Sparrow Records: The Progressive Years [Expanded Edition]
Alongside its gospel reinvention, the label also became the home to the cutting edge of contemporary Christian music in the 1980s.
In May, UDiscoverMusic asked me to write a piece about Sparrow Records’ incredible run in the late 80s and early 90s with gospel artists like Tramaine Hawkins, BeBe and CeCe Winans and Daryl Coley. Well, this week they published a part two—a prequel if you will—about their leap onto gospel’s cutting edge with progressive Christian rock acts like Sheila Walsh, Steve Taylor and Rez Band.
Click here to read the full length feature.
I wanted to share some things from my archive that showcase the innovative marketing and presentation that CCM artists employed in the eighties to heighten their accessibility to listeners outside of the church and to help church kids feel like the music wasn’t so far removed from what popular culture was listening to.
Earlier this year, I wrote about my own experience with and thoughts about Sheila Walsh’s 1983 album War of Love, the album that began her breakthrough to the North American audience. If you missed that feature, you can click below to read it and get acquainted with the new wave-influenced pop stylings of this innovative artist.
Reflections on the Music & Theology of Sheila Walsh's 'War of Love'
The eighties were an intense decade. In 1984, I was in the fourth grade attending a Southern Baptist school, seemingly inundated by a lot of rules and regulations. The boys' hair was measured regularly to make sure it wasn’t touching our collars, girls’ skirts were measured to make sure they weren’t “too far” above their knees, and we signed contracts a…
Even edgier than Sheila was Steve Taylor, whose biting, slightly sarcastic commentary set to a pulsing synthesized beat terrified traditionalists. Taylor was a mixed bag—critical of the demands of conformity to Christian culture (“I Want To Be a Clone”), the racism also contained within the culture (“We Don’t Need No Color Code”) and televangelism (“Guilty By Association”), but also adhered to the Religious Right’s values on two points: reproductive rights (“Baby Doe”) and homosexuality (“Sin For A Season”).
He foresaw the corporatization of the church, telling Contemporary Christian Magazine in 1986, “Christianity in America is really characterized by these huge, traditional establishments where money talks, and the emphasis is off Jesus and onto the worship of success and self-esteem. You know, just because I am a pro-lifer doesn’t mean I automatically buy into the full agenda of the Christian right. We’ve got to question this concept of spiritual authority that makes it so easy to give up the responsibility we all have to make decisions based on what God reveals to each of us as individuals.”
While he’s continued to make music both as a solo artist and as part of the super-group Chagall Guevara, he has put a strong emphasis on being a filmmaker. His 2012 film Blue Like Jazz caused a flurry of controversy within Christian circles for portraying “everything from infidelity to homosexuality to sexual abuse in the church, among other firebrand issues.” In 2016, he further distanced himself from many of his longtime followers by (thankfully) decrying the evangelical presidential candidate.
If there was ever a group at the vanguard of the Christian Left, it was Rez, short for Resurrection Band. They emerged in the Jesus Movement as one of the few representations of hard rock…and they never let up. They built an intentional community in Chicago, Jesus People USA, and their music reflected the values they employed in their community, being outspoken about racism, apartheid, poverty, pacifism, and the disenfranchised. This scored the group no points and resulted in them being “periodically targeted by the church’s right-wing factions as immoral, as evil influences, as messengers of Satan, and other such tripe,” according to Contemporary Christian Magazine.
The video below, “Love Comes Down,” is a blues-rock firebomb that was the lead single from their 1985 album, Between Heaven N’ Hell, which I focus on in the UDiscoverMusic article!
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I loved all of these, esp. Taylor's ON THE FRITZ, Walsh's SHADOWLANDS, and Rez's BETWEEN HEAVEN N HELL. Absolute "edgy" classics, considering they were on a major Christian label.