Weird Religion

Freedom of religion in America includes the freedom to go to every extreme, and in records many of the most interesting fringes began in late 1960s San Francisco. As the hippie "freaks" of the counter-culture turned to religion, the "Jesus freak" movement began, leading eventually to total cooptation of the newly found "hippie" born-agains by the older flag-waving kind. Many of the scarily right-wing shepherding churches, other weird cults, and popular "televangelist" leaders have origins in late-1960s drug culture, and others have a personal history of "hell raising" (sex, booze, scandal) to live down. But that's all fine, as sin and redemption supposedly are the whole point with them.

The San Francisco music scene spawned the first, modern "Jesus freaks" as well as the first musical Jesus freaks, particularly Larry Norman, pioneer of Jesus Rock. The perennial question for people who care about Jesus Rock (and now Christian Metal): Is rock music inherently profane? (Is using rock as a soapbox profane?) The question for everyone else: They call this drizzle rock? But Christian rock is just a drop in an ocean of strange religious records. The Word label of Waco, Texas reached out with all sorts of crossover appeals (mod, folk, rock, kids, puppets) as well as the kind of traditional (mainly lily-white) gospel fare that clogs record bins in fervently religious areas. A few of these efforts even tackled soul and funk, but that is not to be confused with black gospel.

Collecting records of this type, the bizarre and the inspired, requires some patience and fortitude. Fortunately, the best of these records make up in passion and exhuberance what they often lack in talent and taste. Whether taken as auxiliaries to "regular" records or as a group unto themselves, they are at least colorful and outspoken. And some "outsider" musicians such as John Rydgren and Marlin Wallace occupy hallowed ground of their own. Some great preachers, such as Bob Harrington, really do have something to say and a great way of saying it. That said, in arts and entertainment, direct messages probably are best left to Western Union.