Re: Larry vs. Elvis (was First Christian Rock Album: NOT Larry

Date: Sun, 11 May 2003 11:09:54 -0700 (PDT)
Newsgroups: rec.music.christian
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It could be argued that Elvis did as much to popularize Christian rock
or CCM as many of the more prominent CCM artists. On the video He
Touched Me, the Imperials talk about recording a gospel album with Elvis
in the early 70's where he was doing songs by Andre Crouch, the
Gaithers, and other contemporary gospel writers. Elvis exposed this
music to many people who would not have otherwise heard it. Larry's
early music wasn't heard by a lot of people because the records were
hard to find. A lot of the Christian book stores refused to carry them.
If there had been a demand for Christian rock in the secular market,
Capitol or MGM might have put more promotional effort into those albums.
Someone really clever in marketing should have capitalized on the
controversy and sold them to the pop music market that way. Larry was a
bit of a rebel - in a good way. He kind of shook things up in Christian
music the way Elvis did in pop music in the 50's. One radio station in
Portland, Oregon refused to play Elvis' Christmas album, claiming that
his versions of standards like "Silent Night" was blasphemous.