Chapter 28: International
Ripples
For at least a few years, the summer of 1984 in the United States will be best remembered as the year of the Olympics in Los Angeles. The Games etched their way into the memories of millions of people around the world, especially Americans.
While the press gave vast coverage to the contests on the various playing fields and at the pools, there was extensive evangelistic activity going on behind the scenes. Close to one hundred different Christian organizations participated under the coordination of the 1984 Olympic Outreach Committee. More than eleven thousand young people and adults from seventy-seven countries were commissioned to participate in evangelistic activity during the Games.
Music and drama played a major part in those enthusiastic endeavors. At several locations around the greater Los Angeles area, Christian musicians and singers performed gospel music for residents and foreign visitors. Debby Boone, Andrae Crouch, Bob Bennett, Kelly Willard, and more than one hundred and fifty other artists and groups performed seven hundred hours of gospel music.
Christian music of all types and tempos had by 1984 become increasingly international in its scope and its outreach. The number of artists crisscrossing the globe on concert tours had grown to the point that overseas trips were considered almost commonplace. Communist countries, once virtually off-limits to most Christian musicians, especially Americans, began opening their doors at an unprecedented rate. Living Sound played in Poland. Scott Wesley Brown performed there and in other countries behind the Iron Curtain. In Brown's ''I Care Letter'' in 1984, he said, ''While I love America and the spirit of her Constitution, my allegiance is to Christ and his kingdom. As I walked side by side with Christians of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Poland, I realized that all men are potentially my brothers in Christ.
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''It is tough for them,'' he added, ''But Jesus never promised a life full of roses without thorns. It breaks my heart to see musicians without instruments, churches without organs, people without Bibles. This is why I CARE exists. You and I can do something about it. We have the resources to provide so much to those who are in need. We can help in the revival these Christians long for.''
As a result of Brown's concern for the church behind the Curtain, he compiled and produced an album of music from American and European Christian artists, entitled All the Church Is Singing. Brown's I CARE organization then placed the album cassettes in the hands of Christians in Communist countries. Through the ''Adopt a Musician'' program, Christian music groups from the West were invited to support Christian music groups from behind the Iron Curtain. Programs were being set up for Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and the USSR.
For American musicians, travel overseas became an eye-opening experience in which the dire need for the gospel was sorely evident. More than once an American musician, used to performing freely in the United States churches, coffeehouses, and auditoriums, left on overseas jaunts assuming that the rest of the world would be much like America, with its relatively open tolerance of Christianity.
But those same artists returned to the United States with a new appreciation of the concepts of freedom and grace as the result of visits to some countries. They were happy to be home, but loaded with a new burden for a dying world, and anxious to respond more fervently than ever before to Christ's Great Commission.
Travel to non-Communist countries was, of course, much more widespread and frequent, and requests from host countries came for more. There were even a few American performers who relocated in other countries, feeling the burden to do all their work there. Karen Lafferty moved to Holland for work with Youth with a Mission, and Barry McGuire moved to New Zealand, partly because of his zeal for reaching Asians for Christ.
Another type of global concern which intensified in the eighties was that of world hunger. Certain artists became very vocal on the matter and put their weighty support behind organizations whose goals were to fight hunger. Gene Cotton was one of the first of the contemporary Christian singers to carry the banner, as early as the midseventies, just before he crossed over into secular music and left Jesus music behind. Carrying on the cause in the next decade would be Randy Stonehill, Phil Keaggy, Shiela Walsh, Petra, and the Bill Gaither Trio, as well as others who supported the hunger-relieving work of Compassion International. They spoke up for Compassion's
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ministry by appearing on magazine ads, speaking it in concerts, and singing about the plight of the undernourished in their music. ''Who Will Save the Children?'' was one of the most notable songs on the subject, released in 1984 on Randy Stonehill's album Celebrate This Heartbeat. Joining Randy on the song was Phil Keaggy.
Another effort to combat hunger was an album put together to benefit World Vision. Artists contributing a cut to the album included Barbara Mandrell, B.J. Thomas, Andrae Crouch, Evie Karlsson, Amy Grant, Dion, Keith Green, Walter Hawkins, the Imperials, and the Sweet Comfort Band. Keith Green's song ''A Billion Starving People,'' released posthumously on a 1984 collection of Green songs, also was a poignant reminder of the plight facing many of the world's population. Some of the revenues from John Michael Talbot's albums were sent to a relief organization, Mercy Corps International.
