Jesus music

There has been a long legacy of Christian music connected to the Jesus movement. Jesus music, also known as gospel beat music in the UK, primarily began when some hippie and street musicians of the late 1960s and early 1970s converted to Christianity. They continued to play the same style of music they had played previously but began to write lyrics with a Christian message. Many music groups developed out of this, and some became leaders within the Jesus movement.

Jesus music, known as gospel beat music in the United Kingdom, is a style of Christian music which originated on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This musical genre developed in parallel to the Jesus movement. It outlasted the movement that spawned it and the Christian music industry began to eclipse it and absorb its musicians around 1975.

The music was quite often both lyrically and musically simple as well as theologically immature. It was also seen by many as worldly music at best or as "the Devil's music" in the worst case. This latter position was held by conservatives such as Bill Gothard as taught in his Basic Youth Conflicts Seminars. These were some of the main factors that caused many American churches to largely reject the movement and these artists at the time. This suited many artists as they wanted to bring Jesus to non-Christians, not only to church youth. Jesus music pioneerLarry Norman addressed this culture clash in his 1972 song, "Why Should The Devil Have All the Good Music?". On the West Coast of the United States, Jesus music festivals began to emerge in the summer months of the early 1970s, featuring many of the artists listed above. While the music was often loud and the venue similar to the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock, the atmosphere was decidedly different and attracted large crowds of camping families as well as teenagers and young adults.

By 1973, Jesus music was receiving enough attention inside the mainstream media that an industry began to emerge. By the mid 1970s, the phrase "contemporary Christian music" had been coined by Ron Moore and the first edition of CCM Magazine was published in July, 1977. CCM now was a combination of traditional gospel music, Southern Gospel Music, Jesus music artists, and in some cases a style of big-band music with Christian lyrics. By 1976, it was apparent that a new generation of performers who had grown up in the church wanted to play non-secular pop and rock music for other Christians. By the end of the 1970s the term "Jesus music" fell out of use as the movement was replaced by the industry

—copy from www.wikipedia.org