#73 THE EVERLASTIN' LIVING JESUS MUSIC CONCERT by Various Artists (1971)

THE EVERLASTIN' LIVING JESUS MUSIC CONCERT
by Various Artists (1971)
Maranatha! (HS-777/1)

The story is told of a talented young singer/piano player and aspiring songwriter, growing up in the hills of West Virginia. He enjoyed great success in two different fields -- music and sports. He led a 75-voice youth choir every Sunday night at his church and was so good at little league baseball that his coach predicted a future in the Major Leagues. At age 16, two events helped him choose the correct course for the rest of his life: his failure to make the local baseball all-star team, and his purchase of an album called The Everlastin' Living Jesus Music Concert. He reportedly was so inspired by that album that he subsequently chose to pursue music as a lifelong calling and career. The young man's name was Michael Whitaker Smith.

I received a copy of Mark Allen Powell's Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music as a Christmas gift a number of years ago. It made for enjoyable reading, although some of the author's liberal theology and social views just about drove me nuts. But I overlooked all of that because I actually found my name in the book a couple of times (My Friend Stephanie, Sunday Blue), and I'm just human enough to have been stoked about that! But seriously, the book was a great companion for any host of a Christian rock radio show (like I was back in the day), as it was full of facts, figures, dates, and trivia...if you could just overlook the author's personal opinions. One thing is for sure: he LOVED our feature album, The Everlastin' Living Jesus Music Concert. He wrote that it is: 

• "...easily the most important Christian album ever made..."  

• "...the most historically significant Christian album of all time."

• "...the record with which the history of contemporary Christian music properly begins."

• "...the most influential album of contemporary Christian music ever recorded."  

• "...easily the most important of all the early Christian music records and served to introduce the world to what would become a genre, a market, and ultimately an industry."  

• "...the most important album of Christian music (and one of the best) ever released."

I wouldn't go quite that far. OK, I wouldn't go anywhere near that far. Many of the recordings were somewhat lacking in sonic excellence, some of the performances just weren’t that good, and some of the songwriting revealed a certain naiveté. But even if the songs "stunk to high heaven," which is not the case, The Everlastin' Living Jesus Music Concert belongs on this list due to its historical significance alone.  

The year was 1971. This was the very first record that Maranatha! Music ever released. It was later affectionately referred to by many as Maranatha One. The album's title notwithstanding, it wasn't a live concert album at all, but rather a compilation from early Calvary Chapel artists who were being discipled at Pastor Chuck Smith's church in Costa Mesa, California. It was not the first record of its kind, but it did introduce this new musical genre--Jesus Music--to the wider world.  

God was up to something good in Southern California in those days. Young people had been disillusioned with the empty promises of drugs, sexual promiscuity, and eastern religions. They were hungry for an authentic relationship with Jesus, and they were surrendering their hearts and lives to the Lord by the thousands during what came to be known as the Jesus Movement. This album served as a musical Statement of Faith for these young people who were simply in love with Jesus. 

Love Song, Debbie Kerner, and Children Of The Day all contribute songs that would later appear on albums of their own. There are also several songs available only on this record, including those by Gentle Faith, The Way, and Love Song (Maranatha). There are also songs on this compilation from groups who would never go on to record full-length albums -- Blessed Hope, Country Faith, and Selah. 

The album cover design was by Barry Malone and Kernie Erickson (who would later become somewhat famous as "that guy who did the amazing artwork for all the Sweet Comfort Band album covers"). All Maranatha! album covers and graphics were custom-designed, in-house (usually by Malone and Erickson) and printed by staff artists on a shoestring budget.

The main thing you'll notice on the front cover is the iconic downward-flying red Maranatha! Dove, which served as branding for all of the Maranatha!/Calvary Chapel albums and was later adopted by Pentecostal and Charismatic Christians the world over as a symbol of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16).  The words of Psalm 150 are also featured on the front cover, alerting the astute observer that this would be a fresh, new way to "praise the Lord."  The font used for the album title is dated, but in a good way.