The widening of the Christian world view among musicians and singers was aided in part by the efforts of Cam Floria and his Christian Artists Seminars. The annual gathering in Estes Park, Colorado, had proven to be a successful conclave of aspiring and established music makers and people in the associated industries. Over the years the workshops and seminars at the Estes Park location continued to widen in scope, presenting different views to the hows, whys, and wherefores of Christian music. The nightly concerts, over a week's period, featured more than fifty popular and up-and-coming musicians. It was at those concerts that several artists from foreign countries were introduced to American audiences.
In 1981 Floria and his counterparts in Europe coordinated the first Christian Artists Europe at DeBron Conference Center in Holland. Musicians were invited from all over Europe to join Americans for the conference. That first seminar had more American presence than some Europeans approved of. However, by the next year's seminar a more acceptable balance of clinicians and artists representing the European countries was reached. Participants even included Christian music people from behind the Iron Curtain.
Holland was a natural for such a gathering, according to one of the main coordinators, Leen La Riviere, who since 1969 had worked with the Continentals organization to see music ministry grow in Europe. A concert network—Continental Sound —had been developed over the years to aid musicians in touring and playing in various European cities and towns. The Continentals alone had six groups touring in Holland in 1983.
Continental Sound also published their own Dutch-language magazine, Sjofar, which was later incorporated into another Dutch
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publication, Gospel Music Magazine. Through Continental Sound and Youth for Christ (the latter of which had first ventured into music ministry soon after World War II), Holland, with a population of only fourteen million, had been the breeding ground for a surprisingly active Christian movement through music ministries.
''In 1969,'' said La Riviere, looking back fourteen years later, ''Holland and neighboring Belgium counted three gospel groups and maybe ten youth choirs. As a result of the work of the Continental Singers and Continental Sound, in 1983 we count in the two countries about one thousand gospel groups, soloists, and youth choirs, with some of them joined in their own union. That means an average of fifteen thousand young people involved in gospel music in the two countries.''
Music festivals, much like the Jesus festivals in America, drew crowds. Youth for Christ and Continental Sound each sponsored one annually through 1979. More than four thousand people attended them. In nearby Belgium, of which the northern half is Dutch-speaking, an autumn One Way Day was held, and a spring Pentecost evangelistic gathering drew nearly ten thousand visitors. The two yearly events were sponsored by a group known as Opwekking.
Flevofestival (originally called Kameperland) was an evangelistic festival aimed at the secular Dutch-speaking people. Its attendance annually since the midseventies averaged four thousand, and it was sponsored by Youth for Christ.
La Riviere spoke highly of the way in which the various organizations throughout the small European nation worked together cooperatively, including Continental Sound, Opwekking, GMI, Youth for Christ, Gospel Music Magazine, Euroconcerts, Christian Artists, and others. ''The revival in music,'' he added, ''has opened doors into radio and TV as well. NCRV and EO, two broadcasting services, started regular radio programs with gospel music, and television as well, featuring gospel musicians.''
The longest-lived gospel-music group in Holland, according to La Riviere, was Burning Candles. Some of the Continental Sound artists included a rock band, Messengers; folk-country singer Wim Pols; the traditional/classical ensemble, Hymne; a jazz ensemble led by Carel Heinsius; Discipel; and scores of others. Also quite popular in Holland is the folk duo known as Elly & Rikkert, well-known performers who became Christians after their career was already going strong, and fellow-entertainers Gert & Hermien Timmermans.
As one travels south from Holland, through the French-speaking part of Belgium, and into France itself, the influence in the churches becomes heavily Catholic. In fact, 85 percent of the fifty-four
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million inhabitants of France are Catholic, 3 percent are Muslim, 1.5 percent are Protestant, and only .5 percent are reported to be born-again Christians, according to recent surveys. The French have a strong classical music background, similar to several other European countries. For a long time music had little to do with the church, according to Marc Brunet, whose Sephora Music organization was formed to help develop Christian music in French-speaking countries.
