Raised By Wolves: The Story of Christian Rock & Roll

by John J. Thompson

Book by Thompson, John J.

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction, Christianity

350 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

Reviews

[Loyd Harp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative, especially the chapter on the first wave, which covers the earliest days of Christian rock. Lots of stuff I didn't know. And the way Thompson ties it to the Jesus-revival of the 70s is amazingly helpful. I actually found myself very surprised at how hungry it made me for a similar revival to take place.

Subsequent chapters are good, but I found the author's stylistic biases coming into play more noticeably. He spent loads of time talking about bands and publications that were indeed influential, but then completely ignored others. His own publication, True Tunes News, makes it into the book repeatedly in the chapter on the Third Wave, while HM and Heaven's Metal barely make mention, even though it has been around longer and had wider distribution in the general marketplace.

Likewise, although the photographs are great, they were all taken within the past 10 years of the book's publication. Some vintage photos would've have been more in keeping with the spirit and aim of the book.

Nonetheless, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in the fusion of Christian faith and rock music.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I once - at a Christian rock festival in the 90s - heard this music genre described as "a subculture within a subculture within a subculture." So there's likely a limited audience for this book, though it's right in my wheelhouse. I thought i knew a lot about the topic, but the author brings an encyclopedic knowledge that teeters on the edge of reader exhaustion. As the chapters progress through the mostly decade-bound three waves, it starts to feel more like a wikipedia discography entry rather than "The Story of..." promised in the book's subtitle.

Quibbles, more or less:
- there's too much about the machinations and travails of the various record labels (very "inside baseball")
- the photographs seems to be interspersed at random, not matching the neighboring text
- large oversight to include no mention of switchfoot, who had already released three albums by the date of publication

That all said, still a 4-star read for me, because of the subject matter.

[Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a frustrating and increasingly tedious book that wants to be a definitive history of Christian rock music but fails on multiple fronts to meet the basic standards of historical writing.

First, there are no citations whatsoever. For a book briefly describing the histories of hundreds of different bands, there's simply no sense where Thompson gets his information. Some of it reads like personal recollection, which makes sense given Thompson's long history covering the industry for True Tunes News, and presumably much of it comes from raiding his own archival interviews and reporting, but none of that is explained. Further, there's too much information that obviously must have come from other publications, and Thompson simply doesn't give them the credit they deserve. There is a resources page in the back of the book that lists numerous industry magazines and a few books. But which info came from which sources? Where can we as readers go to double check info or get more context? It remains a mystery.

And that's a problem because I found several factual errors in the book surrounding just the one band with which I'm most familiar (Petra). The name of the coffeehouse where they began. The number of records they sold in the 1970s. How established they were by 1980. All wrong. On top of that, there are laughable statements like when Thompson describes Stryper this way: "as big or bigger than bands such as Def Leppard or Whitesnake." That would be Def Leppard, whose best-selling album is 12x platinum; Whitesnake, whose best-selling album is 8x platinun; and Stryper, whose best-selling album is 1x platinum. Stryper was a big band in their heyday, but they were nowhere close to Whitesnake or Def Leppard. You can tell because most people still know "Pour Some Sugar on Me" and "Here I Go Again" even today, while many fewer recall "To Hell With the Devil."

Thompson generally relies on subjective statements like this rather than on the data that would actually be relevant to statements about popularity and relevance: record sales, radio airplay, etc. The result is a weird mix of praising bands for their hazily defined popularity and praising unpopular bands for their artistic authenticity, with the unstated – or sometimes overtly stated – idea that to be popular is to be artistically inauthentic. Thompson is much happier devoting two pages to the indie alt-rock bands he likes, like Sixpence None the Richer, than a few paragraphs to the world's best-selling arena-rock bands, like Petra. Bands like Daniel Amos, The Call, Adam Again, The Choir, etc., are all important parts of Christian rock history. How important? It's hard to say because all we learn from this book is that Thompson really, really likes them.

Finally, the book is occasionally interesting and informative, especially in the first half, describing the evolution from Jesus Music to CCM in the 1970s and early 1980s. But too often, it reads more like an awards-ceremony acceptance speech, rushing to make sure every band gets mentioned, regardless of how important or peripheral they are to the story of that evolution. Because the number of bands proliferates, especially starting in the early 1980s, that means the book increasingly becomes nothing more than a paragraph-by-paragraph name-check. Without any kind of organization – by year, genre, or record label – other than its decade-by-decade chapter breakdown, the book ends up jumping around.

For example, these bands appear one after the other from pp. 62-70: 2nd Chapter of Acts (formed in 1972), Keith Green (first record released in 1977), Pat Terry Band (1974), Petra (formed in 1972, first record in 1974), DeGarmo and Key (1978), Michael Omartian (1974), Sweet Comfort Band (formed in 1973, first album in 1977), Mark Heard (1976), Resurrection Band (formed before Petra in 1972, demo in 1974, first LP in 1978). Chronologically, this is a mess; stylistically, what does Omartian – a keyboardist who isn't rock 'n' roll by even a generous definition of the genre and went on to greater success as a producer in the 1980s – have to do with Rez Band? Or folk rocker Mark Heard with Petra? How is Keith Green, a piano-playing singer-songwriter who was at the peak of his popularity at his death in 1981, relevant to the careers of guitar-driven rock bands formed in the early 1970s?

