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| UPON THIS ROCK by Larry Norman (1969) Capitol Records • ST 446 |
"The first major label record to marry rock music with the Gospel." -CBN
"The album that first recruited rock in the service of salvation." -Stephen H. Webb
"A first-rate album, full of terrific songs with arrangements that are by turns soulful, baroque, and introspective." -pop geek heaven
"The departure point for the 70s Jesus Music movement, and it remains a transcendentally powerful work." -iTunes
"A wildly eclectic folk/rock record often referred to as the first Christian rock record of any consequence." -CCM
"Practically every song on it would become a Norman classic." -Mark Allan Powell
"Blatantly evangelistic, unapologetically eschatological and occasionally surreal." -Chris Willman
"The first truly accomplished and relevant Christian rock testimony ever recorded." -Jason Anderson
"Vintage Norman, mixing apocalyptic Christianity with psychedelic rock and roll." -Paul Baker
"Now considered to be the first full-blown Christian rock album." - John J. Thompson
Well, there ya go. That just about covers it. Goodnight, drive safely!
Just kidding.
Now, before you start doing the math, I know that this album was technically released before the 1970s. But we called an emergency meeting of our Board of Directors and they decided that due to the historical significance of the album, and since it was released less than one month ahead of the 70s, it could be green-lighted for inclusion on our list. Whew! That was a close one...
So after a decade full of assassinations, racial strife, anti-war protests, hostility between the sexes, and a huge spike in drug use and sexual promiscuity, God knew what He was about to do. What's the old saying - it's always darkest before the dawn? In 1969, at the tail end of a tumultuous decade (to put it mildly), conditions were ripe for young people in this country to begin to "turn on" to Jesus by the tens of thousands. While arguments can be made that others were first to play, sing and record early attempts at "Christian rock" - including The Crusaders, Isabel Baker, Agape, John Fischer, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and others - it's abundantly clear that when a 22-year old Larry Norman released Upon This Rock on Capitol Records, it was a watershed moment in Christian music history. Blunt Christianity and psychedelic rock 'n roll had a shotgun wedding...and everything changed.
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| Love Song at Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa |
I know it's difficult to believe now, but up until Upon This Rock, the feeling was that popular music and Christianity were simply incompatible. Larry Norman put those fears to rest. A couple of years later, Love Song and other happy, friendly groups based out of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California would help to usher in a full-fledged Jesus Movement, making it cool to attend a "little country church." But first, a strange, abrasive guy with long, blonde hair, who had been a Christian and a bit of an outcast since age five, would give Jesus all the street cred He would need.
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| My family on an Easter Sunday in the '60s. I'm the li'l gangsta on the left. |
But let's back up a bit. Once upon a time, Christianity - or at least the cultural trappings and traditions of the Western Church - had a much larger influence on life in general than it does today. Even before the Great China Virus Scare of 2020-2021, church attendance was already on the wane and Christians were one of two identity groups in America that could be routinely lampooned and insulted with impunity (the other was husbands/fathers). But after the government easily and quickly caused people to almost completely abandon live church services, including cancelling Easter Sunday in 2020 out of fear ("we're all in this together"), religious services moved to social media, which is a pitiful substitute for the real thing. People tuned out. And now it seems that "church" as we once knew it is on life support. It's anyone's guess as to what comes next.
But in the 1950s, American life was connected, to a large extent, to church life. In most mid-century cities and towns, what happened at your house was all about what happened at the school house, the court house, and, yes, the church house. Many artists who went on to become major stars, including names like Little Richard, Aretha Franklin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Tina Turner, Diana Ross and more, got their start singing in church. And that includes one Elvis Aron Presley, born in Tupelo, Mississippi in 1938.
Growing up in the 1940s, Elvis Presley and his family attended a small, nondescript Pentecostal church in Tupelo, Mississippi. In the summer of 2020, I took my daughter (who is the world's biggest Elvis fan) to Memphis and to Tupelo, where we toured Graceland and Presley's boyhood home. And there it was, in Tupelo: a reconstruction of the Assembly of God church (pictured above) where Elvis sang his first "specials" and learned to play guitar. Then the family moved to the big city of Memphis.
In the 1950s, black music and white music, black church and white church existed along parallel lines. It was said that Sunday morning was the most segregated time in America. But Elvis Presley walked in both worlds. He was influenced by the legendary secular bluesmen of Memphis, Tennessee and by the spirituals that came out of the black churches.
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| Elvis with B.B. King, 1956 |
But he also developed a soft spot in his heart for the southern gospel groups that regularly blew through town and put on extraordinary concerts at the Ellis Auditorium in Memphis. Young Presley was especially thrilled by the Blackwood Brothers Quartet, and caught their act as often as he could. The Blackwoods' tall, charismatic, and freakishly low bass singer, J.D. Sumner, befriended the boy and told him, "You don't need any money, son. When we come to Memphis, you just come to the stage door and ask for me and I'll let you in." Sumner later smiled at the irony, and he said, "A few years later, he was the one on stage and he had to let me in to come and see his concerts."
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| Elvis with the Blackwood Brothers Quartet |
It is said that what drew Elvis to the great gospel groups of that day was the underlying rhythm of the white quartets, a rhythm first heard in the black church. Presley would soon learn to sing, play guitar and shake his hips in a way that made cash registers ring, made girls scream and made parents furious. It was a far cry from the Negro spirituals and southern gospel classics that caused him to fall in love with music in the first place. But the kid from Tupelo was onto something.
