Larry Norman Images

Larry Norman, Christian Enigma

The second item deals with Larry Norman, who I was privileged to be friends with for a period towards the end of his life. I had seen Larry perform/minister in the 1970s during his heyday a couple of times: once at a Disneyland Night of Joy and another at the Pasadena Performing Arts Center. By 1986 I was living in Salem, Oregon, which also happened to become the new address for Solid Rock Records. Every so often I’d hear about a Larry Norman concert that just happened, but I’d always find out after the event was over. Then by December 2000, I found out about a Larry Norman concert that was going to happen, in Keizer, Oregon, just north of Salem.

After calling for permission to photograph the event, I met with Larry at sound check and gave him some copies of the publications that I was freelancing for at the time. That began a 3 ½ year friendship with Larry, where we sat or drove around and talked about history, music, and people, and he would often give me advice about how to do things. Sometimes I found it irritating because I would have to be an idiot not to know, but then I would give him advice on what songs to sing, covers to learn and album topics, which he may have found irritating. In fact I know that I irritated Larry sometimes because he would want silence and I kept talking. One time he even created a scene in a restaurant with the entire band present, because I was talking more than him.

Sometimes Larry would come over to my house and look through my boxes of slides, negatives, and enlargements back in the day before digital images became the norm. Sometimes we would just drive up and down the streets of Salem, and talk about nothing and listen to a Bob Dylan tape. Then Larry would want to get something to eat and we’d usually do Thai or Mexican or even Applebee’s. Larry would always insist that you try some of his food, and he wasn’t a big eater at this time either. Larry was a very generous person and always paid for lunch or dinner. I learned about the complexities of Larry Norman first hand, by being his personal photographer for a number of events, including his last big public festival appearance in the USA, which became the soundtrack for Larry Norman Live at Cornerstone 2001, which included my cover photo and inside images. Larry was still putting on quality performances and I enjoyed him. Sometimes he would even sit in my office and play my old acoustic guitar.

I realized that Larry was a lot more complex than the person that I knew, even though I felt that I knew him well. I got to know Larry’s mother, Margaret, very well, and she is a very sweet lady. We never talked about family issues other than when he would talk about his childhood or his brother and sisters. I also met both of Larry’s sisters and his brother Charles. Charles’s wife, Kristin, was in the band and became Larry’s business manager after Larry’s health began to deteriorate and Kerry, his old manager, moved back East. I contributed three dozen of the photos that appear in David Di Sabatino’s film on Larry. I wanted to be part of any project that can use my images to enhance it. Larry Norman was a multi-faceted person, and I’m sure that there will be other documentaries or biographies that will help paint a fuller picture.

Ironically, Larry’s 2^nd wife, Sarah, was the minister of music at West Salem Foursquare, which was pioneered and pastored by my good friend and recent president of Life Pacific College, Dr. Robert Flores. My son John worked in the music ministry there for a while and got to know Michael, Larry, and Sarah’s son. I got to be part of Larry Norman’s world for a while, but never took it too seriously, which is why I think that Larry liked me. I treated him the same as I would anyone, since by this time I’d met, interviewed and hung out with secular rock stars including members of the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Jethro Tull, Bo Diddley, Ike Turner, and the Blind Boys of Alabama, along with many Christian artists from Love Song, Keith Green, and Children of the Day to the Jars of Clay, Newsboys, and Randy Stonehill. When we first met, he acted flattered that I wanted to photograph him and told me that nobody cared about him anymore. I told him that I did and I wanted to help keep him relevant. He told me that I should quit writing for magazines and write my own book. Then he told me about a couple of guys that he knew who wrote books about U2 and Van Morrison. The photo included with this post was from the sound check that I first met Larry at, in December 2000.

Table of Contents For Jesus Rocks the World

https://jesusrockstheworld.wordpress.com

http://www.amazon.com/Bob-Gersztyn/e/B0072J7XEI

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/jesus-rocks-the-world-bob-gersztyn/1105358132

http://www.abc-clio.com/product.aspx?isbn=9780313377709

Listed above are some web sites that are links to my book Jesus Rocks The World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music, as well as the table of contents from both volumes 1 & 2.

