In the first part of a personal history, LARRY NORMAN, Christian music pioneer, charts the rise of Christian music from its roots and, based on his experiences, gives his own perspective on the collision between creativity and commerce.

And I DID think it strange that the Southern-rooted gospel music business industry avoided having anything to do with these young "Jesus people" - did not see their sweetness, innocence and their three-hour Sunday services as a sign of their authenticity; did not even investigate the possibility that the Spirit of God might be moving in a new way, as God has continually done throughout Church history. They saw only the longish hair, the missing tie, the skirt length of the teenage girls. The Southern gospel music industry refused to endorse or distribute this modern gospel music.

So it was apparently up to the rocks to cry out. Evangelistic-minded pastors began to record their homegrown singers in their small church buildings through the four channel mixing boards of the in-house PA systems. After raising the necessary 52¢ per unit for a poly-wrapped, store-ready, vinyl pressing through offerings and donations, they would then send off the full deposit with the tapes to a "pressing plant" where the art director/receptionist/janitor would randomly pick a photo from the stock book of graphics. Shortly thereafter, a shipment of 500 vinyl records would arrive at the church with a Duotone front cover photo and a black and white "liner" (back cover). The front cover often portrayed a bucolic country church, quiet desert vista or stretch of beach with moderate waves and a two-colour sunset. (A four colour photo was much too expensive.)

Young Christian singers now began doing what gospel quartets had been doing for twenty years before: selling albums "out of the trunk" by standing out in the parking lot, selling and autographing their vinyl albums or in more liberal churches, setting up folding tables in the back.

Then the inklings of this new wrinkle began dawning on the big gospel labels. Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa had released its first Maranatha! album to great success. This triggered curiosity and market research from other labels. Billy Graham himself had at first been reticent to recognise the Jesus people as being true believers, but after investigating for himself he joined together with Bill Bright in setting up Explo '72 in the Dallas Cotton Bowl in Texas. The nightly gatherings featured Billy's preaching and one or two new groups like Love Song or Andrae Crouch and The Disciples.

On the final day, the music moved to an outdoor venue; a speedway. The appearance of Johnny Cash with a young Kris Kristofferson brought in Texans who had most likely had no interest in this Jesus movement. I went onstage before Kris, wondering what country music had to do with Christian rock. But having Billy Graham's imprimatur seemed to seal the graduation of the Jesus movement from coffee houses into the mainstream - where it was quickly co-opted into the bosom of the Church and escorted, usually to the barber shop first and then into assimilation. These un-musical singers and groups began to lose everything which made them interesting in the first place: innocence, idealism and heart-felt excitement over the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Soon it seemed that the whole modern gospel music scene would turn to calculation, imitation and saturation.

Romans 12:2 says "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God." God could inspire originality into music written for Him but conformity and imitation was what the church wanted in the same way that Israel wanted kings when it had God.

Modern Christian music was on its way toward the masses and to mediocrity. 'Upon This Rock' had been recorded in 1969 and by 1972 had become the biggest gospel album ever to sell in Britain. Or so I was told, though I never saw any royalties to prove it had even sold one copy. Then in Holland, Germany, Scandinavia, etc. Then South Africa, Australia, New Zealand. The two year contract signed in America strictly prohibited sub-distribution into any other countries, although that was the very first contract violation. 13 years later the album was still being marketed, though I had only given them a contract for two years. If commercial endorsement seems like part of the "good news" of the history of modern Christian music, so is thievery, prevarication and embezzlement by the highwaymen who perched on their corporate thrones and rode savagely across every country they could traverse. My album would possibly not have travelled so far had they not broken the law.

I felt mistreated at this time, and it had nothing to do with money, and everything to do with integrity. But I believed this was a harbinger of the unfolding future, a template, a parable. A prophetic, modular sample of perfidy. Muzzling the oxen and miscalculating royalties would become a trademark in the arena where secular publishers and producers alone had once operated. My publisher at Beechwood Music (Elizabeth Montei) called gospel record companies "God's Little Thieves" and had to have them audited every year, year after year, to collect the remaining 60% (average) of the undeclared sales on songs she published like "Put Your Hand in the Hand" (of the Man from Galilee).

During the next several decades, I believe the heavy hand of commerce and greed slowly choked many a bewildered young Christian singer. Too many would finally give up in defeat and dismay. Greed and deception were reliably common - and poisonous. We are taught that the world is treacherous and dishonest, but the shock of betrayal is stunning when a young Christian finds it within his own religion.

Sometimes during the middle of a concert, a promoter would disappear without paying the band. Sometimes they did pay, but the cheque bounced or they stopped payment on their cheques. A promoter down in Australia decided to withhold $20,000.00 in total from two of my tours. But thieves seldom prosper in the long run. He declared bankruptcy a few years later after he couldn't pay $750,000 in bills he owed to hotels, pressing plants, etc. He then moved to America where there is more elbow room for the dishonest to operate.

"Desperate men make desperate decisions," I would tell myself. In the early '70s I had anticipated stability and honesty from Christian record labels, Christian concert promoters and the "non-profit corporations" under which the churches were registered. This naive expectation delivered a very disheartening blow.

I've tried to avoid naming any specific gospel companies or enterprises. And I do not want to bring any shadow upon the reputation of Christianity itself, nor mar the goodness and kindness of those few men in the gospel music scene who have always been honest and forthright. I'm sure that most "small promoters" are patently honest. But it's the ones who become "professional" who start bending the law more and more and numbing their consciences.

I understand that there are some who will feel that ANY critical comment toward the gospel music business is a direct attack upon the Church itself. Yet I am quite certain any gardener or physician will tell you that both landscaping and surgery require the identification of a problem and then its removal. So if what is written here is true, then how can it be an offence to our God - who is the Architect of Moral Structure and the Repository of Truth? For if God is ever-mindful of verity and probity, then shouldn't SOMEONE be talking about all of this?

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." (Proverbs 27:6)