Larry Norman

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Larry Norman

Musician

Male

Born Apr 8, 1947

Died Feb 24, 2008

Genres Jesus music + Fol...

Record Label Solid Rock Records

Larry David Norman was an American Christian musician, singer, songwriter, record label owner, and record producer, who worked with Christian rock music. Since Norman's first professional release in 1967, more than 100 of his own albums have been released… Read More

News + Updates

Browse recent news and stories about Larry Norman.

Former 'Jesus Freak' Traces The Evolution Of Christian Rock
Huffington Post - Apr 18, 2013

By Don Lattin Religion News Service (RNS) Bob Gersztyn owned a fine collection of 300 rock'n' roll albums in 1971, the year he accepted Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. Among them were some choice 1960s vinyl from Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Mothers of Invention. But all of a sudden, this was the devil's music. "I destroyed some of them with a hammer and took the rest to a used record store," he recalled with a laugh. "I think I kept 10 class...
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Open Houses Near Woodstock
Woodstock Patch - Apr 27, 2012

This week House Hunt offers Open Houses ranging in price from $176,900 for a two-bedroom home on Abbey Circle in Woodstock to a four-bedroom home on Edwards Brook Lane in Holly Springs for $875,000. Click on a picture in the photo gallery to see a listing description. Click on an address listed below and get directly linked to AOL Real Estate for the complete listing information. You'll find helpful tools such as mortgage calculators, credit prequalifying, home buying tips and contact inf...
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Open Houses Near Holly Springs - Holly Springs- Hickory lat Patch
U. Of C.'S Big Muse On Campus; Expectations Rise Along With Logan Center For The Arts, Designed By Architects Williams And Tsien
Chicago Times - Mar 25, 2012

From today's print edition By Howard Reich Tribune critic Ten years in the making and $114 million to build, the new Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago will loom large in Hyde Park — and probably well beyond. Nothing quite like it, in fact, ever has arisen in the Chicago area, and no one knows for sure exactly how the place will operate. The learning curve will begin Monday, when students begin pouring into a most unusual complex that dares to comb...
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Evangelical Royalty's Game Of Thrones Get Religion
Google News - Aug 21, 2011

They are known for their apologetics and influence on a wide swath of people including everyone from Jesus People organizer Jack Sparks to musicians Larry Norman and Mark Heard. To say those parents were very well regarded among evangelicals,
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Timeline

Learn about the memorable moments in the evolution of Larry Norman.

CHILDHOOD

1947 Birth Born on April 8, 1947.

1950 3 Years Old In 1950 Norman and his parents moved to San Francisco where the family attended a Black American Pentecostal church, later they attended the First Baptist Church at 22 Waller Street where Norman became a Christian in 1952 at the age of five. … Read More

1956 9 Years Old From 1956 Norman was fascinated with the music of Elvis Presley. … Read More

TEENAGE

1959 12 Years Old In 1959, he performed on Ted Mack's syndicated CBS television show The Original Amateur Hour.

1960 13 Years Old In 1960 his father accepted a teaching job in San José, California. … Read More

1965 18 Years Old By the fall of 1965 Norman left the family home and rented an apartment in Downtown San Jose. … Read More

1966 19 Years Old In 1966 Norman opened a concert for People! at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California. … Read More

TWENTIES

1967 20 Years Old 1 More Event

In 1967 Capitol released People!'s first single "Organ Grinder/Riding High", with both songs co-written by Norman and Mason, and produced by their manager, Mikel Hunter "Captain Mikey" Herrington. … Read More

1968 21 Years Old 7 More Events

By the time the I Love You album was released and the band undertook its first major tour of the USA in the summer of 1968, Norman had left People! … Read More

1969 22 Years Old 5 More Events

In 1969 Norman was involved writing the rock opera Lion's Breath.

Believing that "Kids just don't want to listen to God's empty songs anymore", in December 1969 Capitol released Norman's first solo rock album, Upon This Rock, "the first major label record to marry rock music with the gospel", "the Sergeant Pepper of Christianity", widely regarded as "the album that first recruited rock in the service of salvation", later cited as being "one of the roots of the current Contemporary Christian Music"; and now considered to be the first full-blown Christian rock album". … Read More

1970 23 Years Old 9 More Events

At the "Rock of Ages Folk Festival" held on February 26, 1970 in Northridge, California, Norman appeared as part of the Larry Norman Experience.