''The slow development of music in the church here,'' he explained in 1984, ''is partly due to French reformer Calvin's disdain for music or instruments in church. Because of this limitation and persecution in past centuries, many of the great artists and intellectuals had to emigrate to such countries as Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. This left France with a cultural void in both the society and the church.''
About twenty years ago, however, modern music styles started to show up in evangelistic churches (the few there were). Charles Road and Gerard Peilhon were the first to use guitar and compose their own chants (possibly similar to praise choruses of the American Jesus movement). The modern music was immediately controversial.
A lot of small musical groups were formed in France in the seventies, all part-time ministries rather than full-time professions. Two companies, SEMA and TRINITE, contributed greatly to the development of French music and served as pioneers in the work. They produced and recorded dozens of groups, the most well-known including ''Les Temoins'' (The Witnesses), ''Les reflets'' (The Reflections), Jean Paul Andre, Jean Paul Ayme, ''Naissance'' (Birth), ''Les Commandos du Seigneur'' (The Commandoes of the Lord), and ''Vent d'Espoir'' (Wind of Spirit).
Others included the Cascades, Transit, Alain Faure, Les Banjamins, the Apostrophes, and Pasturages. Also making music during that all-important formative decade were Danie and Moise Hurtel, Intersection, the Roffidal Trio, Pierre and Jean Help, and the Emmanuel Trio. At that time, the only full-time performer was Gil Bernard, a former music hall singer who had been converted in the early sixties. He directed TRINITE.
The first event of national importance in gospel music for France came during Pentecost in 1972, according to Brunet. For three days, sixteen French groups performed a wide range of modern styles before an audience numbering about nine hundred, a sizable one for the time. Several organizations co-sponsored the event. A similar festival was held simultaneously in Belgium to the north.
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As in Holland, Youth for Christ organized several music tours, using foreign bands and French groups. Festivals began to become more common in France, with one also in Switzerland nearby. An annual festival, the JEF Festival, was started in 1972.
As the development of gospel music continued, controversy again grew as to the validity, even the sanctity, of Christian music played with electric guitars. That argument dragged on in many countries just as it had in the U.S.
In spite of the disagreements and deliberation over the use of contemporary Christian music, it continued to develop. Sephora Music was formed by Marc Brunet in 1978. The next year, he began to publish Sephora Music Magazine, and introduced the first catalog of American and English records available to the French.
Certain American artists began making appearances in France, including Tom Howard, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Karen Lafferty, Larry Norman, and Living Sound. A few French bands got substantial exposure, including Philippe and Christian Chanson, Christian Gonzales, and Jude 25. Still, none were traveling or performing full-time.
In 1980 a new record label appeared, called Editions CDE, working mainly within the circle of the Assembles of God in France. In 1981 the new French government authorized the establishment of local radio stations. (European countries often had only a few government-operated radio stations serving the respective nations, but that began changing.) These new stations opened the airwaves for gospel music as well as secular.
New studios and labels continued to develop in the eighties. In 1983, again during Pentecost, the most important musical event for gospel music in France took place, according to Marc Brunet. Two thousand people attended the Sephora Festival at Dijon, the first of its kind. With both French and foreign bands participating, the festival offered a centralized concept toward gospel music, with booths, expositions, and artistic productions such as mime, choreography, and films.
The summer of 1983 saw the rise of an antirock movement in France, with opponents using cassettes, videocassettes, and Christian reviews and conferences. Even though it remained as an original medium and was always appreciated by the youth, modern Christian music and secular music was put into question by many critics, much as in the States.
Brunet added that by 1984 there were about forty evangelical libraries in France, which sold mostly cassettes, though not all were contemporary. He also reported that there was more Catholic music
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than Protestant Christian music, but it leaned more toward traditional sounds.
"Presently,'' he added, ''there aren't more than about a dozen full-time Christian musicians found in France. They don't count on music as a living, and others only tour on their free time and during the holidays.''
For Spain and the Spanish-speaking nations, much of the work in contemporary Christian music has been accomplished by Producciones de la Raiz. The organization was founded in the late seventies.
