The riveting, untold story of the "Father of Christian Rock," the dawn of America's culture wars, and the conflicts that launched a billion-dollar industry.
Gregory Alan Thornbury is the president of The King's College in New York City and a widely respected speaker on faith, pop culture, and social trends. Thornbury's writing has appeared in outlets likeThe Atlantic,theWashington Post, Forbes, Christianity Today, Books and Culture,andThe Gospel Coalition, and he is an in-demand speaker at universities, conferences, churches, and think tanks around the country.
"Norman’s role — and struggles — in the cultural landscape of the
time is worth remembering. 'God gave me a gift,' Norman once said,
in a line that any rocker might adopt, 'not to be popular, but to
be invasive.'"
—New York Times Book Review
"Norman, who died in relative obscurity, in 2008, has often been
viewed as a tragic figure: a gifted and quirky musician who
inspired a generation while alienating his peers and, at times, his
fans. In Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?, the first
biography of Norman, Gregory Alan Thornbury tells a more triumphant
story, portraying Norman as a genius and a prophet, clear-eyed in
his criticism of what he sometimes called 'the apostate
church.'"
—The New Yorker
"[Allows] Norman and his ideals to stand forward in all of their
beauty and strangeness. It’s a fascinating portrait of a person,
but it also provides valuable opportunities for better
understanding the relationship of art and belief in the context of
the contemporary American entertainment industry."
—Christianity Today, "2019 Book Awards"
"You don't need to know anything about Larry Norman to be
fascinated by the story of his high wire act as a Christian artist,
ably told by Greg Thornbury. Open this book to be drawn in,
pleasantly surprised, and uncomfortably challenged, just like a
member of Norman's original audience."
—Peter Thiel, entrepreneur, investor, and author of Zero to One
“Much of the emotion and movement in American popular music derives
from Christian, church-based traditions. Despite that, rock
musicians who have made explicit their Christian beliefs have often
been treated like objects of discomfort. Larry Norman went headlong
into that strange situation to create something unprecedented. This
book, beautifully written, gives us the first real look into a man
who broke down walls so that others might build homes.”
—Warren Zanes, bestselling author of Petty: The Biography
"There's a lot in this Larry Norman book I was curious about; I was
both happy and unhappy to have Larry Norman's earthly arc fully
explained. How the hell did he survive all that? Way
Harder Than Vaudeville would be a good alternate title. The
world can be a pretty crummy place, but sometimes there are really
nice people like Larry in it, somehow. If Norman was only visiting
this planet, he did love it regardless.”
—Black Francis, songwriter and lead singer, Pixies
"A level of insight and intimacy that’s all too rare among
recently published artist biographies . . . Thornbury captures
[Norman’s] personality in all its complexity, and by the end Norman
seems like one of the great unsung cultural figures of the
era."
—A.V. Club
"In delicious detail, Thornbury shows that even in Christian music,
art and commerce have a hard time mixing successfully. He draws
Norman beautifully, empathetically, and realistically, and as equal
parts savior and narcissist are revealed, Thornbury allows the
reader to see just how fine the line is between the two.”
—Allison Moorer, Grammy-nominated singer and songwriter
“A mind-blowing portrait of evangelical Christianity's one,
and only, rock n’ roll wild child, a high-wire act of daring,
revelation and empathy, as original as Larry Norman himself.”
—Charles Marsh, Professor of Religion and Society, University of
Virginia, and author of Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich
Bonhoeffer
"If there truly was a great crossroads where the devil traded souls
for music, then Larry Norman must have made his own visit. If it's
true that no musical genre can thrive if it does not own its roots,
then this book is required reading for artists who have waded into
the faith-based genre without tracing its origins back to where it
first sprang from the earth."
—Dan Haseltine, songwriter and producer, Jars of Clay and The Hawk
in Paris
“In an American Idol world where trading on the name of Christ and
unholy alliances with professional God-talkers can win you the
White House, Gregory Alan Thornbury places before us a beautifully
complicated Larry Norman, that enigmatic, trickster figure at the
heart of the Jesus Movement. By doing so, he invites us to consider
again the prophetic genius, the untamable poetic justice of Jesus
of Nazareth, to whom Norman remained committed in spite of the
dizzyingly false witness and geopolitical catastrophe conducted,
even now, in his name. Hear Norman again, and have your senses
restored.”
—David Dark, author of Life’s Too Short to Pretend You’re Not
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