The Story of the Tune Maker

I had the distinct pleasure of attending an advanced screening of the new Larry Norman documentary last night. Many others involved in the film project were there, including a guy who asked my name, and said it was familiar, wondering if we'd met. I said I was fairly ubiquitous on the internet, and he introduced himself as Randy, Randy Stonehill. It was the first time meeting him since he wrote some of the songs for our Lonesome Stone musical in Europe, when I was two. He was very impressed that I was now talking and walking.

As for the film- I was surprised that my dad actually had a brief scene, talking about the Jesus Movement in general. However, the film is still in a very rough cut, and has substantial editing to go, so I don't know if he will make the final cut. The film told the story of Larry Norman's music career, and how he'd intersected the careers of artists like Randy Stonehill and Daniel Amos/Swirling Eddies. I was rather surprised to see that Daniel Amos had been so involved with Larry Norman, as Daniel Amos is one of my favorite bands ever, and I'd had no idea they'd been involved with each other.

Indeed, one of the predominant feelings I came away from the film with was how incredibly influential Larry Norman had been on the world of Christian rock. Since his hey-day was before I was born till I was about five, I had heard his name before, but knew little of his music. Or thought that was the case. Turns out some Servant songs that I'd always thought had been written in-house were originally Larry Norman's! I had never realized until seeing this film the great debt that Christian music owes this one man.

There's a lot more to his music and his life, of course. I imagine the film will be fairly controversial. But you'll just have to wait to find out about that when the movie comes to a theatre near you in the next few months.