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The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock ’n’ Roll Hardcover – March 19, 2018

by Randall J. Stephens (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 22 ratings
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When rock ’n’ roll emerged in the 1950s, ministers denounced it from their pulpits and Sunday school teachers warned of the music’s demonic origins. The big beat, said Billy Graham, was “ever working in the world for evil.” Yet by the early 2000s Christian rock had become a billion-dollar industry. The Devil’s Music tells the story of this transformation.

Rock’s origins lie in part with the energetic Southern Pentecostal churches where Elvis, Little Richard, James Brown, and other pioneers of the genre worshipped as children. Randall J. Stephens shows that the music, styles, and ideas of tongue-speaking churches powerfully influenced these early performers. As rock ’n’ roll’s popularity grew, white preachers tried to distance their flock from this “blasphemous jungle music,” with little success. By the 1960s, Christian leaders feared the Beatles really were more popular than Jesus, as John Lennon claimed.

Stephens argues that in the early days of rock ’n’ roll, faith served as a vehicle for whites’ racial fears. A decade later, evangelical Christians were at odds with the counterculture and the antiwar movement. By associating the music of blacks and hippies with godlessness, believers used their faith to justify racism and conservative politics. But in a reversal of strategy in the early 1970s, the same evangelicals embraced Christian rock as a way to express Jesus’s message within their own religious community and project it into a secular world. In Stephens’s compelling narrative, the result was a powerful fusion of conservatism and popular culture whose effects are still felt today.

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  1. Print length
    344 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Harvard University Press
  4. Publication date
    March 19, 2018
  5. Dimensions
    6.12 x 1.12 x 9.25 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0674980840
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0674980846
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Excellent…Valuable, clearly written and meticulously researched.”―Christopher Carroll, Wall Street Journal

“Stephens wants us to think of rock and Christianity not as enemies but as siblings engaged in a family dispute.”―New Yorker

“[A] beautifully written, well-researched book…What Stephens has provided is an extensively evidenced account of just how tetchy Christians―especially theologically and politically conservative Christians in the U.S.―have been about popular music, while also wanting to make use of it when necessary to promote their version of the faith.”―Clive Marsh, Times Higher Education

“Perhaps the most comprehensive history of Christian rock yet published. Armed with an astonishing array of archival material, from pamphlets to sermons to newspapers and magazines, Stephens blows through nearly 70 years of church, music, and cultural history…Revelatory.”―Joel Heng Hartse, Christianity Today

“Stephens’ deeply researched The Devil’s Music charts the long and oftentimes contentious relationship between evangelical Christianity and rock 'n' roll. Along the way, it offers some surprising historical insights and a somber lesson for social progressives who have long scoffed at their evangelical adversaries in America’s ongoing culture wars.”―Ed Whitelock, PopMatters

“The Devil’s Music chronicles the development of popular music in America since the mid-20th century, attending to the audience as well as the performers. Focusing on the reception of rock by conservative Christians, it is a commentary on the emerging social role of Evangelicals and the politics of the period.”―Harriet Baber, Church Times

“An engrossing story about American Christianity’s long and ambivalent relationship with what Fats Domino dubbed ‘the big beat.’”―Paul W. Gleason, Hedgehog Review

“In this beautifully written, entertaining, and smart book, Stephens masterfully analyzes the religious roots of rock music, the evangelical response to the rise of rock music, and the ways in which evangelicals made rock music their own in recent decades.”―Matthew Avery Sutton, author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism

“Stephens brilliantly explores the many enmities, ambiguities, adaptations, and constant braiding of rock music and conservative Christian youth culture as the electricity of rock music jolted and shocked parents and captivated teens and young adults. The fiercely fought battles over music, values, and taste were indeed proxy wars for the soul of the nation.”―David N. Hempton, Dean of the Harvard Divinity School

“An admirably balanced, exhaustively researched, consistently engaging narrative of the complex and fraught relationship between conservative Christians and popular music in the United States.”―David W. Stowe, author of No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism

About the Author

Randall J. Stephens is Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard University Press (March 19, 2018)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 344 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0674980840
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0674980846
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.5 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.12 x 1.12 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 22 ratings

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Randall J. Stephens

Randall J. Stephens

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Randall J. Stephens is Professor of American and British Studies at the University of Oslo. He previously taught at colleges and universities in the US and the UK. From 2006 to 2014 he was an editor of Historically Speaking. Stephens is the author of The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Harvard University Press, 2008, 2010); The Anointed: Evangelical Truth in a Secular Age (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press 2011, 2012), co-authored with Karl Giberson; and editor of Recent Themes in American Religious History, Historians in Conversation Series (University of South Carolina Press, 2009). His latest book is The Devil's Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll (Harvard University Press, 2018).