Table of Contents:

Volume 1:

Introduction
1 Setting the Stage—Some Prehistory
2 The 1960s—Act 1
3 The 1960s—Act 2
4 The Beginning of Calvary Chapel
5 The Genesis of Love Song and Maranatha!
6 Maranatha! and Its Artists
7 Jesus Music
8 Billy Ray Hearn and Sparrow Records
9 Larry Norman and Solid Rock
10 Crossover Artists
11 A Christian Love Story—Keith and Melody Green
12 The Roman Catholic Contingent
13 Barry McGuire
14 The 1980s—Act 1
15 Amy Grant
16 Reunion
17 In the Beginning Was Word

Appendix 1: Word Records Discography
Index

https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Rocks-World-volumes-Contemporary/dp/0313377707/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Bob+Gersztyn&qid=1634323342&sr=8-1

Volume 2:

1 The British CCM Scene
2 The 1980s—Act 2
3 Black Christian Music
4 Andraé Crouch
5 The 1990s
6 Jars of Clay
7 The Christian Music Industry
8 Pete Furler, the Newsboys, and Festival Con Dios
9 Christian Heavy Metal
10 Alisa Childers and ZOEgirl
11 CCM in the 21st Century and Music Festivals
12 The Rock and Worship Roadshow
13 Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender CCM
14 Larry Norman’s Swan Song—Cornerstone 2001
15 Worship Music
Conclusion

Appendix 1: 100 Essential Contemporary Christian Music Albums
Appendix 2: Thom Granger’s 100 Greatest Christian Albums
Bibliography
Index

Randy Stonehill

Randy Stonehill at Occidental College in L.A., CA, 1979

The first time that I heard of Randy Stonehill was in the spring or summer of 1972, when he played at the Agape Inn coffee house, where I was an alternating MC with George WJ Shearer. Randy had just released his first album, Born Twice and was promoting it. He did a funny and intense performance of his material and sort of disappeared from my sight until 1976, when he released Welcome To Paradise. I saw him at Disneyland’s “Night of Joy” that year along with Larry Norman for the first time. I saw Randy play numerous times after that in Los Angeles, Oregon, and even Illinois.

One time he played with John Pantano and Ron Salsbury of the J C Power Outlet opening at a small theater in L.A. It was a great show, especially when John Pantano asked the crowd if they wanted to hear Country music, to which some yelled “yeah,” to which he responded, “Well, we’re not playing anything but rock & roll,” as they dove into a feedback distorting screeching song. Then there was the time at Occidental College, in Los Angeles, at president Obama’s alma-mater, that Randy played alone with an acoustic guitar, at the peak of his career.

https://www.abc-clio.com/product/C5805C/

When I moved to Eugene, Oregon, in the early 1980s, I saw him perform, as part of an evangelistic crusade at the Foursquare church that I attended. In 2001 I had the opportunity to photograph Randy having a reunion on stage with Larry Norman, after a 20 year estrangement, at the Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell, Illinois. Then in 2004, I interviewed him for the Wittenburg Door and finally photographed him performing in Sweethome, Oregon, 29 July 2012, where he played in a semi-tropical paradise.

Jesus Rocks the World

Concert Photo Images #1

 

 

“Concert Photo Images” is the Parent company that “Jesus Rocks The World: The Definitive History of Contemporary Christian Music” is marketed by. Bob Gersztyn is the owner operator and has published a total of six books at this time that can be found at the Barnes and Nobles website. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Bob+Gersztyn?_requestid=5475059

Concert Photo Images was founded for the purpose of documenting as many of the World’s best music artists in live performances through both words and images. This is a link to “Blues Rock Review” one of the publications that I write and photograph for. https://bluesrockreview.com/author/bobgersztyn

Concert Photo Images currently has an image bank containing over 50,000 images of music artists ranging from the “Grateful Dead” to the “Black Keys.” To find whoever you want just put in their name in the “search” box. “Fine Art” hard copy prints are either scanned from the original slide or negative prior to 2011 or a high resolution digital camera later. All prints are laser printed using archival quality paper.

Prices

8×10  for $35.00 including shipping

16×20 for $90.00 including shipping

Payment made through PayPal using my email

bobgersztyn@gmail.com