Larry Norman

Larry almost always surprised me.

I saw him in concert several times in the '70s at pretty big shows in Chicago and Minneapolis. I expected rock n' roll but instead got soul searching contemplative speeches. One show, he was real quiet and serious with these spiritual callings of "let's just be more like Jesus" stuff mixed with rock n' roll anecdotes.

One story he told was how scientists did studies on rock n' roll and found that if you put house plants in front of speakers and play loud rock music, the plants would grow away from the speakers - (implying some kind of bio-adversity.) And in his dry monotone voice he'd remind everybody afterwards to not place their plants by their speakers when they played loud rock n' roll.

The next concert I saw of his - after I told everybody how he has these nice sit down reflective monologues, quietly sitting at his piano prodding holiness through Christ in his listeners - he comes FLYING out on stage, spinning and his hair twirling round and round with this rock the house down intro music and this dressed in black “Johnny Cash” look.

Larry surprised me often.

Larry's nemesis at the time was one "Bob Larson" who emphatically declared that simply the syncopated beat of rock music was from the devil and drove teenagers to sex. Larry made fun of these comments with superb stand-up comedic dry humor. Kids like us loved it. We laughed at Bob Larson's books and claims of personal knowledge of rock (since he self-declared himself as having actually been in a "Combo" in his pre-Christian days). Bob Larson eventually went on to casting out demons on radio and chasing down the devil elsewhere. Larry kind of faded away after the 80's.

As a church youth group leader in the 80's once, I took the kids to see Larry Norman perform in Pasadena, Texas at the Civic Center. Me and my wife rocked out at the show and the kids enjoyed the freedom of enjoying a rock show and loving Jesus at the same time with one big eye on the representative spiritual leaders (us) bobbing their heads to the music. Some of the kids there that day included Josh Magnuson, Pat Ruland, and David Robinson – all of whom are friends still as adults.

It was at that show that Larry made a call to salvation and like most evangelical events prayer leaders were waiting in the wings to walk you into your salvation experience. David came forth and got routed over to the side by some super Christian who ended up lecturing poor David for what seemed like forever to me with all this Christian babble that I feared was missing the point. Of course it was only proper for me to sit aside and trust the Holy Spirit to work through this person to lead David into his "born again" experience.

…which of course is NOT what I did.

I snapped up David out of the hands of this well-meaning Christian for fear that David would lose the moment and took him by the hand over to where Larry was standing around talking to some fans. I burst in with David and said, "Larry, this is David and he wants to get saved. Can you pray with him?"

Larry paused his conversation for a second and said, "Sure."

He prayed a sweet, honest, simple prayer with David and in a few moments said, "Amen."

I KNEW it could be simple and Larry did NOT let me down.

Larry was a sweet and spiritual guy with a wry sense of humor and a willingness to rebel. He was just what the doctor ordered for many a young man seeking salvation in that age.

I remember being so bummed out when I first became a Christian and figured I had to give up all my music. I'd played in garage bands all my childhood life and now I actually went and busted my precious albums including my favorites such as "Grand Funk" and "Black Sabbath".

Christian life was very boring. Then I heard this concept placed into a song, "Why should the devil have all the good music" and my spirit rose again to new and glorious heights. This was Larry Norman's trademark song sand with all the sassiness that the concept deserved. We early “Jesus Freaks” loved Larry. I later credited him as one of the men in my life that contributed dramatically in my autobiography after asking him permission to quote his song.

I remember in the mid 90's being surprised that he was around. Again, he surprised me by being an early advocate of the web media... having conversations and posting comments and things for people. This was before corporate America and average person really knew about the web. He was always a bit cutting edge.

He ended up having a long drawn out death with money problems and no insurance (I think). I remember seeing his website in the 2000's with updates on his health and opportunities if people wanted to donate money to help him to have his next surgery. It was truly pathetic to see him so down.

Josh would comment to me how he was surprised that whenever he mentioned Larry Norman's name to people who should know about Christian music, nobody ever heard of him. I'd shrug my shoulders.

I'm glad he at least in his death gets some legitimate recognition for being who he was - "the father of Christian rock."

I'm going to miss you Larry. Thanks for the blessings and for sharing your thoughts and feelings and music.

I think that's just about exactly what Jesus would've done.

Some of my favorite songs on MP3 of Larry that I recorded from vinyl (you can hear the crackling) sometime back in the 90's - ... titles may not be exact, albums are up in the barn.... do the usual right-click/save as...

• 97th Nightmare - 8.7 MB
  
• Born to Be Unlucky - 6.6 MB
  
• Hard Luck - 5.0 MB
  
• Lonely By Myself - 2.6 MB