Larry Norman was obsessed with music from an early age. His grandmother bought him a toy piano when he was just two years old.
When he was old enough to attend school, he was teased because he would sing to his classmates on the playground during recess rather than run and play. This led to Larry being bullied at school. Church wasn't much better; he was spanked for "dancing in the aisles" of First Baptist Church in Corpus Christi, Texas. After a while, the Normans relocated to the Bay Area in California, where Larry grew up in a multi-cultural community. [He often claimed to have grown up in an "all-black neighborhood," but there were Hispanics and working-class whites there as well.]
Larry's interest in music was again stimulated when he found a ukulele in the closet in his parent's bedroom. His parents' room was off-limits, but rather than reprimanding his son, Larry's father instead asked, "Why don't you play me a song?" This caused young Larry to feel like a million bucks. He never forgot that feeling.
It is said that he had a difficult relationship with his father. Larry's dad, Joe, was a structured kind of guy who saw the world in black and white. Meanwhile, Larry's world was all about shades of grey (as his Solid Rock proteges would discover down the road a bit). In his biography of Larry Norman titled Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music - Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock, author Gregory Alan Thornbury writes that Larry thought his mother could do no wrong. Thornbury says that over time, Larry became a sort of composite of both parents: driven, righteous, intelligent and aloof like his dad, and a dreamer and poet like his mom. Other family members were also important to Larry's development, especially Aunt Nina (who had been a burlesque performer) and her husband, Uncle Frenchie, a clown who did rope tricks. It was Frenchie who taught Larry to play actual chords on the ukulele, and Nina bought him his very own ukulele. Larry would use it to write his first song when he was nine years old. It was about this time that Larry started writing songs in earnest - real songs. Songs like Lonely Boy...My Feet Are On The Rock...and Country Church, Country People. He actually auditioned for the TV show called The Ted Mack Amateur Hour in 1959.
In 1960, the Normans moved to San Jose, and Joe signed on as a high school English teacher, boasting a young Steve Wozniak as one of his pupils (long before Wozniak and Steve Jobs would team up to create Apple.) So Larry's in high school now, and he lands performances in musicals like Oklahoma! and Carousel. He acquired a reel-to-reel tape recorder and used it to teach his sisters harmony parts. He also became aware of and disturbed by the plight of blacks during the Jim Crow era and developed a strong sense of justice and righteousness regarding the poverty and racism that plagued so many. It was all beginning to come together.
Years earlier, while riding in his father's Chevrolet car, Larry heard the name Elvis Presley on the radio. In his book, Gregory Alan Thornbury quotes Larry as saying that "the very mention of Elvis's name seemed to be a special magic, an exciting energy." A few weeks later, Larry's cousin Bonnie Sue came to visit Larry and brought a 45 single by Elvis. "The most exciting and puzzling song I'd ever heard blasted out of the cheap, portable record player speakers," Larry recalled. "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog, cryin' all the time." Larry was reportedly mesmerized by the bounce of Elvis's vocals and the reverb-drenched twang of Scotty Moore's rockabilly guitar.
When I took my daughter to Graceland, we viewed a $1,000 check to the First Assembly of God Church, written by Elvis and on display in one of the museums. Also prominently featured were the Christian albums that Elvis recorded, all of them leaning heavily to southern gospel and away from rock and roll. Incredibly, Presley won only three Grammy Awards during his lifetime. All three were for his Christian recordings. He even called on a group known as The Imperials (yes, those Imperials) to back him on one of the gospel LPs and also in his live stage show in Vegas. When the Imperials had to cut ties with Presley due to scheduling conflicts, Elvis called upon his old friend J.D. Sumner.
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| Presley with J.D. Sumner |
J.D. Sumner & the Stamps Quartet would back Presley for the next several years on stage in Las Vegas and on the road. Never mistaken for a choir boy, J.D. said that by this time he was "one of the best functioning alcoholics you ever saw in your life" and the only member of Presley's team that was allowed to drink on stage. "Drinkin' actually helped me sing better," J.D. told a daytime talk show audience in the 1980s, evidencing the dichotomy that often swirled around Presley. As Presley's life was unraveling in the mid-70s, he still included meaningful gospel songs like How Great Thou Art and Sweet, Sweet Spirit in every show. The gospel groups that backed him say that he never fully got away from his Christian upbringing, his love of gospel music, and his hunger for spiritual things. After doing two shows a night in Vegas, he would summon the Imperials or the Stamps to his hotel suite and stand around a piano with them, singing gospel music until the sun came up.
As early as the late 50s, a young Larry Norman became convinced that somewhere along the way Elvis had stolen rock and roll from the black church in America. And Larry was determined to steal it back. Larry once said that he was nine when he first pondered this radical concept of combining the musical sounds of Elvis with stories from the Bible and the words of Jesus. This didn't sit well with Larry's dad. In fact, just the idea of pursuing music or performing as a career path was foreign to the elder Norman. Joe is said to have yelled at Larry, "No son of mine is going to grow up to be Elvis Presley." And something about how "God and rock and roll could never go together."
