Research Catalog
Why should the Devil have all the good music? : Larry Norman and the perils of Christian rock
- Title
- Why should the Devil have all the good music? : Larry Norman and the perils of Christian rock / Gregory Alan Thornbury.
- Author
- Thornbury, Gregory Alan
- Publication
- New York : Convergent, [2018]
- ©2018
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JNE 18-89 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Music |
Details
- Description
- 292 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations; 25 cm
- Summary
- The riveting, untold story of the "Father of Christian Rock" and the conflicts that launched a billion-dollar industry at the dawn of America's culture wars. In 1969, in Capitol Records' Hollywood studio, a blonde-haired troubadour named Larry Norman laid track for an album that would launch a new genre of music and one of the strangest, most interesting careers in modern rock. Having spent the bulk of the 1960s playing on bills with acts like the Who, Janis Joplin, and the Doors, Norman decided that he wanted to sing about the most countercultural subject of all: Jesus. Billboard called Norman "the most important songwriter since Paul Simon," and his music would go on to inspire members of bands as diverse as U2, The Pixies, Guns 'N Roses, and more. To a young generation of Christians who wanted a way to be different in the American cultural scene, Larry was a godsend-spinning songs about one's eternal soul as deftly as he did ones critiquing consumerism, middle-class values, and the Vietnam War. To the religious establishment, however, he was a thorn in the side; and to secular music fans, he was an enigma, constantly offering up Jesus to problems they didn't think were problems. Paul McCartney himself once told Larry, "You could be famous if you'd just drop the God stuff," a statement that would foreshadow Norman's ultimate demise. In Why Should the Devil Have all the Good Music', Gregory Alan Thornbury draws on unparalleled access to Norman's personal papers and archives to narrate the conflicts that defined the singer's life, as he crisscrossed the developing fault lines between Evangelicals and mainstream American culture-friction that continues to this day. What emerges is a twisting, engrossing story about ambition, art, friendship, betrayal, and the turns one's life can take when you believe God is on your side.
- Subjects
- Genre/Form
- Biographies.
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [255]-279) and index.
- Contents
- Jesus and Larry Norman -- Jesus versus Superman -- Jesus versus L. Ron Hubbard -- Jesus versus organized religion -- Jesus versus the Jesus movement -- Jesus versus Playboy -- Jesus versus the critics -- Jesus loves the little children of the world -- Jesus versus Pamela -- Jesus versus frenemies -- Jesus versus the Soviets -- Jesus versus Larry Norman?.
- Call Number
- JNE 18-89
- ISBN
- 9781101907078
- 110190707X
- OCLC
- 967770188
- Author
- Thornbury, Gregory Alan, author.
- Title
- Why should the Devil have all the good music? : Larry Norman and the perils of Christian rock / Gregory Alan Thornbury.
- Publisher
- New York : Convergent, [2018]
- Copyright Date
- ©2018
- Edition
- First edition.
- Type of Content
- textstill image
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [255]-279) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JNE 18-89