This review is dedicated to the memory of Rob Marshall, our booking agent and band manager without whom Christian concerts in Colorado, Red Rocks, and the Rocky mountain region would not have existed...
There's probably spoilers here...Sorry. Just a heads up...
The Jesus Music Movie spoke to me on a personal level because I was a band member of one of the featured interviewees (Steve Taylor) and toured with several others as a backup musician in the 80's and 90's.
The Film starts with what was called the Counter culture Hippie movement in the late 60's early 70's as millions of young Americans followed the biggest Rock and Blues Musicians of that era like Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, only to watch said Rock Icons destroy themselves with drugs which was a part of that culture.
I can remember how much of an influence these rock stars had on the Hippie generation and those of us who were a little younger.
I was a Jazz purist or what I now call a "Jazz snob" in those days so the death of Jimmy Hendrix or Janis Joplin from drug overdoses didn't have the same effect on me as it did on many other musicians I was around.
But I was aware of what it did to my generation...
Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison were revered almost like gods to the 60's and early 70's hippie generation and I purposefully use little g because they were obviously not gods and their deaths proved it...
So suddenly some of the Icons of those young people were dead, gone, and I can recall that the feeling of people my age and the older Hippies in their 20's was despair and despondency, that their Rock Idols were now humanized by their drug overdose deaths.
The Jesus Music film accurately describes what happened next and that was a new movement of young people turning to God and Jesus by the tens of thousands.
The new movement started at a Church in Southern California called Calvary Chapel who's Pastor Chuck Smith allowed a group of former hippies and new Christian converts audition for him and he was surprised and emotionally caught up by the music of a band called "Love Song"
They began playing at this Church (Which I played at 15 years later for about a year) and their music began drawing a lot of former drugged out barefoot hippies and "Flower Children" to now faith in Jesus Christ.
This Jesus Movement and it's music by former Hippies was nothing like the traditional hymnal book and High Church music and there were many in the church who were not happy...
The Film then describes how this Jesus Music exploded across the nation and began drawing converts in different cities like Chicago where a band called "Resurrection Band" played extremely loud blues and Rock supporting their true mission of an orphanage for Chicago street kids with nowhere else to go.
The first tour I went on in a fledgling New Wave Christian band with Steve Taylor was opening for Rez Band traveling around the midwest in the dead of winter in a tour bus with no heat. They showed us their orphanage for street Kids in Chicago and that had a profound effect on me...The film brought that all back to my 62 year old memory.
The Film mentions the World famous Evangelist Billy Graham who chose to personally endorse these new former Hippies now saved Born again Musicians and that quieted the many critics of Jesus Music from oddly the established church itself.
A quote from one of the artists in the film is "We were too Rock and Roll for the Church, but too Christian for the World"
Some of the other highly influential names from that era of fledgling Christian rock and Pop were Larry Norman (who I only saw perform once) and others like second Chapter of Acts and extremely gifted Black Gospel artist Andre Crouch who later became a Pastor.
Moving on to the 1980's where Christian Rock and Pop was beginning to fill some basketball arenas and festivals not unlike their secular counterparts mainly due to a new young singer named Amy Grant. The film and Amy herself is brutally honest in stating she didn't have the greatest voice but sang in a personal style that many Church going teenagers were drawn to. There's also the mention of how the "Princess of Christian Pop" that the church loved her for being very "safe" made a new album called Unguarded showing her in a leopard skin jacket and tights which upset many in the traditional church camp. It was at this point that the Christian band I was a member of opened for Amy at the Forum in Inglewood Calif. and a Reno Nevada Basketball arena where I hung out with some of her musicians, Drummer Keith Edwards, and the late Rich Mullins shooting a few basketball hoops before a show.
My former band mate Steve Taylor is interviewed in two very short segments which could have been longer not just because I was in his band for nearly 7 years, but because his music and story had a large impact on that genre of music in the early to mid 80's for it's satirical sarcastic wit, which lambasted the likes of televangelists Jimmy Swaggart and Robert Tilton who attacked Christian rockers like Stryper, Petra, and Steve Taylor calling it "The music of the Devil" What the film strangely left out was the fact that televangelist Swaggart was caught with a couple of prostitutes not once but twice revealing a massive amount of pharisaical like hypocrisy...
The Heavy metal Band Stryper takes most of the focus at this point of the film, as they were getting heavy MTV rotation and at one point surpassed even their 80's secular band counterparts in MTV rotation and views back when MTV actually PLAYED music videos all day and all night. The film humorously mentions how Stryper threw bibles into the audience and one account of how a concert goer was struck in the forehead with one.
