Another Book Which Tells Our Story

Although we call it the “Christian Publishing industry” the history of Christian Retailing is strongly linked to the Christian music industry. Most of our stores had or still have a music department and that department was responsible for significant traffic flow in the days before downloading and streaming ended our dominance as a supply channel.

In God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music (Oxford University Press), author Leah Payne gives significant prominence to the role which Christian bookstores played in the establishment and perpetuation of what was first Jesus Music, then Contemporary Christian Music, and more recently, Modern Worship.

She shows how the Christian Booksellers Assocation (CBA) role in retail and the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) parallel track with radio dovetailed together to advance the music which helped define Evangelicalism itself.

But the genius of this book is the first 50 or so pages where, writing as a historian, she traces the development of CCM back even further — into the late 1800s — when ‘success’ was measured by the sales of sheet music and songbooks. It is interesting to ‘follow the money’ and trace the ‘family tree’ of more modern distribution networks, at least in the days of physical media.

The only liability of the book is the last 50 or so pages where, like so many American writers, she — in my opinion at least — overplays the relationship between the music as a Christian culture influencer, and U.S. politics. I could have lived without that, but perhaps reading as a Canadian, I am simply less interested. And I suppose playing The White House is a significant gig, right?

Everything in the middle was telling my own story, since I lived those years, was an associate writer for CCM Magazine, and have a 3,000+ piece vinyl collection to show for it. Plus some surprises:

• I did not realize that what became Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa California was actually a Foursquare Church, the same denomination as Jack Hayford.
• I did not realize that Chuck Colson was instrumental in the founding of what became K-LOVE radio.
• I did not realize that the Icthus Festival came out of Asbury College, the same place which gave us the Asbury Revival last year.

And there are the elements that Christian retailers knew too well, but may have forgotten, or perhaps not realized the significance they played, such as accompaniment cassettes. She spends more than a page talking about them. They were of course ubiquitous back in the day, but she’s trying to trace how the music formed a broader church culture; how what was happening in the bookstores and on Christian radio showed up at Church on Sunday morning.

She’s given the occasional passing nod to the UK, and there are one or two references to Canada. One of these is the Toronto Catacombs, and the influence of Merv and Merla Watson.

As to her book’s title, she doesn’t subscribe to the theory that Larry Norman was the grandfather of Christian rock, or the members of LoveSong, either. In her view there were many grandfathers, if a person wants to use that term. 

She also talks about the consolidation of everything CCM related in Nashville, and hints at the homogeneity that produced, but I would have liked a more critical evaluation of that sameness which ruled the Christian airwaves. (Of course part of that was to appease ‘Becky’ – or ‘Lisa’ – the mythical CCM target customer with the 2.4 kids and the minvan. Elsewhere, I wrote about her extensively in this article.)

After moving to Nashville herself, Leah Payne worked with Charlie Peacock. That gave her a lot access to ‘inside baseball’ things which gives her authority in her writing. She was also a guest on Peacock’s Music and Meaning Podcast where she explored the early 1900s section of the book, along with audio clips. If that interests you, click this link and go to Episode 6.

This is definitely something some of you will want to read, and deserves a place on your shelves next to the histories of Baker, Zondervan and IVP you possibly already own. For others of you, it will be placed next to works such as Jesus and John Wayne.

This book was a gift and not a review copy. I’d like to thank Lando Klassen, a fellow-traveler in the Christian retail journey who sent it to me. It was much appreciated. 

See also this excellent review at ChurchLeaders.com .