The inside of the gatefold cover featured more Scripture verses and all of the song lyrics. The back cover features an artistic treatment of several photographs taken by Gary Connif. Instead of staged shots of the artists, the pictures seem to be candid shots from concerts or worship services. Young people are seen displaying the "one way" sign in a couple of photos.

Scripture is again included on the album's back cover, this time the words of Jesus from the book of John, leaving no doubt as to the purpose of the record: 

YOU WILL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE. JESUS SAYS I AM THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE. NO ONE COMES TO THE FATHER EXCEPT BY ME. 

The album kicks off with Love Song’s Little Country Church. It really is difficult to overestimate the importance of this song to the early Jesus People. Chuck Girard has said that Little Country Church “was really the story of Calvary Chapel. Calvary wasn't strictly a ‘country’ church but was kind of out in a field, but I realized that this song represented the whole Jesus Movement . It was about the open-minded attitudes of the pastors like Chuck Smith, who had the courage to embrace the hippies and allow a new thing to happen in the church; to allow new musical styles and not judge the hippies for their look, but realize that God changed the heart.” Set to a laid-back rock and roll beat, the song served notice that "church" was no longer the way it used to be: 

Love Song with Pastor Chuck Smith (R)

They're talkin' 'bout revival and the need for love

That little church has come alive

Workin' with each other for the common good

Puttin' all the past aside 

Long hair, short hair, some coats and ties

Lookin' past the hair and straight into the eyes 

And it's very plain to see

It's not the way it used to be 

Casual listeners might think this track was taken from Love Song's debut album, but those who listen closely will hear the difference. This was a little rougher than the band's "official" version of Little Country Church, released a year later. But it was a great way to set the tone for this album. Fred Field co-wrote this song with Chuck Girard; Fred was not an official member of Love Song on any of their studio albums, but he contributes a nice, gritty lead guitar solo on this track.  

In Jesus' Name by Selah opens with a recorder solo (!) and basically shares the story of Jesus' life and ministry in a 3 and a half minute Jewish folk tune. Consisting of two high school students, Joy Strange and Cindy Young, Selah is said to have traveled in--what else?--a Volkswagen bus. The girls' vocals feature a rapid-fire vibrato that would quickly wear out its welcome on most songs...but here, it just works. They dive into what's been called a "Yiddish chorus" with an intensity that is so weird it's cool. And then the song just fades away. Later, Erick Nelson and Alex MacDougall would join Selah. Joy Strange later married Bob Cull (writer of the beloved worship song Open Our Eyes) and ended up in the band Parable for a while.  

Blessed Hope contributed Something More, a song with lyrics that echo familiar themes of the Jesus People: 

We've got something more than just salvation

We got Jesus 

We've got something more than just religion

We've got something more, it's relation in the Son

In the Son 

Musically, this one has a little bit of that early 70s, Brady Bunch-Partridge Family-Archies vibe. Blessed Hope would appear on the first four Maranatha! compilation albums, but never recorded a full-length release of their own.

The album's longest track was Two Roads by Country Faith, a group considered to be one of the very first country rock bands in Jesus Music. Coming in at 5:40 (the entire album was just 37 and a half minutes long), Two Roads was something of an epic that sounded like it could've easily been a Love Song tune. The song opens with lyrics that instantly transport you back to Calvary Chapel in 1971: 

Feel the warmth around you

Hear the music in the air

Feel the peace surround you

Smiling faces everywhere

Listen closely to the words we share

Our Lord Jesus wants to take you there 

Written by Tom Stipe and Chuck Butler, the song focuses on the idea that there are two roads that we can choose to travel, but only "one way" to Heaven. It's based on Jesus' words in Matthew 7:13-14.  Stipe went on to leave musical fingerprints on a ton of Maranatha!/Calvary Chapel recordings and was a member of Wing and a Prayer and the Richie Furay Band; Butler later became a member of Parable. 

