Larry Norman: A Life Lived for God, My Thoughts and Memories

Today has been a very sad day for me. The man Christian music has labeled the Father/Grandfather of Christian Rock passed away this morning, Sunday, February 24th, at 2:45am surrounded by his family. Larry had suffered with declining heath for the last 15 years do to a head injury and then heart problems. The last year he spent most of his time under the care of his family and health professionals. I ask you friends of mine to let me take the next 15 minutes of your time for you to know of this man that Time magazine called “the most important artist of his genre" This has been a walk down memory lane for me and also very cathartic as I celebrate his life.

Larry Norman was born in 1947, in Texas and moved to the black neighborhoods of San Francisco at the age of three where he grew up in a pretty normal family. He had an early interest in music and writing and by age 12 had appeared on the Ted Mack "The Original Amateur Hour" on CBS. An early fan of the blues and rock he was influenced by the neighborhood he lived in as well as a young Elvis Presley. It was a normal thing for him to put his thoughts to the music of his day.

Larry found himself a member of a group called "People" whose name was an obvious dig at the bands of the day named for animals such as the Beatles, the Animals and the Byrds. “People” signed with Capital records in 1966 where they found themselves as label mates with The Beach Boys and The Beatles. Arguments over content amongst the band with several members as Scientologists led Larry to leave the band even as they reached #1 in several markets and #7 on Billboards chart in June of 1968. It was not uncommon for Larry to play concerts in prisons and hospitals with his dad at a very young age and he often played for his friends at school. Larry's early friendship with Paul McCartney led to Larry's playful dig in one of his songs directed at the Beatles with the phrase, “the Beatles sang, all you need is love, and then they broke up". Another song poke was a comment on a debate of the era as to whether Paul was alive or dead.

In 1969 Larry's first album was recorded on Capital Records and called “Upon This Rock”. His second album was recorded on MCA Records and produced by legendary Beatles producer George Martin and what was to become the first of three albums now referred to as the "trilogy" and largely heralded as major works both commercially and critically. The three albums were "Only Visiting This Planet", "So Long Ago the Garden" and "In Another Land". OVTP gave us these amazing songs: "I Wished We'd all Been Ready", "Why should the Devil have all the Good Music", "Why Don't you Look into Jesus" and "Righteous Rocker #1”. Only Visiting This Planet has been hailed by CCM magazine as the 2nd most important Christian album beaten out by Amy Grant's "Lead Me On" in a debate that many still carry on to this day. It was during the People days as well as his early concert touring that he found himself opening for Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors, The Byrds and the Grateful Dead.

Larry had a strenuous relationship with the standard religious church of the day. Books and articles were numerous in taking on Larry for his music. His music was almost impossible to find in the USA as Christian bookstores would not carry his music. He was literally too religious for the secularist and too secular for the religious. His constant bickering with record companies over the Christian content led to his founding of Solid Rock Records, a label that he owned and produced for. Early acts on his label were: Mark Heard, Randy Stonehill, Daniel Amos and Steve Camp who then asked to leave to join Word Records. In later years Larry started Phydeaux Records so named as he felt that with the way Christian music had become a business he felt that they had “gone to the dogs”. Needless to say he had a knack for prodding those who needed to be prodded. A young Randy Stonehill was led to the Lord by Larry as well as a young Keith Green who spent a lot of time with Larry always asking tons of questions. A bible study held in Larry's home was held that became what is now the Vineyard church. The early days of Bible study found many people in the entertainment industry as attendees, some of those including, Bob Dylan, who soon after released his own trilogy of albums that shocked the secular world with there faith content, those albums being "Slow Train Coming", "Saved", and "Shot of Love". Larry was friends with a young Richard Simmons, a young photographer that Larry employed for some of his pictures, yes, the diet and exercise guru. Another fried of Larrys was actor Dudley Moore, who played the piano on one of Larry's albums. One of the co-founders of Jews for Jesus was an early convert. There were dozens of musicians that were a part of these groups and a very large number of men and women who were performing in the porn industry.

Larry traveled extensively all over the world performing in Lebanon , Japan , India , Israel , Hong Kong , all of Europe, and was often in the Eastern block countries long before communism fell. He traveled in Russian and performed at the Olympic stadium there 7 times. Larry has preformed twice at the White House, headlined at The Hollywood Bowl, the Sydney Opera House, The Palladium and London’s Royal Albert Hall, which he sold out 6 times, once filling it twice in the same day. He also has preformed at a festival of 180,000 people. I have been in Europe twice and both times it was easy to find Larry's music in secular stores while I had trouble finding his music here in the states. Larry also traveled to Australia where he met a young Rebecca St. James and the members of the Newsboys. Larry had major influences on bands in the states as well with some of them being DC Talk, Audio Adrenaline, Geoff Moore and the Distance. Many of you reading this probably had your first into to Larry's music as they covered some of his songs. In later years a tribute album covered a number of Larry's songs that were performed by 3rd generation bands including: Big Tent Revival, Grammatrain, Holy Soldier and Code of Ethics. Larry’s travels led to him being close friends with Frances Schaeffer and Malcolm Muggeridge, both major theologians. In later years Larry said he missed Malcolm more than anyone he had ever met.



Larry had a large influence on his culture. Many artists of that day were aware of Larry's music and many considered him an influence and many were friends of his. Some of those people included: Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Peter Paul and Mary, Johnny Cash, as well as Van Morrison, John Mellencamp and even Sammy Davis Jr. Larry's songs have been recorded by over 300 secular and Christian artists. The members of U2 met Larry early in their career and preformed many times on the same stage, one time performing at the famed Greenbelt Festival in the UK in 1982, both acts unannounced. Larry also became close friends with the founding member of the Pixies and often played together. Because of Larry's friendship with actors he even appeared in two movies of that era, "Blob" and "Son of Blob".