"I was just a kid when Elvis came along," Larry recalled. "The music he was singing was hailed as something new. But I had grown up in a black neighborhood. And I knew that this style of music was from the black church."
Larry never quite seemed to fit in with his peers. He had a look that made him stand out. He was called a pansy and a queer in the high school gym class locker room - due, probably, to his high-pitched voice.
Like so many, it is said that he was inspired by the success of The Beatles to actually seek a career as a performer. There's a photo somewhere of Larry and his then-bandmates in 1964, dressed up as Beatles look-alikes, complete with wigs. His first real band was a group called the Back Country Seven. His sister Nancy and friend Gene Mason were also in the group. They mostly played parties in the Bay area. After dropping out of San Jose State College after just one semester, Larry hooked up with a group called People!, a psychedelic rock band out of San Francisco. As for the name, Larry has said that other bands were Byrds, Beatles, Turtles, Animals...so they thought they would just be People!
Biographer Gregory Alan Thornbury notes in his book Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music that Larry "wasn't rugged or conventionally handsome." In fact, "he looked like a choirboy" and "his voice was queer, so much so that studio executives often wouldn't let him take lead vocals on his own songs." He had over a hundred songs to his credit by this time. "We practiced five hours a day and did shows at night," Larry said. "I loved it. Music, music, music." Soon a Capitol Records VP heard People! and signed them to the storied label. The year was 1966. Since Larry wasn't yet 21 years of age, his parents had to convince a judge that they were cool with their son signing his first songwriting deal with Capitol.
People! languished for awhile until they recorded a cover of a Zombies song titled I Love You in 1968. Boom. One hit wonder status was quickly achieved. I Love You went to #1 in Japan, Australia, South Africa, Israel, and the Philippines. It rose as high as #14 here in the United States. People! had a hit.
Almost as quickly as they experienced success, cracks began to appear in the group's foundation. Some of the group members were embracing Scientology at the same time that Larry wanted to infuse his Christian faith more and more into the band's songs. The band had never really clicked as a tight-knit group, relationally, so these tensions centering around religious expression caused a lot of friction within the group. This may or may not come as a surprise to you...but some of the other members of People! complained that Larry "rubbed them the wrong way"...that he was a narcissist with a "difficult" personality. Arrogant. Hard to get along with. Our Larry? No way. [insert sarcasm emoji here.]
Larry's side of the story was that these guys were getting into a bunch of weird trips...not only Scientology, but also transcendental meditation. He said they showed disdain for his Christian faith and also complained that Larry wasn't demonstrating enough of a rock star swagger. Not enough "animal magnetism." For his part, Norman says that last part was actually true. "I wanted nothing to do with girls," he said, "and certainly didn't put out any vibe that encouraged girls to be attracted to me."
After experiencing the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Larry said he felt a stronger call to be more explicit about his faith. He told the guys in People! that he was moving on. They were reported to have said, "You can't quit because you're fired." The group's promoter piped up with, "You just fired the talent." The promoter turned out to be prophetic. People! never had another hit.
At this point Larry had a lot of songs...and a lot of valuable experience performing with People!...but no money and no means of gainful employment. So he did what a lot of today's millennials and GenZ'ers would do: he went back home with his tail between his legs and moved back in with mom and dad. He wasn't there long when a job offer came. The VP and General Manager of Beechwood Music wanted Larry Norman to go to Hollywood to write musicals. Larry didn't have to think about it. He rented a one-room, "flophouse" apartment on Gower Street, or Poverty Row (as it was also known). The Hollywood Walk of Fame started on Gower street in those days, and Paramount Studios sat on the corner of Gower and Melrose. Larry Norman was right there in the middle of it all.
Larry wrote songs for a musical called Lion's Breath in exchange for a paycheck. But increasingly, the call of God to witness to the lost hippies, hookers and drug addicts around him pulled at his heart. Larry Norman became a rock and roll evangelist. He came at this thing in a very different way from those who had miraculous conversion stories during the Jesus Movement. Larry had been a Christian since the age of five. He wasn't one of the "Jesus People." In fact, he said he couldn't really identify with them.
"I didn't particularly feel comfortable with the Jesus Movement," Larry told Contemporary Musicians magazine. "I was not one who had recently become a Christian. I did not have any scintillating testimony of giving up drugs, girls and the pursuit of material possessions."
Reporter: "You are, are you not, the leader of the Jesus Movement?"
Larry Norman: "No. Jesus is."
His was an established faith, being shared not in Bible studies and revival meetings, but on street corners.
It was during this time that Larry had a unique experience. Well...it was unique to him and to Randy Stonehill. Remember Randy talking about how he wrote One True Love in his sleep? The same thing happened to Larry. It turned out to be a song called Sweet, Sweet Song of Salvation. Other songs came quickly - with titles like Ha Ha World, Forget Your Hexagram, The Last Supper, and I Wish We'd All Been Ready. God was about to do something monumental.
Capitol Records was now headed up by Mike Curb. You might recognize that name - Curb has always had a soft spot in his heart for artists who were good at expressing their Christian faith through music. In the summer of 1969, Capitol Records asked Larry Norman if he would like to record a solo album. Instead of simply jumping at the chance, Larry said yes, but on one condition: Capitol would not be able to censor the message of his songs. He wanted to sing about Jesus. With Curb at the helm, the label agreed to Larry's terms. "Finally, Larry Norman would be able to make a statement for Christ like he wanted to do with People!," wrote author Gregory Alan Thornbury. "Better yet, American record executives would foot the bill."