All of the artists come together to form a choir of sorts to close out Side One. Titled Holy, Holy, Holy, this is not the classic hymn of the same name. But it does come off as something of a modern hymn. The song was written by Tommy Coomes of Love Song. 

Gentle Faith opens Side Two with a Christian folk tune called The Shepherd. For me, the vocals on this one leave a bit to be desired. This was an early edition of Gentle Faith that did not yet include Darrell Mansfield. The Shepherd was sort of a hippie-fied version of the 23rd Psalm: 

He skips through the valley, over mountains to carry

A lamb to the greenlands, in His arms 

He guides them to seaside, and brings them to the tide

The Shepherd is calling, hear His voice 

He leads in a love song and says come sing along

The banks of the river by which we grow 

And His blessings, they are dripping, so we'll catch them, are you listening

La la la la...ah 

Jesus be with us in the night 

Gentle Faith, later fronted by Mansfield, would not record an album of their own until 1976.



Debbie Kerner & Ernie Rettino in the early 70s

Next up was somewhat of a classic: Debbie Kerner's Behold, I Stand at the Door. It's a folk meditation on Revelation 3:20 that Kerner later included on her debut album, Come Walk With Me. Sounding very dated today, Kerner's style was right in line with Joan Baez and Peter, Paul & Mary. Kerner was later ordained as a Minister of Music with Calvary Chapel. She married Ernie Rettino and they ministered together as a couple for many years. 

If You Will Believe by The Way sounded like something a youth choir would've done on the last night of summer camp in the early 70s. The vocals were subpar, but the acoustic guitar solo during the instrumental jam was nice. This song presented the Christian faith as something that could be felt...tasted...experienced! Many of these artists had rejected the cold, staid, emotionless religion of their parents' mainline denominations. They wanted to feel Jesus: 

Then came a feeling that set me straight in line

I felt the Holy Spirit that gave me a new life 

If you will believe

Then you will receive and feel

The gift of love and love from above is real 

Love Song

Love Song returns for a song called Maranatha. The positives would include Chuck Girard’s solos on the verses and Fred Field’s fiddle. On the downside, the drums sound like they had paper heads, and the overall production wasn’t quite up to the standards we would later come to expect from Love Song. Lyrically, this song focuses on the return of Christ: 

The Master went away from us 2,000 years ago

He left us with His promise to return

How our hearts do long for Him

We miss the Master so

We must keep the faith and let the fire burn 

Maranatha, Maranatha

The Lord is coming back

We must be filled with love to truly greet Him

Of course, Love Song would go on to be one of the most important, most influential Christian bands of all time, in spite of their short lifespan as a group. We will definitely be examining more of their recorded works later in the countdown.

The album concludes with what would become an iconic song: For Those Tears I Died by Children of the Day. Sisters Marsha and Wendy Carter were still high school students when they became Christians. They teamed up with Peter Jacobs and Russ Stevens to form Children of the Day, a name taken from I Thess. 5:5. The foursome attended Calvary Chapel and Azusa Pacific University together. Russ and Marsha later married. 

Children of the Day

As far as I can tell, this is the same version of For Those Tears I Died that also appeared on the group’s debut album, Come to the Waters. The song was actually written by a 16-year old Marsha Carter and obviously struck a chord with a lot of people. Musically, it’s a very plaintive performance that falls somewhere between traditional folk music and southern gospel, complete with four-part harmony on the choruses.  

Some say the song’s third verse beautifully captures the wonder and enthusiasm of a new convert: 

Children of the Day

Jesus, I give You my heart and my soul

I know that without God, I’d never be whole

Saviour, You opened all the right doors

And I thank You and praise You from earth’s humble shores

Take me, I’m yours 

Others have criticized the song’s famous chorus from a theological standpoint, claiming that it relies too heavily on sentimentality and emotion. Sometimes you get into trouble when you put extra-biblical words in Jesus’ mouth: 

And Jesus said, “Come to the waters, stand by My side

I know you are thirsty, you won’t be denied

I felt every teardrop when in darkness you cried

And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died” 

We need to remember that the writer was in her mid-teens and a baby Christian when she wrote the song. But theological purists will point out that Jesus died as a sacrifice for sin, not just to make us feel better when we’re sad or lonely.  

