‘I woke out this morning with an ache in my head,
Splashed on my clothes as I spilled out of bed,
I opened the window, to listen to the news,
And all I heard was the Establishment’s Blues.’
Sixto Rodriguez
Rodriguez floated into my life while I was living in what would probably be called a Hippie Commune, though I certainly did not view it as such. We were just a bunch of kids trying make sense of the Establishment’s Blues.
We are thrust together like sardines in a can and if the guy next to you just happens to be a rotten egg there’s not much you can do about it. Sure you can rant, you can rage, you can spill your guts but eventually you’re going to have to learn to accept one fact. No-one is perfect!
When an icon dies and in some cases before and icon dies the vultures swarm around to pick the bones and the news hound dogs make a pile of money on choosing a side to sell, but sometimes a writer tries to present an accurate portrait of a name brand.
To me Larry Norman was an enigma and a one-of-a-kind kid with a guitar and some clever words who could mix-it-up in ways that made Christian music totally believable. Perhaps that is why mainstream Christian pop hated his guts? It’s not really something that concerns me, even though Larry Norman was cool (I mean GREAT!) to my musical tastes back in 1977 there were only a few of his records that survived to be played regularly. In fact at some point in 1990 I got rid of most of my Christian music. (though a few survived my vicious purge, I only remember ‘Stop The Dominoes’ by Mark Heard as being in the sort of condition that it was actually playable.)
In the early 90s I began rebuilding my Christian record collection. I found a prerecorded tape of Wind and The Wheat by Phil Keaggy at the craft market near Fish Hoek station and few more at a newly opened Christian music shop on the Main Road. Among these was a reissue of the Solid Rock Catalogue none other than Larry Norman’s seminal work ‘In Another Land’.
As I am an artist-poet-musician (in that order) if the cover ain’t great it has to be a pretty remarkable album to hook me. This album was all of that. Sure it was Christian Pop Rock, but it has the greatest drumming and an ethereal quality that still sends me. (even though it’s probably got a ton of theological holes, philosophical holes – IT’S ROCK! GOOD ROCK!)
Revisiting this album led me to remember how Larry’s albums has turned under the stylus in 77-78-79. Three years of pure bliss and then suddenly like the tide that recedes – it suddenly seemed so unmusical. (all of it!)
I fired up my enthusiasm and made one last turn at the Christian music shop in town and asked the guy behind the counter is there was something more. “Something more?” he replied. (Actually, I can’t remember what he said, or for that matter what I said but it was along the vein of “It’s not that musically great!”, “Do you have any idea if there are any Christian bands who are playing ‘MUSIC FOR MUSICS SAKE’ and not copying the bands that already made good on this?” He nodded his head and then said that the guy behind me, might be able to help me. The guy reached into his guitar case and found a pen. He wrote out the following words ‘Kansas’ and ‘Monolith’ and explained to me that though they were not a Christian band, there lyrics indicated that they were on their way home. Something that would happen with the conversion of Kerry Livgren and Dave Hope the very next year and the release of his solo endeavour ‘Seeds of Change’ and book by the same name. In fact 79-80 would be a year for a spate of conversions. Dan Peek released ‘All Things Are Possible’ and Bob Dylan released ‘Saved’ Sure ‘Slow Train Coming’ was already out there. It seemed as if my wish was coming true and musicians were coming out of the shadows (that would be the darkness) and bringing a newish flavour to what had gone sour for me. It wasn’t until the crossover began that I actually started to revive some, but by then I had completely lost interest in Christian music and gone back to the old records.
Why did Larry Norman survive?
It was those early albums by Larry that really enchanted me. They were pregnant with poetry and imagery that brought him right up next to Bob Dylan and so it was that I would hotly pursue getting copies of ‘Bootleg’ and ‘Street Level’ Okay, I’d say that Larry’s later albums were actually pretty great, but his poetic stuff was brilliant and though perhaps not the most philosophically profound, they reached in and described my life in ways that my Bible seemed unable to do. 
Was Larry’s theology a crock?
Probably. I’ve yet to find a musician whose ideas are perfectly in line with the straight line (which straight line would that be?) There is something about creativity and spontaneity that often runs against the stiffness one often finds in Christianity. I don’t think it’s intentional but I do believe it’s in part like that (the stiffness that is) because a great deal of what is called Christianity is tied to a past of rules and regulations (who needs them, throw them out the door). Music however is the celebration of freedom to just let your hair hang down. (or would that be hang out?) Whatever it is it’s something that we do where we let go and just flow and if we don’t it comes across as baked! Once there are too many structures the well of spontaneity dries up and soon we begin to sound like a loop. BORING!