… Others who acknowledge Norman's influence on their career or music include American drummer Hilly Michaels, who recorded with Norman and Randy Stonehill in 1970; Grammy Award-winning recording artist and rapper TobyMac, who described Norman as "socially relevant, spiritually significant and passionate about challenging his generation to new heights of love", considered Norman his "greatest lyrical influence"; Mark Salomon, the lead singer of Christian metal band Stavesacre and thrash metal band The Crucified, who reveals that it was Norman's concert performance that connected him to Christian music; and Welsh singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph. … Read More

1971 24 Years Old 7 More Events

… In 1971 Upon This Rock was submitted unsuccessfully for Grammy Award nomination. … Read More

1972 25 Years Old 3 More Events

In March 1972 Norman performed 38 concerts in 35 days, including a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in the Spring of 1972, for which he claims he was only given about $700 by the tour promoter. … Read More

1973 26 Years Old 3 More Events

On January 6, 1973 Norman was one of three named as Best New Male Artist of the year by Cashbox. and performed in two sold-out concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. … Read More

1974 - 1975 4 More Events

1974 27 Years Old 2 More Events

In 1974 Norman founded Solid Rock Records to produce records for Christian artists who, like himself, had "no commercial value." … Read More

1976 29 Years Old 3 More Events

In 1976 ABC Records bought Word Records, and they switched Norman to its Word subsidiary. infusing it with $17 million in capital. … Read More

THIRTIES

1977 30 Years Old 3 More Events

In 1977 Norman signed an agreement to release some Solid Rock Records through AB Records of Hollywood, an affiliate of Bob Cotterell's Sonrise Records, which released Streams of White Light Into Darkened Corners in 1977, and Mark Heard's On Turning to Dust in 1978.

1978 31 Years Old 4 More Events

In 1978 Norman started Street Level Records as an alternative label to release albums which Word had no interest in distributing. … Read More

1979 32 Years Old 3 More Events

In 1979 Norman began his Roll Away the Stone tour.

1980 33 Years Old 5 More Events

In mid-May 1980 Norman released Daniel Amos from their management contract with Street Level Productions, resulting in an estrangement in their relationship.

… The concerns of Stonehill, Taylor and Howard and other Solid Rock musicians led to an intervention on June 17, 1980 with Norman organized by Philip F. Mangano, the Solid Rock business manager. … Read More

Norman and Mangano severed their business association, with Norman selling his interest in Street Level Artists Agency to Mangano, who subsequently resigned in October 1980 to start a new career in working to help the homeless, and becoming the Executive Director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness for seven years from March 2002, … Read More

1981 34 Years Old 5 More Events

Norman signed a distribution deal with Chapel Lane, a British label founded by Norman Miller. By the time of his fourth appearance at the Royal Albert Hall on February 6, 1981, Larry was renting a small room for £7 a week next to both the Bunch of Carrots pub and the Chapel Lane Recording studio in Hampton Bishop after the break up of his first marriage. … Read More

FORTIES

1987 - 1988 2 More Events

1989 42 Years Old 8 More Events

In 1989 Norman explained why Home at Last, the third album in his Second Trilogy, was released before the other two albums: "When it was suggested that my "comeback", after ten years absence, might be a difficult passage back into the public arena, it was decided that Stranded in Babylon might be too radical a message for the first release. … Read More

1991 44 Years Old 4 More Events

At the close of his February 1991 British tour, in the Surrey home of Ze and Dave Markee, who had been the bass player in Eric Clapton's band, Norman received prayer for his long-term health problems from Pastor John Barr (died January 2001), the Senior Pastor of the Elim Way Fellowship in Canning Town, London, and the Director of Freedom Road Ministries. … Read More

The creative rush that followed Norman's healing was expressed on Stranded in Babylon which saw him collaborate with his younger brother Charles "Charly" Norman. After four months in the recording studio in Sweden, and overdubbing in Norway by the Albino Brothers (Norman and his brother, Charly), in 1991 Norman released through Spark Music the European version of Stranded in Babylon, an album which was recorded in Sweden in 1988. … Read More