In 2008 Stephens was named a Top Young Historian by George Mason University's History News Network. He was a Fulbright Roving Scholar in American Studies (Norway) in 2011-12. Since 2013 he has been an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer. He has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Independent, Christian Century, Salon, Wilson Quarterly, History Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Religion Dispatches, Christian Century, and the Atlantic.

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@Randall_Stps

https://uio.academia.edu/RandallJStephens

http://www.oah.org/lectures/lecturers/view/1730

https://theconversation.com/profiles/randall-j-stephens-188578/articles

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4.4 out of 5 stars
22 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Austin Steelman
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended
Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018
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Randall Stephens' well-researched and masterfully-written work focuses on rock 'n' roll as a lens for understanding class, race, politics, and, most significantly, religion, in modern America. As the title suggests, Stephens identifies the tension between Christianity and rock felt by guilt-ridden rockers (i.e. Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis) and evolving fundamentalists (i.e. Jerry Falwell) alike. The Devil's Music tackles interesting topics including Pentecostalism's crucial role in the emergence of rock 'n' roll, the migration of the racist notions of "jungle music" from mission fields to popular music, the fallout from John Lennon's statement that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, and the beginnings of the Christian rock industry. This is a quick and engrossing read, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in American religion, pop culture, or just good nonfiction.
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Son of Flintstone Munchausen
4.0 out of 5 stars First half of the book is better than the second half
Reviewed in the United States on April 22, 2019
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THE DEVIL'S MUSIC. First half of the book concentrates on the origins of rock 'n roll, via Pentacostal church influences, especially Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis's church origins, and segues into the middle '50s racially influenced diatribes about r&b crossing over to the white pop charts, then rock 'n roll becoming a white teenager phenomenon (thank you Pat Boone and the Fontane Sisters!). I found the advertising pamphlets and footnotes added wonderfully to the information I know about the backlash, but the author truncated the run up to Asa Carter's 1956 Alabama White Citizens' Council boycott of "that" kind of music, which led into the mid-'60s-plus anti-rock crusades. (Asa Carter might be better known as the author of THE OUTLAW JOSIE WALES, doncha know, too.)

The author begins his '50s narrative at the backlash in late '55 and '56, but leaves out the '40s anti-folk communist witch hunts, the 1942-55 build up to white maltshop rock 'n roll (white cover records like "Pretty Eyed Baby" by Frankie Laine/Jo Stafford and Lola Ameche from Mary Lou Williams's "Satchelmouth Baby", Lola Ameche's covers of Fluffy Hunter's "The Walkin' Blues" ("Walk Right In") and Bill Haley's "Rock The Joint," Sinatra's "Bim Bam Baby" and "The Castle Rock," Kay Starr's "Fool, Fool, Fool," Johnnie Ray's "Such A Night," and Rosemary Clooney's "My Baby Rocks Me" [the 1923 Black Swan song, "My Daddy Rocks Me with One Steady Roll], and the Midnighter's raunchy "Sixty Minute Man" charting on the white jukebox charts in late '51, to name but a few well before 1955.) Billboard's first, that I can find, mention of a rock 'n roll record is from April, 1942, by Vaughn Monroe on Victor 27910, "Comin' Out Party." To give the author kudos, he mentions William Ward Ayre's tract, JUNGLE MADNESS AND MODERN MUSIC, from 1961, which is the mid point leading into David Noebel's resurrecting the HUAC commie scare about The Weavers blacklisting, updating the acts with Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger attempting to brainwash youth with folk songs.