I need to be really careful how I word this. Jesus wasn’t really as free as we would like to think he might have been. He grew up into a religion filled with rules and gradually broke open his story of how he was actually the ultimate freedom song. As he was caught in the verse of Jewish living he did not really have the freedom to live that out and was eventually dragged off to by these same very stuffy religious folks to be crucified so that through his death, burial, resurrection and ascension he might break all the fetters of religion and send the free bird into our hearts so that we would be the living testimonies to that work of freedom. It’s just the way I see it and I am sure it has a pile of holes. That’s why when I read press stuff about this Christian who blew it, or that Christian whose been nominated for a Dove Award, I know that there is stuff in all of us that is not yet totally free. Christian screw up! Sometimes we get to see it (when the poor suckers are in the limelight) but most of the time it’s hidden.
So when I think about Larry Norman, I don’t need someone to tell me about all the bad stuff he did (I know we all do bad stuff!) What I do think needs addressing is this:
Why do some Christians feel it’s necessary to run around pointing stuff like that out?
I’d say in a simple way that it has a lot to do with what they think being a Christian is all about.
We get fed all sorts of stuff about what this life in Christ is. Some have themselves in part tethered to a legalistic approach and therefore expect exemplary behaviour from those who are Christians whereas some who have figured it out don’t and yet still others (like myself) have been so messed up that we don’t have time to sit around figuring out who is the bad guy and who is the saint. The whole idea of bad guy vs saint is messed up to start with. There are simply NO SAINTS! I don’t mean there are no Christians for there are certainly plenty of those, though many have inherited that name or embraced the religion that sprung out of it. Yet it is more than a brand name and it is irrelevant who is the top dog, big cheese in this world, for none of us can pull of the perfection thing 24/7. When you’ve struggled with sin and lost you know this by experience. When you’ve somehow gained victory in an area of your life (you might credit it to your freedom of choice, free will or decision to be good instead of bad) either you acknowledge that it’s all down to the Lord working in you, or you give yourself a dainty pat on the back. It’s that dainty pat on the back that is at the root of why some feel they have the right to sit in judgment when a brother or sister stumbles.
When I headed up to Los Angeles a year before Larry died (I say died with my tongue embedded firmly in my cheek!) I was hoping I might get to make the journey up to Oregon (a few hundred miles). I was recording in LA with Randy Stonehill and Mike Pachelli and really expected that they would be BIG BUDDIES with old Larry Norman. (What did I know about their personal lives? Was my own that boring? Nope!) When I opened up the subject I was met with a cold front. ‘Okay’ I thought, ‘I’ll not bring that up again’ I was 49 at the time and from the tip of Africa. I’d flown some 10 000 miles to Los Angeles (my first trip out of Africa) and was battling with a heart condition (unbeknown to me, which would result in a heart-attack- thrombosis said the UK) and my old batteries were running on a very low ebb. Actually, I really thought this is what it is like to get old (not having done this gig before ) and so I was suitably rigged to sing the songs and get out of LA as quickly as possible.
Of course we all know that Larry died the next year (and how that hit me!) and a thrombosis a few months earlier nearly took me home before him. It’s only after his death that the obituary seemed to get bigger and bigger and bigger and eventually some guy made a movie (the same guy that had made a movie about Lonnie Frisbee) It was then that I connected the dots back to that cold front that I had experienced and realized that I’d been right in the middle of a brother vs brother story and it ached me that I had not been more forceful about taking that trip up to see Larry Norman. In my idealistic mind there were no wars on the musical front. Well suffice to say, I still wonder how things might have been if I’d managed to convince Randy to come up with me to see Larry. I am sure it would not have changed the movie guys mind, but it might have ( I’ve always been into that whole bit of reconciliation and no situation is to big for the BIG FISHERMAN to settle, but there were issues to deep to end in a day. ) It’s sad but it’s over and now we need to learn to forgive and to forget and to move on. I did and now it is your turn.
Eric John Sawyer
21st April 2011
+)(+
“On August 9th, 2001 Larry performed a remarkable concert in Liverpool, England. The Cavern Club was the venue the Beatles played at before they became famous, and Larry couldn’t help but be inspired by playing at a club that had been legendary among music fans for nearly 40 years. In attendance that night was Dougie Adams, who said “I love the Cavern Club gig because it shows Larry at his bravest and gutsiest operating in the midst of adversity and still making us smile and making us think and almost certainly changing a life or two as he did so. This was one of Larry’s last concerts before he survived an emergency quadruple bypass operation in November 2001. By the time Larry next performed in public it was clear he was never able to sing or perform quite the same way again.”
Most “Live in Concert” CDs have been carefully edited and had mistakes removed, etc. But on Larry Norman – Live at the Cavern Club we’ve taken a different approach. We’ve decided to release the recording intact as an historical document of an exceptional evening. Apart from having to remove a couple of songs so the concert could fit on two CDs, from start to finish we’ve edited nothing out, not even the intro music or the promoter’s stage patter. We recommend you turn on your stereo, turn down the lights, and pretend that you are there in the dank, dark cellar known as the Cavern Club, watching Larry having a good time while putting on a great concert.” (The Official Larry Norman webpage)