''It began in response to the need among Spanish Christians for more adequate musical materials,'' Luis Alfredo Dias reported in 1984. ''We organized the first festival of gospel music in 1977, and later an encounter for Christian artists in 1980. We began to visit religious and secular bookshops with the goal of greater distribution of contemporary gospel music, with promotion through articles in various magazines. We organized a trip to the Greenbelt Festival in England and attended the Christian Artists Seminar in Holland. Like the labors of ants . . . long, difficult, and often without apparent results. But we remain clear in our purpose and firm in our goal, assured that 'He who began the good work in us, will also accomplish it.' ''
With four hundred million people living in Spanish-speaking countries, Producciones de la Raiz had a formidable task ahead. But with enthusiasm such as often seen in the pioneers of contemporary Christian music in the United States, they kept plodding on. There were tremendously encouraging developments.
''Together with IBRA-RADIO, an interdenominational organization dedicated to gospel broadcasting,'' Dias said, ''we began in early 1983 a weekly program of thirty minutes duration, with news of international gospel music. The response to the program has been very favorable.''
A number of Spanish editions of recordings from around the world were being published and distributed by the eighties, including imports from Maranatha! Music in the U.S. and GMI in Holland. Other releases included: Nada Es Neutral (Nothing is Neutral), a new-wave album by a group known as 2000 DC; Oye PaPa (Listen, Daddy), a musical based on the Lord's Prayer; and Rockangular, by a group that composed themes within symphonic rock. ''These productions,'' added Dias, ''have been self-financed mostly by their composers, together with the support of their churches, friends, and families.''
In addition to 2000 DC and Rockangular, there were several
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other musicians making a notable impact on the gospel music scene in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries. Adolfo Rivero, an accomplished guitarist, had recorded three albums by 1984. Luis Alfredo Dias was born in Uruguay, where he started his music career. He then lived in the United States and Finland, where he recorded albums in both Finnish and Spanish. Also a painter, Dias had six albums to his credit. Resso (Echo) began making music ten years ago with a pop Christian sound. Paz (Peace) had done three recordings, all recorded live in concert. Alex Blanco, one of the founders of the group Resso, was also a teacher of the classical guitar and performed pop music as well. He was creator of the work, Oye PaPa; he then formed a group known as Tragaluz (Cellar Window), and had a recording with them called Every Day.
Jose de Segovia, a journalist living in Madrid, provided information on yet other Spanish musicians: Jose and Vicente Rodriguer, two brothers living in Germany as emigrants; Metamorfosis, a jazz band whose album Butterflies and Elephants received accolades as one of the best jazz records in Spain; and Vicente Forner, who started ''Units'' (United), one of the first gospel rock bands in Spain, and later made two recordings with his own group, Manantial.
Tours of artists and groups from other nations were coordinated by Prodduciones de la Raiz also. Adrien Snell from England, Karen Lafferty from Holland, Discipel from Holland, and a group known as Bob Hope from Sweden all sang the Good News in Spain in 1983 or 1984. The Bible in Songs, the first cassette for the evangelical market dedicated to children, came in Dutch form from Holland, and was in part translated into Spanish for the master tape, and released in Spain. Also in the works were Spanish editions of records by England's John Pantry and a Swedish group, Salt.
Spanish-speaking people were also introduced to their own gospel music magazine, Entrelineas (Between the Lines), published for the first time in the early eighties.
''Since our work began six years ago,'' Luis Alfredo Dias explained, ''we have been confronted with the problem of distribution. There was no complete directory of religious bookshops in order to plan for serious marketing; thus, we began obtaining a complete list of places selling our music. After dozens of trips, covering most of the country by public transportation, we obtained what we wanted. Besides the ten evangelical bookshops, one hundred and ninety Catholic stores, plus some secular ones that also sell religious music, we visited nearly two hundred persons in charge of small church bookshops of all evangelical denominations. We have arranged with some of them for exclusive distribution. For the first time, the same
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music can be heard, learned, and sung by the complete body of Christ in Spain. We marvel at this miracle.''
The interaction of Holland, France, and Spain provided a glimpse at the activity in contemporary Christian music throughout much of Europe. To go into each country in detail would require a full book in itself; it is unfortunate that they cannot all be covered here. In many of the European nations, the history would read much as the American history does, only in microcosm.
Portugal and Italy are predominantly Catholic countries where the evangelical movement of contemporary Christian music was just beginning to make ripples in 1984. In Switzerland, there was a small but growing contingent of gospel-music performers and creators.