The middle section of the book decently covers the hippie early Jesus rockers and introduces the 1966 anti-rock crusaders via the John Lennon foot-in-mouth comments about Jesus; however, the author never quite develops the narratives about the anti-rockers nor looks into their professional backgrounds very deeply. Nearly all the anti-rock crusaders of the 1966-1990 era generally claim to be "ex-rockers" and formerly successful musicians, but when you look into their claims, most of the background info generally indicates they played music as a youthful hobby or were cover bands playing for a share of a bar's cover charges and got religion in their mid-20s as travelling ministry performance artists playing to school assemblies, church meetings, and youth conferences with slide shows, then displaying their own music and literature afterwards for sale. In 1983, traveling anti-rock "ex-rocker" ministers might gross $1200 per performance at a rented hall. Bob Larson played to junior high school school assemblies (listen to his 1969-70 Lp, BOB LARSON SPEAKS OUT, which dates just after Jim Morrison had a morals' run in in Florida and Anita Bryant staged a series of concerts at Rally For Decencys thereafter with the Letterman and Red Buttons). If one reads the anti-rock literature after 1981, it seems like all the books used the same footnote references, same album cover photos, and turned children's book authors and a failed 1955 pop songwriter selling insomnia cure 1976 record albums into credentialed academic professors in their bibliography listings. Tipper Gore's PMRC anti-rock book borrowed LIBERALLY from the Peters' Bros. WHY KNOCK ROCK book, and BYU Religion Dept. masters' student did the same to Frank Garlock's THE BIG BEAT, A ROCK BLAST pamphlet for his August, 1971 BYU master's thesis turned book, ROCK 'N REALITY, which featured a laudatory introduction by former (fired) police chief W. Cleon Skousen. The brain researcher who woke up the California legislature about a "backward masking" hoax in April, 1982, was a former tire salesman and Amway distributor. The first allegation of "backward masking" by ELO and Led Zeppelin dates from May, 1981, from Gary Greenwald's sermon tape, "The Punk Called Rock with Backward Masking Recordings." Jeff Godwin, in his book, THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLES, THE TRUTH ABOUT ROCK MUSIC, confirms the date that the "backward masking" allegations first appeared, being ten years after the release of Led Zeppelin's 4th album, with "Stairway to Heaven."

CCM: The author glances over the beginnings of the market consolidation of turning white inspirational music into a genre' of pop teenage bubblegum (proselytizing? propaganda? Conversion by synth-pop?). Word Records had 59-60% proto CCM market share in 1974 and ABC Records bought into Word going into 1975. Amy Grant's first album on Word pop subsidiary, Myrrh Records, was released about March, 1978 (the "Ugly cover"), CCM magazine debuted with its CHR radio "singles" chart on July 11, 1978 (since compiled by Jeffrey Lee Brothers in two books, the CHR charts and the A/C charts), then Billboard debuted the Top Inspirational Albums chart tracking Christian bookstore sales on March 29, 1980 (both Amy Grant albums, her first and the May, 1979 MY FATHER'S EYES, were on that first chart; AMY GRANT, MSB 6586 spent 89 weeks on that chart.) Black Gospel charted on Billboard's Spiritual 40 position chart. By late 1984, Word inked a secular (regular, mall) record distribution deal with A&M and RCA Records in late 1984, putting copies of Petra's BEAT THE SYSTEM and then Amy Grant's UNGUARDED Lps on A&M's label parallel to Christian bookstore versions in January and May, 1985, respectively. Petra's albums only sold about 10% on A&M in secular stores, while Amy Grant's album did 60% of its business in regular distribution on A&M. The first attempt at making CCM a substantial part of the mix of teen pop hit a premature brick wall. CCM sales in the early '80s were pretty low by the secular store standards, vis-a-vis charting numbers on the Inspirational charts: Petra's NEVER SAY DIE 1981 Lp spent a year on the chart and sold about 50,000 copies; Steve Taylor's MELTDOWN did 135,000 copies, hit the Top-10 (then three weeks at #11) with a 57 weeks' run; Taylor's ON THE FRITZ did about less than 100,000 hitting the Top-10 but only charted about 40 weeks, while the top of the charts were dominated by Amy Grant (AGE TO AGE took 19 months to go RIAA 500,000 gold, STRAIGHT AHEAD went RIAA gold in 14 months, while Sandi Patti's albums took about 24-30 months to achieve that sales level).

I avidly went through the footnotes for bibliography information. I would have liked to read the 1950s anti-rock 'n roll periodical references in full in an appendix section at the back of the book, like what David A. Noebel did in his MARXIST MINSTRELS HUAC references...to Harvey Matusow's recanted commie musicians' testimony. Four stars.
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777
5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Account of the History and Impact of Christian Rock.
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2018
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Wow! At last! Randall J. Stephens writes Jesus Rock history beautifully, honestly and factual. You won’t find voyeur fantasy keyholes into the private life of Larry Norman. There is no misinformation, disinformation, or self-promoting in Stephen’s The Devil’s Music. I loved discovering the detailed acvount of the Pentecostal Church (mostly Black) as the true roots of Jesus Rock. ‘‘This is not an internet search based amature publication. Rather Stephens’ The Devil’s Music is an expert assemblage of facts through extensive research that revealed the truth about how “Christians inspired, condemned, and embraced rock ‘n’ roll.”
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Dr. W. Terry Lindley
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Stury of the Church and Rock 'n' Roll
Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2018
Randall J. Stephens, associate professor at Northumbria University in Great Britain, has written a lively, engaging, captivating, and informative account of Jesus Rock. He argues that rock ‘n’ roll developed from numerous roots, which included rhythm and blues, Country and Western, jazz, and Pentecostalism. A number of the first generation of musicians, like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, were heavily influenced by their Pentecostal roots. Stephens’ thesis is that rock ‘n’ roll came partly from the church; then the church condemned that sound, only later to embrace it, a thesis that he convincingly proves. The author mined numerous denominational archives, surveyed the leading mainline, evangelical, and fundamentalist journals, explored a number of magazines and newspapers, and analyzed pertinent religious and secular literature on the subject.