It's worth noting that Stryper front man Michael Sweet says he came to the Lord Jesus Christ watching Jimmy Swaggart on TV as did his whole family, but then years later watched him attacking the style of music his Christian Heavy metal band Stryper was known for and it devastated him.
Into the 90's the film describes as a watershed era for Christian music for it's reach into the culture and it's sales of records and C.D.s which major record companies were taking notice of...
At this point the film describes how Christian music or what was once called "Jesus Music" became CCM or Contemporary Christian Music and was becoming big business.
Record sales were growing rapidly by artists like D.C. Talk, Stephen Curtis Chapman, the Newsboys, Gospel Artist Kirk Franklin, Be Be and Ce Ce Winans who grew up singing in Black Church settings then rising to sell millions of records.
The issue of Race and the Church comes up several times noting how Martin Luther King said that Sunday morning was the most segregated hour of the week, and how that was also true in Christian Music in spite of many Black artists being signed by large record labels and featured prominently selling very well...I backed up and was a musician in support of some of these Black Gospel artists Be Be and Ce Ce Winans, Ron Kenoly, and Babbie Mason as well as Larnelle Harris on my 4 year stint in the Young Messiah Tour in the mid 90's
The film details how these artists had gone way beyond the church culture and were being featured and interviewed on heavily watched TV shows like Oprah, Arsenio Hall, the Tonight show and others. But many in the church had questions about "Yes we're reaching millions now in the popular culture but what is that doing to the message of the Gospel?"
Into the 2000's the Jesus Music film then describes the sharp turn of Gospel music to a new type of "Christian Music" which wasn't really new at all but a returning back to the true roots of Jesus Music and that is Worship Music. A new generation of young people no longer wanted to be entertained by Christian stars but were yearning for something deeper and intimate. The "Worship Music" phenomenon was birthing itself.
The worship music "stars" if you can call them that were writing and performing songs that seemed to be more TO GOD rather than about God. They were personal letters or Psalms if you will TO GOD. One of these Musicians was Chris Tomlin who the film claims has written songs heard and listened to and sung in Churches all over the world by more people than any songwriter in history. I haven't checked that but I'll take their word for it...I toured with one of the very early " Worship artists" Tommy Walker in the very early 90s in the Phillipines twice and the U.K. Who's not mentioned in the film...
There are many poignant interviews by several artists like Russ Taff a powerful voiced singer that is honest about his struggle with alcohol and his Pentecostal preacher father who was also an alcoholic. I did one tour with Russ in the 90's, The Young Messiah Tour and his segment spoke to me personally.
I've had my own struggles with alcohol myself so no judgment here...just the truth of what this film brings out...
I found myself with an ever softening heart as I continued watching this film realizing I'm not the only Christian musician who has struggled with life and Music. In fact most of these Christian artists have struggled one way or another...
D.C. Talk's Toby Mac's detailing of his 21 year old son's sudden death a couple years ago struck me hard as I lost my own son in 2018 at the tender age of 20, at this point I was crying...Amy Grant's touching story of the Fire camp meetings she puts on at her ranch where a father for the first time broke down and actually grieved for the death of his son...
There are hundreds of artists and songwriters and musicians left out of The Jesus Music Film that had an impact, and I'll try to name the ones I remember...
Randy Stonehill, Servant, Jimmy A, Cheri Keaggy, Vector, The 77s, Tommy Walker, Israel Houghton, Larnelle Harris, 4 Him, Carman, Sheila Walsh, Whitecross, Koinonia, Seawind, Hadley Hockensmith, Morris Chapman, First Call, Twila Paris, Crystal Lewis, Phillip Bailey, Steve Green, Jon Gibson, Deniece Willams, Margaret Becker, Bryan Duncan, Michael English, Richie Furay, The Katinas, Rachael Lampa, Donnie McClurkin, Undercover, New Song, Fernando Ortega, T-Bone, Jaci Velasquez, Fred Hammond, Nichole Nordeman, Ginny Owens, Phil Driscoll, Clay Crosse, Avalon, Scott Wesley Brown, Don Francisco, Rick Cua, Bill Batstone, Mary Mary, Staple Singers, Pops Staples, Edwin Hawkins, Daniel Amos, Sweet comfort band, The Archers, Steve Camp, Quickflight, Supertones, Altar Boys, Dakoda Motor Company, The Choir, Fletch Wiley, Abraham Laboriel, Justo Almario, Iona, Kirk Whalum, Cactus Moser, Jim ( Woody) Waddel, Glen Holmen, Jeff Stone, Kerry Conner. My apologies to anyone I missed...thanks
One last thing...If you see the film stay for the credits and after because there's a surprise...
I'm Just the Sax Player...