Scandinavia's development of Christian music had been progressive and encouraging. A pioneer in the Scandinavian countries was Levi Petrus, a pastor of the old Pentecostal Church of Stockholm, Sweden. ''He believed in the power of the music,'' explains Leen La Riviere, ''so new music has a long tradition in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.''
Perhaps most familiar to Americans were Evie Tornquist Karlsson and her husband, Pele Karlsson. Evie was an early starter in her music career, singing as a young teenager. She was American, but her family's heritage was Swedish, and she hit the hearts of Scandinavians early on. In 1974 Kurt Kaiser introduced her to American audiences for the first time via a Word album, and she was immediately a favorite in the United States too. At first considered traditional by those wanting more rock-type Christian music, she managed to find acceptance in contemporary and traditional music circles. In the early eighties, she married Pele Karlsson, and they moved to California and recorded albums together, redeveloping traditional trends in their music, such as on their album Restoration.
Other Swedish artists with whom American Christian music fans had been acquainted in recent years included the excellent contemporary choral group Choralerna, who recorded an album with Danniebelle Hall for Sparrow Records, and hard-rock bands Edin-Adahl and Jerusalem, whose albums have been released through the Benson Company. A name to begin appearing in the eighties on records in the United States was Jan Groth, a former secular pop singer from Denmark who turned to contemporary Christian music. Other popular Scandinavian singers to be heard on the American side of the ocean were Solvei Larsen and Ingemar Olsson.
In West Germany, the battle with and within the church concerning
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the use of rock in gospel music continued. In the seventies, singer and writer Inge Bruck experienced a spiritual renewal which reportedly nixed her secular career, but she then successfully performed gospel music, including making appearances on radio and television. Andreas Malessa, the rock band Semaja, and Klaus and Hella Heizmann were other artists keeping the contemporary Christian music scene going in Germany. Concerts were on the increase in the eighties, with some fans begging for more. There were efforts at building a Christian music study center.
The development of contemporary Christian music in Britain closely paralleled that in the United States, but on a smaller scale. The cultural exchange between the United States and Great Britain saw musicals by Jimmy and Carol Owens hitting popularity in England (including Come Together, If My People, and The Witness), Liberation Suite from San Marcos, Texas making a mark in Ireland and England, and Larry Norman colluding with various friend musicians in Great Britain and performing in concerts and on record. In 1979 one British festival promoter, Tony Tew, said, ''The pioneering music of Larry Norman has crossed the water, and we've learnt that it really is possible to be a Christian and a rock 'n' roll singer.''
In the other direction, from east to west, came Malcolm & Alwyn, Garth Hewitt, Dave Pope, Judy MacKenzie, and Graham Kendrick, among the pioneers of overseas contemporary Christian music. Unfortunately, the tours of foreign artists in the United States met with little notice until the eighties.
Buzz and New Christian Music magazines were instrumental in communicating what was happening in Christian music in Britain. In the eighties they were joined by Strait, an earthy street paper which covered especially the more avant-garde aspects of the gospel-music scene.
And there was plenty which was avant-garde in Great Britain's Christian music. Two of the progenitors of the new-wave Christian music which would begin to flex its muscles in the eighties were Giantkiller and Ishmael United. The latter group, originally billed as Rev. Counta and the Speedoze, was led by a far-out vicar whose music was equally so, bold for its time.
Many of the more radical rockers were welcomed at England's annual Greenbelt festival, where a wide variety of musicians played before crowds in excess of sixteen thousand. Garth Hewitt, writing in the Greenbelt program for 1979, explained, ''Greenbelt has only one criterion (apart from musical standards—which are applied honestly!), and that is that the the band or artists must be Christian—then it
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is up to them how they glorify God.'' This brought charges from some observers who complained that the musicians and bands never did anything ''spiritual,'' but the promoters were quick to remind the critics that Greenbelt was not to be compared with the other Christian festivals around the world; it was unique.
Cliff Richard, who appeared at Greenbelt, released a few gospel-oriented albums in England, but only a couple of them made it to the U.S. His Small Corners LP was a complete collection of popular contemporary Christian songs, but was available in the United States only by special order. His Help It Along album helped to generate monies for the TEAR Fund, a organization for fighting world hunger, a cause of which Cliff was a well-known supporter. Cliff also continued putting one or two token Christian-lyric songs on his pop albums in America.