In the 1950s, fundamentalists, Pentecostals, and evangelicals lambasted rock ‘n’ roll for a host of evils. The music led to violence and juvenile delinquency as well as race mixing, which caused great fear among both Christians and non-Christians in the South. With the arrival of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones among many British bands in the early 1960s, critics of rock ‘n’ roll, both within and outside of the church, focused on the music’s influence on increased drug usage and sexual immorality. Church leaders labelled the music as African-based, voodoo-laced, and demon-inspired.

But then something happened in the late 60s and early 70s. With the emergence of the Jesus People or Jesus Movement, young hippies who had found faith in Jesus Christ began sharing that faith through the music they knew best—folk, folk-rock, and rock ‘n’ roll. Many in the church were eventually won over to the effectiveness of contemporary music as a means of evangelizing America’s youth, most of whom found the contemporary church boring and out of touch. However, Pentecostal and fundamentalist haters of Satan-influenced rock ‘n’ roll found nothing redeemable in Jesus rock. As the author demonstrates, many of these opponents seemed to imply that the music nullified any positive message or godly lyrics. Their arguments especially applied to the genre of Christian metal and heavy metal bands like Stryper. Over time much of the church came to embrace and use rock music in worship and for evangelism. Even Billy Graham came to use it in his crusades, and even Jerry Falwell eventually came to give it his endorsement.

This book puts the heated debate over Christian rock into the larger context of the appropriateness of rock music in general. The author provides an overview of the cultural debates of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. For fundamentalists the issue was not so much about the music as it was about cultural changes that they saw as threatening the Christian faith and the America that they loved. For anyone interested in the debate over rock music, the emergence of Jesus or Christian rock, and a look inside the world of Pentecostalism and fundamentalism, The Devil’s Music is the place to start.

While possibly beyond the book’s scope, I would have liked Stephens to examine the question of what makes music godly and ungodly. The author does answer the ungodly part; critics point to the African, voodoo, Satanic, back-beat of the music, which places youth listening to it in the frame of mind to do drugs, have sex, drink in excess, commit violence, and rebel against parental authority. Even the lyrics or the singer/songwriter’s life cannot overcome the beat of the music. Many Christian artists, however, say that the singer’s motivation, his upright life, and the lyrics are what make music godly. Most would add that all forms of music are redeemable, something Stephens alludes to in the Epilogue.

The author examines a number of fundamentalist critics of rock music in general and Christian rock in particular: David Noebel, Frank Garlock of Bob Jones University, Jerry Falwell, and Bob Larson. However, he makes no mention of Bill Gothard and Basic Life Principles (formerly Basic Youth Conflicts). Gothard had a strong following in the Southern Baptist community and even influenced David Wilkerson, a Pentecostal, on his view of rock ‘n’ roll. When I purchased a copy of Gothard’s How to Conquer the Addiction of Rock Music by phone in 1993, the representative of Basic Life Principles spoke glowingly about the book’s ultimate importance. He said that just as Martin Luther had 95 Theses, How to Conquer had 95 pages.

On page 232, Stephens rightly shows that Bob Larson went from critic of Christian rock to a defender. He next writes that David Wilkerson of The Cross and the Switchblade fame was another opponent to switch sides. What the author says is correct up to a point. While in 1983, Wilkerson wrote “Confessions of a Rock and Roll Hater!” where he admitted that he had been wrong, this change of heart was only short lived. Four years later in “Driven to Darkness,” he warned against the dangers of Christian rock, confessing to seeing “demonic images rising from the stage” as Mylon Lefever and Broken Heart, a Christian rock band, performed before a crowd of youth at a Youth With a Mission event in Texas. In a 1993 letter to me, Wilkerson emphatically proclaimed that rock music, of any form including Christian, was “born in the womb of Satan.” He added, “I have never moved away from my deep aversion to this [rock] music,” and his 1983 confession “was simply trying to move away from judging the individuals involved.”

Despite the above comments, I found this book fascinating and hard to put down. I applaud the author for his painstaking research and his well-crafted prose, and again highly recommend it.
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