‘Jesus Rock’ of the 1970s: Music and Film
Commercialized salvation on the stage, screen, and radio reinvents progressive rock of the 1960s
On September 17, 1981, Jim Morrison appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone (#352) with the proclamation: “He’s Hot, He’s Sexy and He’s Dead.”
In the early 1970s, the same could be said about Jesus Christ, for between the years of 1969 to 1973, the Son of God graced the airwaves, theater stages, and movie screens with a series of mainstream box office musicals and Billboard chart hits.
Courtesy of Charles Manson — his “Anti-Christ” existence cinematically preserved in a mini-cottage industry of drive-in and grindhouse theater-distributed “hippie flicks” that borrowed his myth (with films such as The Love-Thrill Murders, The Night God Screamed, and Simon, King of the Witches) — mainstream America was instilled with the fear that all of Haight-Ashbury’s flowery-denizens were blood-thirsty killers. While the counterculture’s idealistic dreams were set alight August 8, 1969, at Cielo Drive at the hands of Charlie’s self-proclaimed “family,” the Rolling Stones sifted through the ashes on December 6, 1969, in Tracy, California, for the final show of their U.S tour at the Altamont Speedway Free Festival; also featuring Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills & Nash, four concert attendees were left dead — at a peace and love fest billed as “Woodstock West.”
The sixties were over.
As those Vietnam-protesting, anti-establishment hippies of ’60s entered the ’70s — whether they accepted it or not — they were long since assimilated by Madison Avenue. Sure, in the wake of Manson, those hippies (finally) wised up and grew up, left San Francisco and lost the flowers in their hair — but there was still money to be made, for the “Summer of Love” was no longer a hippie ideal: it was a marketing campaign. So, the executive “squares” manipulated the life of Jesus Christ to breathe new life into the tie-dyed passé “Flower Power” crusade by transforming music about religion into something hip and still hippie, yet palpable for the commercialized, all-encompassing pop, rock, and R&B Top 40 Radio format. A mere four years after John Lennon’s infamous (and misunderstood) “. . . we’re more popular than Jesus now . . .” comment regarding the Beatles appearing in the March 4, 1966, pages of the London Evening Standard — “Jesus Rock” was born.
That short-lived, “folk pop” meets “sunshine pop” inspired-genre — for a contemporary context: refer to the 36-month run of the Nirvana-driven Grunge era or the Knack spearheading the early 1980s new wave genre — hit its peak when the Doobie Brothers scored a Top 40 hit (1972; #35) with “Jesus Is Just Alright,” a rocked-up version of the Art Reynolds Singers’ 1966 gospel standard: a remake itself inspired by the Byrds’ 1969-released “country-rock” arrangement that birthed the genre.
While some critics opine the Byrds inspired the genre earlier, by way of their 1965, chart-topping rock version of folk musician Pete Seeger’s 1962 acoustic number, “Turn, Turn, Turn” — courtesy of lyrics borrowing from the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes — the genre actually began in 1969, by way of the outreach ministries founded by street preachers Chuck Smith and Lonnie Frisbee: both active in Southern California converting hippies — as well as their revered Laurel Canyon-residing rock stars — to Christianity.
As a result, in lieu of abandoning “rock music” altogether, those now-converted, progressive rock musicians instead incorporated elements of gospel music — discovering inspiration in the ’40s and ’50s catalogs of African-American gospel artists the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Sensational Nightingales, the Soul Stirrers, and the Swan Silvertones — with their already innovative, compositional fusions of rock, soul, jazz, and R&B. And while its long-in-development movie adaptation didn’t arrive on theater screens until 1978, one of those R&B acts, the 5th Dimension, also reached the top of the charts in 1969 with their rock-soul suite of “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In” from the 1968 hippie-inspirational Broadway hit, Hair.
Soon, rock songs instilled with Christian messages entered and topped the Billboard charts: Stephen Stills and Chris Hillman’s (formerly of the Byrds, natch) “supergroup” Manassas with “Jesus Gave Love Away For Free” (1972; their debut album reached #4), the folk-rocking “Now Be Thankful” by Fairport Convention (1970), “Jesus is a Soul Man” by Lawrence Reynolds (1969; #28) (covered as a more upbeat chart entry by Johnny Rivers in 1970), Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the the Sky” (1970; #3), Charlie Allen and Pacific Gas & Electric with “Are You Ready” (1971; #14), Sweathog with “Hallelujah” (1971; #33), “Put Your Hand in the Hand” (1971; #2) by the multi-racial Canadian band Ocean, “Joy to the World” (1971; #1) by Three Dog Night, and “If You Wanna Get to Heaven” by Ozark Mountain Daredevils (1974; #25). While there’s no mention of Jesus in the lyrics, the multicultural-driven, positive message of peace, love and hope in the “sunshine pop” of the Hillside Singers’ “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony),” is considered by some as a “Jesus Rock” entry (1972; #13).
Then there’s George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (1970; #1) concerned with his devotion to the Hindu god Krisha, but the “message” is there, as it was in Sister Janet Mead’s pop-rock version of “The Lord’s Prayer” (1974; #4). One can place Simon & Garfunkel’s soft-rock spiritual, “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” (1970; #1) — its writing inspired by the 1959 lyrics of “Mary Don’t You Weep” by the previously mentioned gospel outfit, the Swan Silvertones — on their own “Jesus Rock” lists, as well as Paul Simon’s second baptismal dip courtesy of the Dixie Hummingbirds backing his solo hit, “Loves Me Like a Rock” (1973 #2).