The label believed in him based on his talent. Larry believed in his mission, his calling. The result was Upon This Rock.
The original Capitol release of UTR began with a Prelude/Overture that I find to be a little pretentious...but hey, I've never been into orchestras and musicals and the like. It takes lines and snippets from the various songs on the album and merges them into a medley that sounds less like a rock and roll album and more like a Broadway show. Which is understandable, I guess, since Larry had just spent a lot of time writing musicals before recording UTR. Musicals were popular with young people at that time. There were several musicals that were popular among the Jesus People. But they sound dated and almost silly today. I guess I can understand Larry opening the album this way in 1969. But in 2021, this "overture" business is definitely skip-over material. Of course, Larry being Larry, this track seamlessly blends into the album's first real song. Larry's middle name should've been crossfade.
You Can't Take Away the Lord turns out to be a nice choice for UTR's first "real" song, as it's an upbeat, hooky track that also establishes Larry as a Christian right off the bat. In the song, Norman puts the devil on notice: you can basically strip me of everything and everyone, as with Job, but you can't destroy God's Word, His Church or His Presence. You can't take Him from me.
Well, He made me and He saved me
Ba, ba-ba, ba
And I follow after
Everywhere He leads, there's peace and laughter
Laughing in the Spirit
Listen and you'll hear it
Yeah, You Can't Take Away the Lord might be the only CCM song that's ever mentioned "holy laughter." But, after all, the Vineyard church movement did start as a Bible study in Larry's home. But I digress.
When pressed on the meaning of the song, Larry said, "No one can take God from you except you, yourself. Because you have the power to accept or reject."
Musically, this one owes a lot to a beatnik, folk rock vibe, powered by Mike Deasy's guitar and plenty of bongos. The lyric raised eyebrows for its mention of the birth control pill; it's also relatable even today to divorced men (You can take away my kids...You can take away my house...) after 50+ years of so-called "no fault divorce" in the United States, which began in California in - wait for it - 1969.
Pop Geek Heaven's Bruce Brodeen wrote, "The lyrics are at once irreverent and steadfast - a real feat and one of the hallmarks of Norman's writing." In 1993, the band Audio Adrenaline expressed a similar sentiment in their song You Can't Take God Away. Except that instead of directing it to Satan, they were talking to government leaders and school administrators (which isn't all that different when you think about it).
Of course, Norman was famous for repackaging albums and for releasing multiple versions of albums and even multiple versions of most of his best songs over the years. He got the most mileage possible from the great records that he made from 1969 to 1977. But historian Mark Allan Powell points out that You Can't Take Away the Lord is a true gem of a song and one of only three songs on UTR that do not turn up on any subsequent Norman albums.
In 1969, the message delivered on most Gospel or Christian albums was fairly straightforward. Of course, Larry Norman started changing all of that on this album. At first glance, a song title like I Don't Believe in Miracles was jarring...a sentiment that seemed not only out of place, but diametrically opposed to the Scriptures. Ah, but then we realize that Larry is basically playing a character in this song and not speaking for himself. In the verses, he seems to be playing the part of a jaded agnostic...
I don't believe in miracles
I know what's real, I don't pretend
I don't believe in miracles
Or stories with a happy end
Life is no one's friend
I don't believe in miracles
I've been around, I've seen enough
The only way to get along, you must be strong
You must be tough
Life is one big bluff
But then...redemption. Sort of. The singer acknowledges that he's had some type of spiritual experience, perhaps some type of encounter with God? And even so, he's still questioning...
But when we met I felt so free
And suddenly I felt a change come over me
Do you suppose a miracle is happening to me?
But then You opened up the door
And walked right in, and all my fears fell on the floor
Do you suppose a miracle is happening to me?
As the songwriter, Larry allows the question to stand.
Larry sings I Don't Believe in Miracles in a plaintive, at times quavering voice with a flat affect; it sounds like he's slightly agitated. And then, here comes this lovely little bridge with the background vocalists singing their ba-ba-pa-pa's in a way that reminds you that we're in the late Sixties. Seriously, the bridge that begins at the 1:36 mark sounds like it could've been the music bed for an automobile or soft drink commercial from back in the day!
Up next is a song that Larry claims to have written as a child. It's here on Upon This Rock "in all of its church camp glory," wrote Mark Allan Powell in his Encyclopedia of Contemporary Christian Music. Billboard's Barry Alfonso calls it a Bible story retold in "comical hipster lingo." Moses in the Wilderness was a favorite of my kids when they were young, due in part to the "milk and honey, milk and honey" lines delivered in a sing-song kind of way by the backing singers. In fact, I think my children even referred to the song as "Milk and Honey." They thought it was hilarious.
Norman doesn't even bother to sing this one, it's more like a recitation or a spoken-word track with music underneath. And again, a dry, flat delivery from Larry. He elicits a chuckle or two with some humor in the lyrics of Moses - especially concerning Moses bugging the Pharaoh and the Egyptians "taking a bath" in the Red Sea. One reviewer said it's "talking blues with a great psyche bridge that alternates between aggressive stabs and gentle fairy voices. I know of no other song like it."