Myrrh Records imported much of the music being recorded on the Myrrh label's British editions, doing short runs in the States, but providing a bit of an opportunity for record collectors to pick up on the British music without having to go the expensive route. Andrew Culverwell, a British singer, was first brought over via record by Manna Records, and then picked up by Word's DaySpring label.
In the eighties, there was a stepped-up emphasis on importing the music being created and performed in countries other than the United States. Sheila Walsh, already recorded and well-known in her native Scotland and the rest of Great Britain, arrived on U.S. shores with fanfare celebrating her first American release, Future Eyes, on Sparrow Records. Her music varied from Helen Reddy-styled ballads to new-wave music and modern rock in the Sheena Easton vein. Her first American concert tour, complete with special effects on stage, was well received, and by 1984 she had released her second U.S. album, and her video of the song ''Mystery'' was placed on sale, backed with American Steve Taylor's ''Meltdown'' video. The two rock performers embarked on an Australian concert tour in the late part of the year.
In the same year Refuge and Pilgrim America Records, both distributed by The Benson Company, brought in more imported contemporary Christian music. Artists featured on the labels included Adrien Snell (who broke relatively new ground when some of his works were presented on national television in Britain and Holland), John Pantry, Barry Crompton, Andy McCarrol & Moral Support, Paradise, the Barrat Band, Bryn Haworth, and Fresh Air. Other names cropped up almost monthly, as a ''British explosion'' was heralded by the various labels.
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South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand also developed contemporary Christian music, though it was not as quick to reach the United States. To the advantage of the Americans, the British, the Australians, the New Zealanders, and the South Africans, English was a common language. And furthermore English was a fairly universal language. Many of the citizens of Europe and other continents had at least a rudimentary knowledge of English as a second language, allowing some degree of freedom for English-speaking artists on recordings or in concert.
Conversely, the musicians who knew only their non-English language found little success in performing before American audiences, who had by tradition been disinterested in learning or understanding music in other languages. Even Spanish-language songs, which communicated to the high percentage of Mexican and Spanish-speaking people in the United States, only came through on albums in a trickle.
Part of the reason for the indifference among American Christians was the extraordinary abundance of contemporary Christian music generated in English. There was no purpose, they reasoned, in listening to languages they couldn't understand. That response was typical for Americans, but they unfortunately missed out on some quality music.
There was much more tolerance for other languages in the European countries, where the people were much more used to international exchange and interlingual communication.
In the meantime, American Christian music makers extended their reach to include parts of the world long neglected as far as gospel music was concerned. Cam Floria addressed the gospel music industry in 1983 with an observation and challenge. Citing the progress made in Europe already, he turned the industry's attention elsewhere:
''Asia and the Third World are a bigger challenge,'' he said, ''but with more potential than all the rest of the world combined, because of the phenomenal growth of Christianity in those countries and because most of the people in the world live there. But they are way behind—you have to look hard to see how far back they are.
''Yet, I believe the really important future for the gospel-music industry could be out there. Just think where we were only thirty years ago!''
Floria then referred to various musicians who had begun the work there already, including Otis Skillings, Chris Beatty, and Jimmy Owens. He referred to Barry McGuire's move to New Zealand, and
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the new Christian Artists Asia Music Seminar, first held in 1982. Also he noted that four Asian seminars would be held back to back in 1984, in Singapore, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Korea.
''Music influences people,'' he continued, ''especially young people. I was told recently by the leader of one of the world's outstanding youth organizations that by 1990 fifty percent of the world's teenagers will be Asians.
''You say, 'But it's the Christians who will use our music and buy our cassettes. Are they there?'
''Yes. Two hundred and fifty evangelical churches in the little country of Singapore, over seven hundred in Hong Kong, innumerable hosts of Christians in the Philippines, and I was told by a knowledgeable Chinese distributor that 30 percent of the whole population of South Korea is Christian. But they have very little Christian music to play on their Sony Walkmans!
''Why?'' he questioned. ''Because we have all but forgotten the world that exists past Europe! But, believe me, it is the future. The gospel continues to change our world, and the music of the gospel will follow. . . .
''The opportunity is here, now. If we don't fill the void with our music, someone else will fill it with theirs. We must embrace Asia and the Third World. They are the future.''