While many remember Simon’s contributions, most forget the genre’s contributions courtesy of Top 40-meister Tommy James. His band, the Shondells, followed their early, playful hits of “Hanky Panky,” “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and “Mony, Mony” by referencing the biblical books of Revelation and Ezekiel in their contemporary take on the “psychedelic rock” of the time with “Crystal Blue Persuasion” (1968 #2). As James launched a solo career, he created a stronger profession of his faith with his second album, Christian of the World (1971); that “Jesus Rock” entry scored two, U.S Top 40 hits with “I’m Coming Home” and “Draggin’ the Line”; the latter not about misunderstood cocaine use (“doing lines”), but about the futility of man’s efforts under God.
The “Jesus Rock” genre became successful enough that Myrrh Records, a leading, independent Christian music label, had their catalog internationally distributed by A&M Records, which brought Petra, a Southern/Country Rock concern, to a national stage. Ohio’s Glass Harp fronted by Phil Keaggy, then friends with the Eagles’ Joe Walsh (then of the James Gang, also from Ohio), saw their three albums of Christianized “progressive rock” distributed by Decca Records, while later “Christian Rock” pioneer Larry Norman released his earliest albums on Capitol and MGM Records, and the Resurrection Band broke new ground with their Zeppelin/Sabbathesque “White Metal” songs expounding the faith, hope and love of Jesus.
While the major record labels took on the Billboard charts: Broadway followed Hair with the like-minded musical productions of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. The respective cast albums and later film soundtracks of those “Rock Operas” topped the charts courtesy of Top 40 singles by Murray Head (“(Jesus Christ) Superstar,” 1971; #14), Yvonne Elliman and Helen Ready (“I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” 1971; #28 and #13, respectively), and heavy metal vocalist Ian Gillan of Deep Purple (“Gethsemane (I Only Want To Say)”), while Robin Lamont and the cast of Godspell reached #13 with “Day by Day” in the Spring of 1972.
As Columbia Pictures and Universal Studios released their competing films adaptions of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar at the height of the “Jesus Rock” craze in 1973 (in March and August, respectively), country artist Johnny Cash professed his faith with The Gospel Road (March 1973) released by 20th Century Fox. A country-gospel musical on the life of Jesus narrated by Johnny Cash, the self-financed production shot on location in Israel and came with an accompanying double album of all-original music penned by Cash, June Carter (who starred as Mary Magdalene), and Kris Kristofferson.
Meanwhile, the odd-studio out, Paramount Pictures, wasn’t missing the boat to Galilee: with no other Broadway “Rock Operas” to adapt (and Hair in “development hell”), the studio created one from whole cloth by optioning Richard Bach’s 1970 best-selling novella, Jonathan Livingston Seagull (October 1973). Since the book — as did the two successful stage-to-films that inspired its production — didn’t come with a soundtrack, Paramount contracted Neil Diamond (signed to Columbia Records) to write a companion piece to the book/film regarding a spiritually troubled, existential (talking) seagull.
In the wake of John Lennon’s poignant March 4, 1966, misconstrued quote regarding the Son of God’s declining popularity against the ridiculousness of “Beatlemania,” Time Magazine published their controversial, April 8, 1966, issue (Vol. 87. No.14) presenting the theological question — with a simplistic red typeface on a black background — “Is God Dead?” Five years later, for the publication’s June 21, 1971, issue — with psychedelic-appropriate artwork, natch — Jesus Christ made the cover pronouncing “The Jesus Revolution” arrived.
The largest event of that “revolution” was Explo ’72: A five-day evangelistic conference hosted by Pastor Billy Graham that concluded with an eight-hour-long, Christian music festival held on June 17, 1972. Dubbed “The Christian Woodstock,” an estimated 100,000 attendees watched headliners Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson, along with performances by the popular Christian rock artists the Archers, Armageddon Experience, Children of the Day, Larry Norman, and Love Song. The event was preserved in the grooves of the now rare compilation album, Jesus Sound Explosion (1972).
Eventually, as with the earlier British Invasion, and later Grunge and New Wave eras birth, commercial peak, and flame out: the major studios and records labels lost their faith in Jesus as a profitable marketing gimmick — that, in the end, didn’t turn as much of a profit as hoped. By 1975 “Christian Music” became an industry in of itself, although the leading labels of the genre, such Word Records, Priority Records, and Songbird, still had a secular label in the background, pulling the purse strings (ABC, CBS, and MCA Records, respectively) for a few more years.
Sure, today’s internet-enlighten masses will dismiss the books (Hal Lindsay’s 1970 best-seller, The Late Great Planet Earth, became a highly-rated, prime time television adaptation in 1974; one may toss Erich von Däniken’s 1968 best-seller, Chariots of the Gods? — itself adapted as an Oscar-nominated documentary feature in 1970 — on the stack¹), stage productions, films, soundtracks, and radio-friendly singles praising Jesus as religious poppycock and metaphysical drivel . . . but there’s no denying “Jesus Rock” was of an idealistic, counterculture time and place only the late 1960s and early 1970s could breed: a time when seagulls could talk and Jesus was hot, sexy, and dead.
END
For your listening pleasure: A You Tube-generated playlist featuring the songs and bands discussed in the article — and so many more —curated by R.D Francis.
[1]: “‘Death Is Not the End’: The Lost, Castaway Film by Elroy Schwartz of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ fame: The mystery of the 1975 hypnotherapy-reincarnation documentary by the creator of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ and writer on ‘The Brady Bunch’” (in the context of paranormal documentary films released in the 1970s)