Hailed by both critics and fans as one of his best albums, it was praised as "a superb new album which sees a return to the form he showed to full effect on those classics like 'Only Visiting This Planet' and 'So Long Ago the Garden' back in the mid seventies" with 13 new "songs that are cleverly arranged and produced, with plenty of pertinent lyrical imagery and the sly wit of yore amongst the electric guitar solos and breezy (sampled?) saxophones" by Norman and his brother, Charly, who share all of the musical duties. Stranded in Babylon was named Album of the Year by Christian rock journals. Stranded in Babylon was conceived as the second album in a projected Second Trilogy that was planned to include (in order) a still unreleased Behind the Curtain, and the previously released Home at Last. Included on this album is "God Part III", which draws on John Lennon's "God" and the U2 riposte ("God II"); "Come Away", written about his 1973 meeting on the streets of Shepherd's Bush with prostitute Holly Valentine, who later became a Christian; and the autobiographical "Under The Eye", "which tells how Larry has, despite the last decade, always been watched and cared for". "Under the Eye" references "all the trouble and strife/And the things which went wrong and lasted so long", and "The mystery of love, the push and the shove/ Of friendship betrayed, of plans I mislaid,/ The oceans I crossed, the things that I lost/ And the world in my hand as dreams turned to sand", including his 1978 plane accident and his subsequent brain damage: " I crashed in a plane, I really damaged my brain/ And then I layed in my bed with all this music in my head./ The years have rolled by, I've watched the past die/ But feelings remained like mercy much strained./ Like a seed left unsown, like a leaf that was blown/Like a man who was blind, there was a lock on my mind", but also his 1991 healing: "Then a man came to me and he held out the key/ And the lock hinge was blown, I had never been alone". Read Less

1992 - 1993 6 More Events

1992 45 Years Old 2 More Events

Norman's February 1992 heart attack delayed the release of the US version of this album until 1994.

1993 46 Years Old 2 More Events

After these coronary events, Norman struggled to perform live. At the April 1993 Ichthus Music Festival in Wilmore, Kentucky, Norman announced that he would be soon be unable to perform future concerts due to his declining health.

1994 47 Years Old 4 More Events

In February 1994 Norman was hospitalized in Los Angeles.

FIFTIES

1998 - 1999 2 More Events

2001 54 Years Old 4 More Events

… On November 27, 2001 Norman was inducted into the Gospel Music Association's Hall of Fame in a ceremony at the Ryman Auditorium, and was voted into the CCM Hall of Fame in January 2004 by the readers of CCM magazine. … Read More

2002 55 Years Old 1 More Event

Norman's illness resulted in an accelerated number of releases (or re-releases) of his recordings to raise funds for his medical bills. In order to meet Norman's hospital bills, in November 2002 Solid Rock Records began releasing the Essential Series on CD-R, a set of seven Norman albums, with 142 songs (including 16 previously unreleased songs), which comprised: Instigator, which included rough mix versions of two previously unreleased songs, "Butterfly" and "Kulderachna", both removed from 1973's So Long Ago the Garden; Agitator, which included three unreleased bonus tracks, "Sweet Silver Angels", "God, Part 2", and "People In My Past"; Liberator, which included songs that were aimed at "liberating Christians who felt trapped inside the church and also providing a cultural doorway to allow those who felt dismissed and isolated by Christianity to find their way into fellowship with Christ regardless of the church's response toward them"; Collaborator, which featured songs representing "the combined efforts of Charles and Larry Norman from lyrics and melodies to arrangements and production", including three unreleased songs: "Perfect World", "Don't Wanna Be Like You", and "Jesus Is God", recorded about 2000; Emancipator, included two unreleased songs of Norman singing with Randy Stonehill: a Christian version of the folk song "He Was a Friend of Mine", which had been popularized by The Byrds and Bob Dylan, which was re-titled "He is a Friend of Mine", and "I Love You", the song Stonehill and Norman co-wrote in 1971 for Stonehill's Born Twice album; Infiltrator, which sees love as "the most powerful infiltrator in the world", is a collection of Norman's love songs, and includes two new releases: a cover of David Noble's "Waves of Grace", and "Stranger, Won't You Change"; and Survivor, included the full 8-minute version of "Dark Passage", an unreleased third verse of "Baby Out of Wedlock", and "One Star Remains", which is Judee Sill's "My Man On Love" from her 1971 eponymous debut album.

2003 56 Years Old Billed as "Larry Norman's Last Concert", on October 18, 2003 the Church of the Nazarene in Beaverton, Oregon organized a concert to celebrate Norman's 45 years in music, and to raise funds for Norman's medical bills. … Read More

2004 57 Years Old 1 More Event

In January 2004 Norman had a new defibrillator and pacemaker installed.

LATE ADULTHOOD

2007 60 Years Old Norman performed his last official solo concert on August 4, 2007 in New York City, which was recorded and released as the FINALé DVD. … Read More

2008 61 Years Old 9 More Events

In 2008 the tour promoter Australian Kevin Cooper recalled that Norman "collapsed on the stage mid-song, and most of the audience thought that he was playing around. … Read More

… In 2008 Philip Cooney attempted to explain the causes of Norman's problems with some Christians: … Read More

Original Authors of this text are noted on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Norman.
Text is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.