Larry coughs a couple of times during Moses. I always thought it was part of the act...but author Gregory Alan Thornbury gives a different explanation. He says that Larry decided to sit in the producer's chair for Upon This Rock, but just days into the recording sessions, he came down with cold or flu symptoms and went missing for a few days. When Larry returned to the studio, the story goes, he was dismayed to find that the band and a low-level Beechwood Music employee had done a lot of production work without him - spending much of the recording budget on ridiculous string arrangements and "preposterous overdubs." It is said that Capitol forced Larry to sing while not fully recovered, and that is why you hear the coughs at 1:40 and 3:08. As with most things Larry...we report, you decide.
Who knows, maybe it was Moses in the Wilderness that inspired other Jesus Music artists to try their hand at telling new versions of the stories of various people from the Bible. The Pat Terry Group gave us Daniel, Mark Heard did one on Jonah, and Honeytree sang about Mary and Martha. Don Francisco had a slew of 'em...and Keith Green told his own Moses story in So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt. Come to think of it, Pat Terry also did one on Moses: I Got To Go Down. Paul Clark did one on the parable of the "good Samaritan" and Keith Green had one on the prodigal son. And DeGarmo & Key gave us Mary. I'm sure there were many more, those are just the ones that quickly come to mind without the help of an iPod or search engine.
After telling the story of Moses and the children of Israel escaping Egypt, at the very end of the song Norman offer this salient piece of advice for no particular reason: Never borrow money needlessly. Followed by a cough.
UPDATE: Paul Casey, a reader of this blog (and, apparently a student of mid-century finance and advertising!) filled me in that the Household Finance Company had a string of radio and TV ads in the 60s that used "Never borrow money needlessly" as their tag line or slogan. And one of the ads was about a TRAVEL loan. Which could have been the connection to Moses and the children of Israel roaming around in the wilderness. Who knew?!
Larry switched to a prettier singing voice (and sang with himself) on the ballad Walking Backward Down the Stairs, another song where Larry was not necessarily singing about his own experience, but the experiences of young people in general.
People stop to watch me
Wonder what I'm doing
What direction I'm pursuing
I pretend I'm free, but actually I'm
Walking backwards down the stairs
Trying to get higher
How can I get anywhere
Walking backwards down the stairs
Mark Allan Powell calls it a "brilliant prophetic folk song" and Gregory Alan Thornbury says it expresses "the aimlessness of the flower children" of the late 60s. Powell did say that in his opinion, this version of Walking Backward Down the Stairs suffers from too much slick orchestration. Again, no solution or moral-of-the-story is given. The lyrics do not resolve. There's not even any suggestions offered. Just a recognition that a lot of people are on the wrong path and headed in the wrong direction. Larry knew that he didn't have to present the entirety of the Gospel in one 3-minute song; he had the whole album for that. The solution to this problem would be offered up in other songs. Reviewer Jason Anderson has said that Larry's music on UTR was, for its time, "amazingly unapologetic and free of dogma."
Side One of Upon This Rock closes with a true gem. In Ha Ha World, Larry delivers avant-garden imagery and apocalyptic language over a churning folk rock groove and psychedelic sound. It's amazing. And weird. And awesome. And disturbing. And intelligent. And confusing. In other words, it's all the stuff that we loved about Larry Norman but didn't know it yet.
Larry was asked by Lee Randall of the Powerline radio program to explain Ha Ha World. "A man goes through his life and at the end of a portion of his life, he discovers that he's not happy," Larry answered. "In Ha Ha World, he discovers God and he discovers that without a vision, the people perish. Without God, the world can't hope to find peace."
By the way, Larry got "cool points" with a lot of Christian young people at the time for being willing to use the phrase "burning like hell" in a song. Most of us weren't even allowed to say that out loud.
Upon This Rock was produced, conceived, written and performed by Larry Norman. Hal Yoergler was the album's executive producer. Larry sang, of course, and played guitar and piano. Future fellow Jesus Music artist Mike Deasy played additional acoustic guitars, while Hal Blaine sat behind the drums and Joe Osborne played bass. Larry Knechtel played keyboards. Anthony Harris is to blame for the orchestrations.
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| Nelly, Matthew & Annie |
Credits say that the backing vocals were contributed by The Inspirations, The DannieBelles and Annie, Matthew & Nelly. Yes, that would be the group of siblings that would later call themselves The Second Chapter of Acts. Matthew Ward had to be, like, 11 years old?! It's amazing that the Wards got to contribute their talents to the record that is considered to be the first true Christian rock album ever.
Larry's vision for eye-catching and sometimes controversial album art was there from the start. The cover shows our hero, shirtless and with arms outstretched. He appears to be flying through the air. It definitely stood out. Especially down at the Mom & Pop Christian bookstore! The album design was by David Coleman.
Side Two of UTR begins with a catchy, youth group sing-along song for the ages: Sweet, Sweet Song of Salvation. An iTunes write-up calls it a sunny, Gospel-pop ditty. It was really a song that rallied the troupes to go out and witness...to fulfill the Great Commission...to share their faith with others...
