When "gospel rock" was an oxymoron
by Bryce Martin

It's the Devil's music with the Lord's chorus serving as counterpoint.

That might be my definition for the music genre known as "Christian rock" or "gospel rock." It, to me, is still an odd combination of words and an even more odd genre of music. When I first heard the term, I was stymied. Surely, it was an oxymoron, in the vein of "dry ice" and "jumbo shrimp," or everybody's favorite, "military intelligence." Rock 'n' roll was the Devil's music, birthed, bought and paid for in the 1950s, so why kowtow to it? Why humor it? Dismiss it outright and be gone with it.

In a recent newspaper filler, I read that the man who invented the genre had moved on to that rockin' band of angels in the sky, presumably. I imagine that history will little note nor long remember Larry Norman ("Christian rock pioneer Larry Norman dies at 60"; Tennessean; February 27, 2008). Norman, as noted in the small article, was inducted into the Gospel Hall of Fame in 2001. But it was his 1969 album Upon This Rock that introduced the concept of Christian rock and the act that prompted his title as "father of Christian rock."

Christian-themed lyrics to Chuck Berry chords or a Bo Diddley beat.

Even a casual historian on the subject of rock 'n' roll music knows the genre owes a kinship to blues and gospel music. Some oldtime gospel songs even long before Elvis rocked in a way that Elvis was to rock later on. Elvis, in fact, received much of his music tutelage as a young churchgoer.

It gave me goosebumps to hear hundreds of combat boots stomping in an unrehearsed, completely inspired unison/cadence in my place of order in the balcony of a large chapel while our godforsaken pitiful selves sang "Onward Christian Soldiers" each Sunday in U.S. Marine Corps boot camp in San Diego in 1964.

The sound was there then -- and had been around for who knows how long -- many of us just didn't know it.

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