtainable via the usual torrent suspects, if one is comfortable with that sort of thing) and, just for the heck of it, The Pixies’ catalog too.
Great work, Dan. I’m still amazed that there’s someone here who knows the particulars of the shadowy little corner I crawled out of before I grew up and got all mainstream respectible an’ shit.
@archenland: I appreciate your own personal experience in Christian bookstores, but your particular observation hardly makes the statement “complete and utter bull”, does it?
“Nothing really changes, everything remains the same, we are what we are until the day that we die. Unless we love the Lord.”
I’ve had those lyrics and the melody that goes with them in my head for 33 years or so without having heard that song since. RIP Larry
“Norman’s music was banned from most Christian retailers due to his bold stance against racism.”
Um, I hate to tell you guys, but this statement is complete and utter bull, like so much that has come out of Larry’s camp over the years. Larry’s records were never “banned” from “most” Christian retailers, for any reason, least of all for reasons having to do with racism. I’ve been dropping into Christian bookstores now and again to buy records since 1973, and I was able to find Norman LPs and CDs in stock at most of them through the late ’70s and ’80s, until he finally became so obscure that his self-released records stopped being picked up. It’s amazing the bull that people will swallow. His lack of commerciality in the CCM market was largely his own doing.
That said, Larry made a string of remarkable records and was a hero of mine before he went off the deep end. It would be great if the first four major albums could get a legitimate reissue through some company besides his own imprint.
“Only Visiting This Planet” is an unsung classic. A dios vais, Norman.
Dan, rest assured that my experience with the Christian music business goes well beyond what I laid out. Yes, the idea that Larry Norman records were banned because of racism is complete and utter bullshit. There are a thousand untruths surrounding Larry Norman, and that is one of them. But if you have any evidence of this supposed banning, feel free to provide it.
Let me go into a bit more detail. In 1980 or 1981, I forget which, Larry released an album called “Something New Under the Son.” On the cover, he appears on a streetscape with some black people in the background. The album didn’t sell. Most people might attribute this to him putting out a record that wasn’t up to his usual quality in a climate when people were looking for something else. Larry attributed it to people having a problem with seeing black folks in the background on his LP jacket. If you want to believe that that record sold poorly because Christian bookstores banned it in the early ’80s because as institutional racists they were shocked by the sight of black faces on an LP sleeve… well, feel free.
@archenland: My bad…I guess I was a fool to assume Christians or their bookstores could possibly be petty or racist.
Yeah, assumptions are pretty bad, generally speaking. I could go on about how they’re particularly bad when it comes to anything surrounding the Larry Norman mythos. But enough of that. I come to praise Norman, not to bury him.
You say that it’s hard to find Larry’s music, but you also have a link to his website. His website store has tons of his music.
Larry said alot of things to the Christian and non-Christian community that others were afraid to say.
@growler: I interviewed Larry Norman for an article in a gospel rock magazine, HM, a few years back, circa his Tourniquet CD release. In my view, a great deal of the relational problems of Norman with other artists stemmed from his work as a producer. He felt he was owed a large sum, as producers usually get, from the artists, and they, in the case of Daniel Amos, whose frontman was Terry Taylor, did not. He told me he was at one point their manager, and bought them a van for a tour. Larry was a perfectionist. Whether or not his own stuff seems thrown together, he was reluctant to let an album be released by other artists until it was perfect. Some of them are nearly perfect, like Randy Stonehill’s Welcome to Paradise.
Another key point is that Larry didn’t drink and nearly all the other artists did. That made a huge difference in how they’d relate, relax, and party. Some very creative artists have gone through detox, such as Mike Knott, but there’s a big difference between social drinking and not drinking at all.
Regardless, Larry produced or worked with nearly all the creative artists in this genre, including Tom Howard, Mark Heard, Sheila Walsh, Alwyn Wall, Lyrix, Daniel Amos, Randy Stonehill, Dave Matson, David Edwards, and Steve Scott. He didn’t release albums by all those artists, but they all went to him first. Larry told me he couldn’t work with Keith Green, who, like Larry, was another headstrong artist. Larry’s company, Solid Rock, still has unreleased albums by Steve Scott and other artists whose work would find a ready audience were they on some label like Virgin. The HM article and an interview with Norman are posted at alivingdog.com.
I know I am a bit late posting this, however news travels slow to this end of the planet. I only found out today of Larry’s passing and have spent the day reading up on sites etc about him. All i can say is that 35 or so years ago Larrys music had a huge impact on me, seeing him play in Sydney was a highlight that I will never forget. I don’t care about the controversies, his failings. Is anyone “perfect” nowdays? As a teenager in the 70s Larry made sense to me about the truth of christianity and the commitment that he had to get his message out there spoke volumes to me about his agenda.No, he wasnt perfect, yes he made mistakes, yes Im sure there are a few times he has said and done things that he would have changed if he could. Let’s remember the man for his gift, music. “One way, one way to Heaven, hold up high your hands. One way free and forgiven, Children of the Lamb.” RIP Larry and thankyou for making a difference in my life.
Mark…Australia.
Growler & Archenland ARE one & the same – that lying snake David DiBabbitino….
He harassed Larry mercilessly after Larry found out he was using his music for the Frisbee movie without permission and rightfully demanded he remove it.
DO NOT BUY DiSABBATINOS LYING MOVIE!
Larry was a great man… he does NOT deserve to be trashed by this creep!
I’m going to have to agree with archenland here, as much as it pains me to do so. I’ve seen a number of questionable accusations come from the Norman camp. To accuse retailers of racism is preposterous.
So many things bother me about Larry’s life. He apparantly delayed the release of Horrendous Disc because he didn’t find it to be “Christian enough” He didn’t feel that Alarma had enough mentions of the word “Jesus” either. BUT – Larry spent decades decrying his poor treatment from Christian leaders and churches, for doing this exact some thing to him!! Something isn’t quite right here.
It appears to me that Larry Norman self-destructed. He says his erratic behaviour was brain damage, lack of church support, health problems, ungrateful Solid Rock artists, and other things. I’m quite confused about what to think, but on the other hand I hope for the same grace from God that Larry appears to have received.
“Something New Under the Sun” was my favorite LP by Norman. I saw him live in San Francisco in 1982, it was an awesome performance. The guy had a great sense of humor and strong stage presence…. an incredible songwriter, entertainer and rockstar (in his own right). RIP Larry!