Sing that sweet, sweet song of salvation
And let your laughter fill the air
Sing that sweet, sweet song of salvation
And tell the people everywhere
Sing that sweet, sweet song of salvation
To every man in every nation
Sing that sweet, sweet song of salvation
And let the people know that Jesus cares
Larry says that when you know a wonderful secret, you tell it to your friends. This was the song that God first inspired Larry to write in his sleep. One writer called it "a generational theme song for young believers."It would become his second best-known song from the early years of his ministry (I'll let you guess the first). It would end up in church songbooks. And it would be covered dozens of times by artists like the Imperials, Marj Snyder, the Sons of Thunder, Rebecca St. James, the Pat Boone Family, Selah, Evie, The Kingsmen, Paul Colman, JD Sumner & the Stamps, Hovie Lister & the Statesmen, Nina Hagen, Blake Bolerjack, Good News Circle, and many others.
The Imperials recorded Sweet, Sweet Song of Salvation both on their 1970 studio album Time to Get It Together and their double Live album in 1973. That was probably a mutually beneficial arrangement. Because the Imperials were transitioning at that time in hopes of reaching a younger audience and benefited from any association with Norman; and with the Imps having been an established and highly decorated gospel group, they could also be of use to Norman by making him seem less scary to the Church.
Sweet, Sweet Song of Salvation was another one of my kids' favorites...mostly due to Larry's vocal performance - fused with healthy doses of grit and attitude - during that "na-na-na-na" part...on the intro and on the turnaround. They loved it.
On Forget Your Hexagram, Larry confronts the darker side of astrology, witchcraft, and the occult as being unscriptural. And he does so in a blunt, direct, matter-of-fact way at a time when these things were quite popular in Southern California.
Forget your hexagram, you'll soon feel fine
Stop looking at the stars, you don't live under the signs
Don't mess with gypsies or have your fortune read
Keep your table on the floor and don't you listen to the dead
He also "cancels" reincarnation...and then delivers a brief yet effective salvation message...
You can't hitchhike your way to Heaven
The devil's closed the roads
You live once and you die once
with no reincarnate episodes
You can't hitchhike to Heaven
Or get there by just being good
The rules were set down long ago
When the spikes went in the wood
This one had a cool, psychedelic hippie vibe...with Osborne's bass and Blaine's drums doing most of the heavy lifting. Allmusic's Jason Anderson said it had "an undeniable grooviness."
And then, as seems to happen often on this record...a hard left turn to something completely different. It was very noticeable that, unlike some of Larry's later albums, the songs on Upon This Rock are not thematically or musically related to one another. A Washington Examiner article put it this way: "Upon This Rock is in fact a straightforward collection of unrelated songs, but the album's lack of a concept just makes its sudden shifts in mood stranger." In short, this album is all over the place.
The Last Supper is crazy cool. But mostly crazy. And scary! I'm really at sort of a loss for words on how to describe the song. It was just Larry singing over acoustic piano. There are lots of wrong notes and issues with both Larry's playing and singing that could've been fixed with some overdubs. But I think he wanted it that way. It had to be intentional. On the one hand, my children and I would laugh our heads off when Larry would start beating the piano indiscriminately halfway through the song. On the other hand, the whole thing is unsettling. It's the kind of song and type of performance that kind of makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you know?
Again, from the Washington Examiner: "In Ha Ha World and The Last Supper, the food imagery alone is far more terrifying than anything conjured by the voices inside your local psych band's head. A snake crawls around on a plate. Bread turns to dust. Norman receives a mysterious phone call about his missing chicken while his kitchen's temperature fluctuates wildly. Upon hearing these songs, bewildered believers throughout L.A. shook their heads and called the health department."
Not everyone was crazy about it. "The Last Supper is the most challenging track on the album, even harrowing" wrote Bruce Brodeen over at the Pop Geek Heaven website. "It features only piano and voice and recounts the familiar tale of the Last Supper before falling apart in a free-form improvisation that I think most listeners will find self-indulgent and off-putting." He adds, "I'm a big fan of the album and I'm not even sure what to make of it."
"Well, I know what it means to me," Larry Norman said in an interview with the Powerline radio show. "But everyone who hears the song comes up and tells me what the song means to them, and they've all got a different story. Perhaps The Last Supper is one of those art pieces like a crazy painting on the wall, and everyone says the painting means something else."
The Last Supper is followed immediately by I Wish We'd All Been Ready. Talk about a one-two punch...
My goodness...what a song, right? It became the unofficial anthem of the Jesus Movement there for a while...and it probably caused more people to pause and seriously consider their relationship with Jesus than any sermon preached during the era. It was featured in movies back in the 70s - movies like A Thief in the Night which was intended to literally scare the hell out of youth group kids. It's been recorded by The Hoppers, the Oak Ridge Boys, Evie, Good News Circle, the Sammy Hall Singers, Pat Boone, The Random Sample, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Cliff Richard, Pelle Karlsson, and the Sonlight Orchestra. It was given renewed popularity when it was covered by dc Talk in the year 2000. It's even been covered by American Idol star Jordin Sparks for the Left Behind movie series.
Billboard's Barry Alfonso calls I Wish We'd All Been Ready the album's centerpiece, "a dramatic narrative describing the earth's final days. Intentionally frightening, the song went on to become a Christian music standard."
