The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil” captures this well, as do many other songs one could name: “Born to Be Wild,” “Kick Out the Jams,” “Paint It Black,” “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?,” and “Heroin.” But this impression is way off target. Popular music is often thought of as antireligious-look at the tension that long simmered between the blues and gospel-and this was especially so during the sixties and seventies, when rock ’n’ roll was still relatively new and possessed of its in-Â�your-Â�face freshness. This book tells the story of those crossings: what they reveal about rock ’n’ roll music, American religion in the last generation or two, and the permanent changes occurring in American society during the seventies. But at some key junctures, they crossed into the world of mainstream pop music-or, perhaps, godless rock crashed into the tranquil subdivisions of young Christian listeners. For the most part, these songs have existed in a kind parallel universe, off the radar screen of mainstream listeners and rock critics. With roots stretching back to around 1970, the tail end of what most people consider the golden age of rock, Christian pop music has been around for forty years now. CCM is now one of the fastest-Â�growing genres of music, its records outselling those of classical, jazz, and New Age combined. The genre is familiar to anyone who has idly spun a radio dial, landing on a station that plays songs with a vaguely familiar sound but unexpected words dropped in-“Lord,” “Jesus,” “praise,” and the like. To some, the term “Christian rock” still rings oxymoronic, something like “Hindu abstract expressionism” or “Islamic comedy.” But for many millions of Christians in the United States, Christian rock-more commonly known as contemporary Christian music, or CCM-is the default music of worship, sounding forth on Sunday mornings and evenings in thousands of churches across North America. Focused on one of the most powerful forms of American music, this book shows how that other famous trinity-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost-came to rub shoulders, hips, and thighs with rock ’n’ roll. Three pillars that propped up much of the counterculture of the late sixties and that seem, despite the best efforts of moralists, politicians, and parents, to have fastened a kind of permanent grip on adolescents (and often postadolescents) coming of age in the leisurely fashion of recent decades. what else is there? The storied triumvirate of American youth culture since the Beatles. ILLUSTRATIONS Street Christian evangelizing in Southern California 15 Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber 41 Billy Preston with George Harrison and President Gerald Ford 55 Live recording of Explo ’72 61 On the Road with Andraé Crouch comic book 92 Al Green in 1974 129 Marvin Gaye in concert, 1975 140 Barry McGuire in Los Angeles, 1967 144 Bob Dylan and the Band in 1974 173 Andraé Crouch and the Disciples performing for President Jimmy Carter 193 Randy Stonehill, early 1970s 196 Children of the Day, early 1970s 199 For more images and video clips, go to. Popular music-United States-Religious aspects. Contemporary Christian music- United States-History and criticism. Includes bibliographical references and index.

(David Ware) No sympathy for the devil : Christian pop music and the transformation of American evangelicalism / David W. Library of Congress Cataloging-Â�in-Â�Publication Data Stowe, David W. The University of North Carolina Press has been a member of the Green Press Initiative since 2003. The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Manufactured in the United States of America. Designed by Courtney Leigh Baker and set in Futura, Bauhaus, and Whitman by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Stowe university of north carolina press chapel hill NO – SYMPAI HY FOR –I HE DEVIL Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism David W.

Crusaders of the lost idols billy