teacher in Dallas . I went to a private school , and he had a part-time gig and would work at Forever Young Records in Dallas , and he just knew so much about Christian music then .
[ WM ] Oh , I love that store . I just love it . Great store .
[ Brent ] ( laughs ) You probably bought a record from my teacher . He told me , “ Brent , you gotta listen to Larry Norman .” He knew I didn ’ t have a record player , so he would send me home with tapes . He ’ s like , “ Man , listen to this , listen to that ”. And he was a guitar player , and he ’ d sing the songs , after chapel , or we ’ d just be hanging out at lunch and he ’ d get his guitar out and he would just sing Larry Norman ’ s songs for us .
And so I really found it to be probably the most robust time in CCM , I ’ m not throwing anybody under the bus or , or not taking away from anything anybody is doing ( now ) but
I find it definitely to be more formulaic and more monolithic . You know , when you listen to the radio , it has a bit of a monotony to it . Whereas , back in the day , man , everybody , it was the wild west . It was a brief roll , and you could just make whatever ( music ) you wanted , you know ? And that was very beautiful . I wish maybe the guardrails would get knocked down for a minute .
To go back to the movie , there is a living
Larry Norman - 7 - Sweet Song Of Salvation - Upon This Rock ( 1969 ) spiritual analog to Larry Norman . Her name is Natalie Bergman , and she ’ s a pop artist out of Los Angeles . She ’ ll sing about whatever she wants , and once in a while , she ’ ll do a song about Jesus . When she does it ’ s amazing . So , I really wanted to honor the spirit of that first gin of Christian artists that didn ’ t even know they were CCM . They didn ’ t even know what they were creating . I wanted to honor them and say , “ Okay , here is a modern example of that . Natalie , the pop artist , sings about whatever she wants , but when she does the song about Jesus , it stops you in your tracks ”. It ’ s so powerful . I close the movie with her , but honestly , thinking about Larry Norman all the time . She ’ s the closest thing to a living Larry Norman that I know in modern times . There ’ s no way she would get on CCM radio .
[ WM ] I will look her up . When I lived in the Dallas area , there used to be these big Christian radio billboards all over town , all over