For Those Tears I Died became a HUGE youth group campfire song, ended up in hymnals, and has even been featured on Bill Gaither’s Homecoming videos.

Children of the Day made six albums and toured relentlessly. Then, after seven years and two children, the marriage between Russ and Marsha came to a shocking end. According to Mark Allan Powell (Marsha’s biggest fan), her husband told her, “You need to find someone else.” To which she replied, “You know, I think it might be a woman.” 

It might be a woman? What?! 

So Marsha was married to a man for seven years and had two children the old-fashioned way…then decided one day, what the heck, it’s time to switch teams and start having sex with women?! This flies in the face of what is preached by the LGBTQ movement (“born this way?”).  

A closer look at Marsha’s personal story is revealing. Powell writes, “Stevens had a troubled youth. She remembers childhood as a time of terror, a time she doesn’t want to talk about. ‘Let’s just say that when you grow up with an alcoholic in the house, you learn that night is a time to hide,’ she states. She hid, curled up in bed, crying the eponymous tears of her most famous song.” If that is true, then it’s a very, very sad story. 



Marsha (R) and her "partner"

In the years that have followed, Marsha (now known as Marsha Stevens-Pino) has been ignored and largely written out of the history of the Jesus Movement and Calvary Chapel. Her response has been to double down on the lesbianism. She and her “partner” began something called Born Again Lesbian Music and travel the country, performing in Metropolitan Community Churches.  

Mark Allan Powell’s Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music makes claims for this song, for Children of the Day, and for Marsha Stevens that are, frankly, ridiculous. He calls For Those Tears I Died “an absolute masterpiece.” He says that Marsha Stevens-Pino is “the Mother of contemporary Christian music,” claiming that Amy Grant “sings in her shadow.” As well as many other statements that are just over-the-top, if not laughable. Like I said earlier, I enjoyed his book overall. I spent a lot of time reading it and I appreciate all of the time and effort that must’ve gone into creating it. But Powell really needs to dial back the hyperbole a bit where Stevens-Pino and Children of the Day are concerned. I guess he sympathizes with her social/sexual agenda and allows that to cloud his objectivity. Brian Quincy Newcomb has praised Powell's "thoughtful theological insights." That's all you really need to know right there. 

The Everlastin’ Living Jesus Music Concert was actually produced by Chuck Girard, although he was not listed as such in the album’s credits. “I was not given producers credit, because I was told that would be giving the glory to man, not God,” remembers Chuck. “This thinking would probably be considered old-fashioned today, but did reflect the humble values of the early days of the 70s and the Jesus movement.” The record reportedly cost about $2,000 to make. 

The best way I can think of to wrap up this look at The Everlastin’ Living Jesus Music Concert would be to share the liner notes from the inside of the record’s gatefold cover: 

JESUS:

Think about what JESUS

said before you let your

MIND reject Him…

Listen to your HEART

instead and you will

accept Him.

JESUS said “Behold I stand

at the door and knock; if

any man hear My voice and

open the door, I will come

into him, and he with Me.”

Rev. 3:20

“For GOD so loved the world,

that He gave His only begotten

Son, that whosoever believeth

in Him should not perish, but

have everlasting life.”

John 3:16

Dig it, He’s calling you

OUT of a burn trip into

a LOVE relationship with JESUS.

“…there is ONE God, and

one mediator between GOD

and men, the man

CHRIST JESUS.”

I Timothy 2:5

Rap to GOD, He IS there, He IS listening.

GOD, I am a sinner.

I believe JESUS died for me

and that His blood is cleansing

me from all my sins.

By faith I now receive

JESUS CHRIST

into my heart as my

LORD and SAVIOR.

HALLELUJAH!

Fun Facts:

• Debby Kerner was identified on the album's back cover simply as "Debby."

• Chuck Butler of Country Faith is the father of Chad Butler of the band Switchfoot.