Larry Norman

Larry David Norman (April 8, 1947 – February 24, 2008) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, record label owner, and record producer. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of Christian rock music and released more than 100 albums.

Larry Norman was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, the oldest son of Joe Hendrex "Joe Billy" Norman, and his wife, Margaret Evelyn "Marge" Stout. Joe Norman had served as a sergeant in the US Army Air Corps during World War II and worked at the Southern Pacific Railroad while studying to become a teacher. After Norman's birth, the family joined the Southern Baptist church. In 1950 the family moved to San Francisco, where they attended an African American Pentecostal church and then a Baptist church, where Norman became a Christian at the age of five. In 1959, Norman performed on the syndicated television show The Original Amateur Hour.

In 1960, Norman's father began teaching in San Jose, California; the family lived in nearby Campbell. Norman graduated from Campbell High School in 1965 and won an academic scholarship to major in English at San José State University. After one semester, Norman "flunked out of college and lost [his] scholarship."

Although Norman was able to play a variety of musical instruments, he never learned musical notation.

While still in high school, Norman formed a group called The Back Country Seven, which included his sister Nancy Jo and friend Gene Mason. After graduating, Norman continued performing locally.

In 1966 Norman opened a concert for People! at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California. He later became the band's principal songwriter, sharing lead vocals with his Back Country Seven bandmate Gene Mason. People! performed about 200 concerts a year, appearing with Van Morrison and Them, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Doors, the Who, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape, and San Jose bands Syndicate of Sound and Count Five. The band's cover of the Zombies' "I Love You" became a hit single, selling over one million copies and charting strongly in several markets. Norman left People! just as Capitol released the band's first album in mid 1968, but reunited with Mason for concerts in 1974 and 2006. According to rock historian Walter Rasmussen, Pete Townshend once said that The Who's 1969 album Tommy was inspired by the rock opera "Epic" by People!; however, Townshend has since denied the connection.

Soon after Norman left People!, he had "a powerful spiritual encounter that threw him into a frenzy of indecision about his life [and] for the first time in his life, he received what he understood to be the Holy Spirit".

In July 1968, following a job offer to write musicals for Capitol Records, Norman moved to Los Angeles where he "spent time sharing the gospel on the streets". As he described in 2006: "I walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard several times a day ... witnessing to businessmen and hippies, and to whomever the Spirit led me. I spent all of my Capitol Records' royalties starting a halfway house and buying clothes and food for new converts." He was initially associated with the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, and its Salt Company coffee house outreach ministry, where he explored and pioneered the rock-gospel genre.