Music of the Jesus Movement, Part 2
Photos by multiple sources
Members of the popular Jesus Movement band LoveSong were saved and nurtured at the first Calvary Chapel, pastored by Pastor Chuck Smith. They were drawn by the love and simple worship they witnessed there and dedicated their musical talents to Jesus Christ.
LoveSong released their first album in 1972. Soon after, they published this memory book (above) documenting how the Lord did a powerful work through music at Calvary Chapel and around the world—sometimes through small impromptu events like the one below.
Little Country Church
Drawn by the light they’d seen in Sandy Love, musicians Fred Field and Tommy Coomes visited Calvary Chapel at Sunflower and Greenville in Santa Ana, CA, on a Sunday night. As the crowd began to sing simple songs, Tommy stared, amazed that long-haired hippie kids and squares had their arms around each other. “I knew without anybody telling me that God was there in that room,” Tommy asserted, “and that they were singing to somebody they loved.”
At that service, Pastor Chuck Smith spoke of the End Times, that Jesus was coming back soon. Tommy was intrigued that this preacher could talk about the end of the world while smiling from ear to ear. Then Pastor Chuck and the elders offered prayer for anyone who was sick. “That struck me as a real act of caring. I was so taken aback,” Tommy shared. “I thought, These people are so whole, and I’m so broken … I don’t deserve this.”
Tommy and Fred waited after the service until only Pastor Chuck remained, turning out the lights. The two then poured out their troubles about facing jail time. Instead of lecturing or probing, Pastor Chuck listened and replied, “OK, let’s pray.” As he interceded for them, Tommy recognized that God was in their midst. The next day in court, Tommy had a new peace and trust in God. “I had the keenest sense that … God was in control,” he remembered. “That was the pivot point. To this day, what I believe about worship and love was caught that night. It was demonstrated, not just talked about.”
Soon after, LoveSong wrote “Little Country Church” with the lyrics: “Long hair, short hair, some coats and ties. People finally comin’ around. Lookin’ past the hair and straight into the eyes. … They just want to praise the Lord.” It became one of the biggest songs of the Jesus Music era. In the LoveSong docuseries, Chuck Girard would recall, “That song started out about little Calvary Chapel, but [then became] about the bigger story of what was happening all over the country.”
Since I Opened Up the Door
The Richie Furay Band included (left to right) Jay Truax, John Mehler, Tom Stipe, and Richie Furay.
Though Tommy and Fred had accepted Jesus, Chuck Girard was both intrigued and terrified to visit the church. Then three different hitchhikers told him God was moving at a place called Calvary Chapel. After circling the block four times, he finally came inside, where he saw the crowd singing simple songs about Jesus.
To Chuck’s astonishment, something began to happen in the room. “I remember feeling very superior and sophisticated about my [preferred secular] music, but I was thinking, Why am I getting so deeply touched by this simple folk music? I didn’t understand then about the anointing. God began to just hit me,” he declared, gesturing to his heart. “I just broke. I had tears, snot, goo all over my face, my beard.” He surrendered his life to God.
Calling their band LoveSong, Chuck Girard, Tommy, Fred, and Jay Truax dedicated their talent to God and started writing songs about Jesus—later joined by John Mehler and Bob Wall. Soon, the crowds were singing their songs. Chuck Girard shared with thousands of other young people on a television program in 1971: “I had followed all these men—the Beatles, Timothy Leary, Eastern mysticism … and I never really heard how simple it was to accept Jesus. … Jesus died on the cross to save you because no man could make it. We’re all too rotten inside. But His grace and His love are so abundant. That’s the answer for the world’s problems, and there is no other.”
That year, he wrote “Since I Opened Up the Door,” a song featured in the recent movie Jesus Revolution. The autobiographical lyrics include: “Since I opened up, opened up the door, I can’t think about anything else but [Jesus] anymore.”
Drummer John Mehler joined LoveSong six months later. After hearing the Good News at Calvary Chapel, John reported, “I went to bed one way, and I woke up and I knew that Jesus was God, and He was in me.” He had also been intrigued by seeing “a hippie I wouldn’t have wanted to sit with, sitting right next to a prim little old lady with a mink stole. They were both singing that song, ‘Happy, happy, happy are the people whose God is the Lord’—and they were happy.”
Tommy agreed: “You didn’t see that out on the street. I realized, Wow, these people really like each other. Imagine that!” All of them testified of the genuine love they received from Pastor Chuck Smith, his wife Kay, and the believers at Calvary Chapel—a love for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Country Faith band—(left to right) Chuck Butler, Tom Stipe, and Scott Lockwood—blended harmonies with acoustic guitar for folk-style Jesus songs.
Jesus Music was welcome on college campuses. Preparing to perform at Cypress College are (left to right) Dave Burgin and Jim Golden of Blessed Hope, and Chuck Butler of Parable. After the Gospel was shared, many in the crowd accepted Christ.
In our next installment, we recount how the Holy Spirit moved through the music of the Jesus Movement.
LoveSong’s upcoming docuseries seeks to chronicle how God used the Jesus Music to reach an entire generation for Him during the great spiritual awakening of the 1960s-70s. For more information about the docuseries “A Band Called LoveSong,” visit LoveSongTheBand.com
Read Part 1 here.
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