In a world with too few attempts to tell the early history of CCM, it's especially frustrating to read such a disjointed, subjective, and skewed attempt, one whose occasional flashes of insight are so thoroughly overwhelmed by lack of organization and true scholarship.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT HISTORICAL SURVEY

Author John J. Thompson wrote in the Preface to this 2000 book, “W”hat is ‘Christian rock’? … it’s a strange mix indeed, and to many people the term is an oxymoron… It is called Christian because of the messages in the lyrics, or at least because of the faith backgrounds of the artists, yet it explores every subject from politics to sex to cars to friendship. It is full-on rock and roll… yet it is used for worship, evangelism, and the entertainment of abstinent youth-group members and 50-year-old biker pastors.” (Pg. 11)

He continues, “I approach the history of Christian rock from a few angles. I have been exposed to this music since I was a small child. My mother became a Christian at the tail end of the Jesus movement in 1973… When I ‘discovered’ this underground scene, I couldn’t believe it… I found myself looking up to artists .. who consistently cranked out amazing music knowing full well that they would not be heard by the world at large. It was the closest thing I had seen to artistic purity in rock and roll, and it rocked me to the core… I have also been writing, performing, and recording my own music since I weas 16… I kept my music as aa active side project and focused my professional efforts on breaking Christian music out of the ‘ghetto’ in which it had become ensconced. This book is a further effort to give Christian rock exposure greater exposure… This is the story of people of faith making rock and roll music raised by wolves.” (Pg. 13-14)

He recounts, “From its origins in California, the Jesus movement spread out in many directions… The movement continued to spread throughout the early 1970s. In California, Calvary Chapel launched Maranatha! Music as a record label and coordinated massive Jesus music concerts… But the defining moment for the movement came in 1972 when Campus Crusade … held its World Student Congress on Evangelism in Dallas (also known as Explo ’72)… the whole crowd … crammed into the Cotton Bowl each night for music and speaking… Each night, various musical groups of all styles performed as well… However… Explo ’72 marked the beginning of the end of the Jesus movement. Churches started to accept the milder Jesus music, soon to be referred to as ‘contemporary Christian music,’ though the rockier stuff was still suspect.” (Pg. 34-36)

He outlines, “The development of Christian rock can easily be divided into three waves. The first wave spans from the Jesus Movement to the end of the 1970s… Since Christian rock was almost certain to preclude one from fame, prosperity, or even respect from the community of believers, it did not attract poseurs… The second wave roughly spans the 1980s… several of the youth pastors of the Jesus Movement had become head pastors… Since the music proved to be useful, the church began to welcome Christian rockers into its midst… The third wave spans the next decade… ‘alternative’ music had officially become mainstream… scores of bands explored new wave, postmodern, and alternative musical styles… The third wave brought about the fastest growth in the history of Christian rock… It has taken 30 years, but Christian rock has finally come into its own.” (Pg. 37-39)

He records, “In one of the great paradoxes in the history of Jesus music, one of the few other labels to promote heavy rock and roll was Par Boone’s Lamb and Lion Records. His label first brought the European heaven metal of Swedish band Jerusalem… Boone, who could never shake the image of his clean-cut pop music and his white buckskin shoes, was not only a believer in the viability of Christian rock but also a fan of it.” (Pg. 84)

He summarizes, “By the late 1970s, contemporary adult music had become the mainstay of Christian music, Rock artists were still vilified by antirock preachers and kept off the shelves by conservative bookstore managers, but they enjoyed the enthusiasm of their largely underground fans. Southern gospel quarters still ha a lock on the industry, and a decade would pass before rock artists were fully welcomed into the Christian music scene without castigation.” (Pg. 85)

He explains, “The earliest Jesus music… was far more edgy and street level than what became mainstream Christian music of the late 1970s. A hybrid---‘contemporary Christian music’---developed and eventually found purchase among conservative evangelicals… The praise-and-worship music popularized by Calvary Chapel’s Maranatha! Label was much more palatable to the Midwestern churches than the rock and roll of Larry Norman or Daniel Amos. Artists … took slightly contemporary stylings and blended the with traditional trim to create a unique musical style. It wasn’t southern gospel, and it wasn’t rock and roll… By the time the rag-tag labels managed to coalesce into an ’industry,’ the concerns or marketing and money had come to the fore.” (Pg. 87)

He says, “A number of Christian rock radio shows emerged in the 1980s… Christian rock was being broadcast. There were even charts for rock songs by the mid-1980s, but since there were so few rock radio stations a highly charting single didn’t necessarily translate into great sales. In the absence of solid radio, and since MTV wasn’t interested in Christian music, the only way for new bands to be promoted nationally was either to tour or to receive coverage in magazines.” (Pg. 164-165)

In the ‘90s, “the Christian music industry was also growing by leaps and bounds. The bookstore networks had a form monopoly on distribution… Christian radio had become increasingly popular… The Christian community had nearly completed its total retreat from mainstream society. It even had its own television networks. Many Christians were able to live in a world within a world, one that would protect them from ever brushing up against non-Christians. And the ghetto was large enough that many people made millions of dollars selling Christian CDs to Christians..” (Pg. 172)

He notes, “The whole machinery for disseminating information about new bands changed radically in the 1990s… The advent of the Internet was probably the most significant boost, though… The net also spawned the phenomenon known as Internet radio, still in its infancy…” (Pg. 234-236)

He concludes, “With the rise of the Internet, fans can now connect directly with the artists who move them. No longer must they rely on the gatekeepers within the church or the entertainment industry… Perhaps compelling rock by people of faith has its brightest days ahead. And… the public seems to be ready for the next wave of Christian rock. What could be more ‘alternative’ than music that evolved in relative obscurity under the auspices of artists who knew better than to expect fame or fortune? They make the music because they have to. It doesn’t get more real than that.” (Pg. 243)

This excellent book will be of great interest to those studying Christian popular musical styles.

[David Wise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough history on Christian rock music from its start through the 90's. I hope there is an updated boom that tackles 2001-present. Worth the read if you grew up on or still listen to Christian rock.