Larry's high-pitched, no-frills vocal is perfect for the song. And quite eerie.
Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we'd all been ready
Children died, the days grew cold
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
I wish we'd all been ready
A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone
I wish we'd all been ready
Two men walking up a hill
One disappears, and one's left standing still
I wish we'd all been ready
There's no time to change your mind
The Son has come and you've been left behind
There's no time to change your mind
How could you have been so blind?
The Father spoke, the demons dined
The Son has come and you've been left behind
According to author Mark Allan Powell, I Wish We'd All Been Ready features brilliantly poetic and mysterious imagery. He says it has a haunting melody to match its disturbing theme. But...
He also says that the song is "completely off base," theologically, and that a "rapture" of Christians prior to the great tribulation is a non-scriptural invention of politically motivated fundamentalist thought. Powell is not alone in thinking this way; it's become the popular theological position of all the cool kids on the interwebs these days. Or at least the ones on the Religious Left. I don't know quite what to make of the whole debate. Now, in addition to being a music critic, Powell is also a New Testament scholar and former seminary professor. On the other hand, my Dad was a pastor and state presbyter, I was raised on the second pew of the church and was there every time the doors were open, and I can read...I have an actual, ongoing relationship with God...so I like to think that I at least have a clue about these things myself.
Mark Allan Powell says that Larry is describing events from Matthew 24, and that Matthew 24 is talking about the parousia of Christ. So I did a search for parousia. And here's what I found: "The word parousia is mainly used in Christian theology to refer to the second coming of Christ."
OK.
It goes on to say, "Some sources specifically cite that the term refers to the rapture, the first of three stages of the return. Other scholars interpret it as Christ's spiritual presence in the church."
I know that the word 'rapture' does not appear in Scripture. [Nor does the word 'trinity' and a lot of other words.] The word 'rapture' also does not appear in I Wish We'd All Been Ready. I also know that there are passages of Scripture in Daniel, Matthew, I Thessalonians and Revelation that seem to support what I was taught about end times events, growing up in Assemblies of God churches. I read the verses again in Matthew 24 and I Thessalonians 4 just a few minutes ago. The same Bible still says the same things that I was taught in the 1970s. This insistence that it's all some kind of plot dreamed up by a European preacher in the 1800s and that it's somehow political...I don't know, sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
Apparently, it all comes down to interpretation. And I don't know that I can fully trust any man's interpretation. We've got people running around out her today claiming Scriptural support for abortion and homosexual marriage. So people can twist God's Word to say whatever they want, obviously.
What I know for sure is that none of us know for sure.
At the end of the day, I think the point of Larry's song is: Live as if Jesus is returning any minute, but work like He's coming back a thousand years from now. Allies had a song that said, If you believe He's coming back tomorrow, then live like He is coming back today.
In the meantime, God gave Larry Norman an amazing song. It has been used to cause people to re-evaluate their standing with the Lord. So let's just appreciate it for what it is.
The last full song on Upon This Rock is Nothing Really Changes, probably my least favorite song on the record. It's about history and philosophy, and Larry name-drops Shakespeare, the corner cop, Romeo & Juliet, Nelson Eddy & Jeanette, Bacchus, Caesar, the Mets, Icarus, Samson, Henry VIII, Cleopatra, Beethoven, Ben Hur, Aristotle, Cain & Able, and Satan himself. This one has "show tune" written all over it. And then it transitions into a Postlude...which really sounds like something from a Broadway play from hell. Sorry, I know that's a little dramatic, but I just really do not care for these audio murals that open and close the album.
And there you go. No one knew it at the time, but Christian rock music was off and running.
Reporter: "Isn't it true that the Jesus Movement started in your living room?"
Larry Norman: "Well, if it did, I wasn't home at the time."
"Upon This Rock was written to stand outside the Christian culture," Larry explained. "I tried to create songs for which there was no anticipated acceptance. I wanted to display the flexibility of the Gospel and that there was no limitation to how God could be presented. I used abrasive humor and sarcasm as much as possible, which was also not a traditional aspect of Christian music. I chose negative imagery to deliver a positive message. My songs weren't written for Christians. It was not a Christian album for those believers who wanted everything spelled out. It was more like a street fight."
According to musicianguide.com, Norman wanted to "push aside traditional Gospel quartet music, break down the church doors, and allow the hippies, prostitutes and other unwashed rabble into the sanctuary."
When Larry heard the finished product, he was reported to be extremely unhappy. "When I heard the final mixes at a private playback party, I wanted to cry," he revealed. "I felt humiliated. All of my beautiful songs sounded stupid. Where was the restlessness and loneliness I wanted? The alienation and anger? I thought it gave the overall impression of being a children's record. This was a nightmare."
Well, that was a pretty extreme reaction.
It's interesting that Larry was shrewd enough in his early twenties to know that his target audience would more than likely respond to a gritty, street-wise, more earthy and angry presentation over a smiley, happy, I-just-love-the-Lord-and-you-should-too presentation. Larry had thought about this. He had done the math. A lot of the early Jesus Music bands that followed him into the pool didn't really strategize all that much... For them, it was just, "I love Jesus and I wrote these songs, so..." In the end, God blessed both approaches with His favor.