Larry went on to record 62 albums of his music. It was common for re-releases to be issued as Larry was always rewriting songs and adding verses. This became a boon for collectors who gobbled up rare versions of songs. It was not uncommon for rare releases to be worth hundreds of dollars to the Norman faithful. One other item needs to be mentioned here. The "One Way" sign became the public symbol of the Jesus movement with the index finger only pointed to heaven. This symbol was started by Larry and caught on quickly with the crowds. Larry has largely been connected to the Jesus movement although he always felt that he was not a part of them as most of the Jesus movement were people that came out of sex, drugs and rock and roll, with Larry only being related to that trio by the rock and roll segment.

In the 80’s Larry was injured in an airplane and suffered a head injury from falling luggage. This injury plagued him for years. Into the 90’s Larry was found to have major heart trouble leading him to incur major debts due to his inability to get insurance. Later concerts were arranged when Larry was hardly able to perform so that money could be raised to help cover his debts.

I saw Larry for the first time in Saginaw Michigan, in April of 1975, when he and Randy Stonehill preformed together. I thought he was rather loud and rough around the edges, but then again I was used to southern gospel quartets. Larry preformed 3 times in the Lexington area once in Louisville at a small church as well as his only appearance at Asbury College . Those there will remember he was in a story telling mood that night and interspersed many stories amidst his classic songs in a concert that lasted 2 ½ hours. Larry ended up spending several days at the college eating in the cafeteria as well as attending hall prayer meetings with the guys. Larry made his first appearance at Ichthus in 1983 along with other giants of that day, Sheila Walsh, Steve Taylor, Phill Keaggy, Undercover, Degarmo and Key, and Rez Band. I had the privilege to invite Larry to perform at Ichthus in 1993 where he announced that he would no longer be able to tour like he had in the past due to his health. Ichthus took up a donation collection to help cover his expenses. The highlight of that weekend for me was to spend 3 days around the man who literally was the reason the festival was there. He spent most of his time in the record tent ministering to the many people that came by to see him. Many students told me later that Larry had prayed for them before he would let them leave. Most people don’t know that the Ichthus 3 days was an important time for Larry and Randy Stonehill. They had spent years apart having had a fall out due to business and personal issues. As Randy was there all 3 days as our MC, they spent time allowing there riff to heal. They actually flew in on the same flight and were transported to Ichthus in the same van. I would have loved to been in that vehicle. LOL. How interesting that Ichthus 1993 was full of second generation bands that he influenced, some of them being the 77’s, The Choir, Lost Dogs and the Newsboys. A picture I have of Larry and me, arm in arm, is a prized possession of mine.

In 2001 Larry was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame along with Elvis Presley. How appropriate.

About 2 months ago I found a very rare 2 hour interview with Larry this is available on-line by interviewer Drew Marshall. Here is the link to that interview.

http://www.drewmarshall.ca/listen2006.html#060930

There are several songs of various quality of Larry also posted on Youtube.

As I bring this to a close I want to end with words from Larry. The first is a quote from the interview I just mentioned. The second passage is from Larry the day before he died when he was leaving his thoughts for his friends and fans.

Here is the first:


“That’s the problem with modern Christianity. There is no great sacrifice involved. They’re not willing to put themselves on the line. They don’t want to go out in the streets and witness, because it will cost them something. They’ll be embarrassed. First of all if their witnessing to a prostitute, somebody might see them. Then also what if the person rejects them, doesn’t wanna hear their message, then that will hurt their feelings. And feeding the poor, well we’re gonna need our money; there is lots of stuff we need. My car is starting to get old; I’d like to get a new car next year. So I can’t feed the poor, I don’t have enough money if I was a zillionaire, then yeah. So I could see that was like an Elm disease, a blight that came upon the garden of God , it was cheap-scate-ness and stinginess, and not being willing to sacrifice. Not being able to step out in faith. I think that’s we all have to do. I don’t care; I’m not even talking about the church. I just want this to be personable to anyone that is listening. You need to sacrifice. You need to do the hard thing. Do the thing that God wants you to do. One of those hard things is to stop doing your favorite sin. I don’t know what it is. Maybe its marijuana, maybe it’s getting up in the middle of the night and having food you don’t need, maybe it’s chocolate cake, ice cream at 2 o’clock . Maybe its masturbation, maybe its internet porn, maybe it’s going to church and pretending to listen but your really thinking about something else, planning your week. Stop being a hypocrite, get your act together. Stop doing your favorite sin. Sacrifice. Sacrifice yourself. The Bible says we must die daily to self and live daily unto God. So let’s do it. Just do it.”


And from Saturday, Feb. 24th, the day before he died:

I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reachingdown to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My woundsare getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.My brother Charles is right; I won’t be here much longer. I can’t doanything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye toeveryone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer andfinance and we will probably still need financial helpMy plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside.But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement,transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papersetc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.I'd like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will bea funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want toattend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell,we will meet again.Goodbye, farewell, we'll meet againSomewhere beyond the sky.I pray that you will stay with GodGoodbye, my friends, goodbye.Larry

How cool for his last words to us to be that of a poet.

Larry is survived by his wife Tiffany, his son Mike Norman, his mother Margaret, and siblings Charles, Nancy and Kristy. He is also touched by those who knew his music as well as those who listen to Christian rock and will never know his name. I was touched by this kind man, who was a poet, a musician, a thinker, and a child of God who fought the good fight and was found true.