Larry's initial reaction to his own album was negative, but the reaction from critics was mixed. It was famously called "The Sergeant Pepper's of Christian Rock" by one excited reviewer. Screen Stars magazine said that UTR was lyric rock that sounded like it came straight out of a revival meeting. They called it "...a strange album, but definitely a good one" and gave it their Album of the Month designation. It also drew rave reviews from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner ("...a whole new school of song.") and the Citizen News ("...I don't care if his talent comes from his Creator or...from Genghis Khan. He's great!). A Billboard reviewer wrote, "By turns funny, angry, and enraptured, the album's songs are as well written as they are fervent."
The record was also panned by some outlets, including magazines like Screw and Entertainment World. The latter called UTR a "hunk of hubris" and said that God might've given Larry Norman a record deal, but He forgot to give him a decent singing voice. Another reviewer called Larry "a hermaphrodite" and labeled UTR a "musical misery tour." Ouch.
The album didn't sell well and in February of 1970, just two months after its release, Capitol dropped Larry Norman from their label, determining that there apparently wasn't a market for this type of music. Larry's analysis of the situation reminds me of an old Mark Heard song titled Stuck in the Middle. "It was too religious for the rock and roll stores, and too rock and roll for the religious stores," he said.
Capitol decided to sublease the album for two years to Benson, a Christian music company. It would be re-released on their Impact label, making Larry Norman and the Imperials label mates. Larry was not immediately fond of this arrangement, as he was hoping that non-Christians would be the audience for his music. "I was out to create a dialogue with people who believed they hated God," he said. "I wanted to be on the battlefield, fighting a spiritual battle, trying to convince and convert the undecided and get them to cross the battle line to stand together with other new believers."
But he reluctantly agreed. Upon This Rock was an instant hit for Impact.
In his book Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music, author Gregory Alan Thornbury reveals that the Impact re-release of UTR sold tens of thousands of copies in the U.S., 23,000 copies in the U.K., and sales were brisk in South Africa and Australia as well.
Larry Norman was becoming a household name among young Christians worldwide. And Jesus Rock was born.
A couple of things to point out about this business deal between Capitol and Impact:
1. This established a template of Christian rock albums being sold primarily in Christian stores, and making Larry's original vision and mission much more difficult. It could be argued that an entire "industry" would result from this one deal. And Christian artists, as a result, would end up singing to the choir. Now, if you're a choir member, like me, that's not a bad thing. But Larry and a lot of other artists really desired to take their music and their message well beyond the confines of the local Mom & Pop Bible/Book Store.
2. Benson reportedly sold Upon This Rock for seventeen years without paying Larry a penny in royalties, sowing the initial seeds of distrust between Larry and Christian record companies. He would try the crossover route one more time with MGM/Verve...but Norman would soon start his own label (One Way) and then another one (Solid Rock) and then a third (Phydeaux), rather than work with the Christian labels. Then, in 1986 he signed a deal for a comeback album after being out of the spotlight for many years. This would be a big deal. He signed with Benson...under the condition that they pay him the back royalties owed from Upon This Rock. The story is told that Benson sent Larry a check for $50,000. They thought it was money to begin work on the Home At Last comeback album. He said he thought the 50K was a "first installment" on the back royalties from UTR. Benson threatened legal action and Larry threw together a bunch of demos, existing studio songs and unfinished tracks, which Benson released as Home At Last. And with that, Larry Norman was officially done with the CCM record industry.
Thus concludes the story of how the ultimate righteous rocker started a whole new genre of music.
CBN.com offered this tribute: "Larry Norman survived death threats, censorship, relentless touring, and harsh criticism. He made his name preaching to the outcast, offending the Church and making record executives nervous with his brand of Jesus Rock. Norman wrote songs that spoke to the heart but aimed for the jugular. It was nothing less than legendary for the original Jesus freak."
Larry Norman went on to record some of the most important albums ever pressed into vinyl throughout the decade of the 1970s. After that, he was limited by an injury, serious health problems, and various legal and personal issues. After struggling with heart disease for a decade or so, Larry Norman went Home on Sunday, February 24, 2008. He was only 60 years old.
"It is certainly no overstatement to say that Larry Norman is to Christian music what John Lennon is to rock and roll or Bob Dylan is to folk music," said CCM magazine. "His contributions deserve to be discovered by future generations. God used him to accomplish amazing things."
In the end, Larry Norman kept his promise and completed his mission to "steal rock and roll back."
Elvis Presley would become known as the King of Rock and Roll. And Larry Norman would become known as the Father of Christian Rock. They would both be photographed with presidents.
Elvis always kept his spiritual yearnings and his rock and roll separate. Larry found a way to blend the two. They would both die early, shells of their former selves.
And both men would be inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame...together...in 2001.
Kelefa Sanneh, a music critic for the New York Times and The New Yorker, made the point that when Larry passed away in 2008, two things were evident: how little the modern Christian music industry resembles Larry Norman, and how much it still stumbles through those uneasy spaces he opened up. "Worship musicians now find hot, new songs in subscription databases," he wrote. "Christian singers regularly score crossover hits and mind their media placement portfolios, while Christian radio exists to be 'positive and encouraging.' These things are all tools. Used well, they help faith to flourish. But lurking behind these tools are the testy paradoxes and unanswered questions of Larry Norman, advising us not to borrow money needlessly. And coughing in our faces."