#296 COMIN' ON STRONG by Carman (1984)

COMIN' ON STRONG by Carman (1984)
Myrrh - MSB 6807

Producer: Keith Thomas

File Under: CCM

Time Capsule-Worthy Track:

Lazarus Come Forth

The other day, I happened across an article that made me smile. It was a blog post titled, “Ranking Carman’s Music Videos by Badassness,” written by a young man named Tyler Huckabee:

          How to explain Carman?

He is a perfectly passable singer, but he was far more interested in a sort of rhyming, spoken word, preach-rap that defies description. Whatever it was, it was hugely popular among a certain demographic of Christianity, selling millions of albums back when people still did that sort of thing, and setting a record for the most people to ever attend a Christian concert.

And yet, if Carman will be remembered for one thing, it is absolutely his music videos. They are insane. Sometimes they feature Carman as a MC Hammer-esque dance machine. Other times, he’s a stormy revolutionary bringing God’s honest judgment to a world on a fast track to hell. But the videos were never better than when they took on an operatic grandness, depicting the forces of good against the forces of evil.

Yep. Part evangelist, part Vegas showman, his concerts were sometimes described as a “rock and roll Billy Graham crusade.” Earnest, articulate, funny, charming, sincere, and charismatic…with movie star good looks and an Italian flair. Almost doesn’t seem fair, right? And yet, he’s always had more than his fair share of detractors. I think a lot of that could be boiled down to good old-fashioned jealousy.

“Sure, I’m an entertainer,” Carman told CCM magazine back in the 1980s. “I put everything I’ve got into my shows because everything I’ve got comes from the Lord and He wants me to use it all.” He makes no apologies for the showmanship. “Entertainment is a way of reaching out, of communicating,” he explains. “If you’re in front of an audience—I don’t care who you are—if you’re any good, you’re an entertainer.”

Carman was, as far as I can tell, only the second male artist in Christendom to be identified by one name (Dino was the first). We’d had at least a couple of females who had managed to pull it off: Evie and Honeytree. But Carmelo Domenic Licciardello decided somewhere along the way to just shorten it to Carman (can you blame him?). He joked that using his last name in some churches might cause people to think he was speaking in tongues.

with Lisa Welchel in the mid 1980s

Born January 19, 1956 in Trenton, New Jersey, Carman grew up in somewhat of a show biz family. His mom fronted an all-girl group, and he played drums and guitar for them. He ended up trying to become a star in his own right, singing first in Atlantic City, then in Vegas lounges. Disheartened by that lifestyle, he attended a concert with his sister by none other than Andrae Crouch at Disneyland’s Night of Joy in 1976. It was there that he surrendered his heart and life to the Lord.

In the summer of 1981, Carman performed a showcase at a Christian music gathering in Estes Park, Colorado. There was a gentleman in the audience who had proven himself to be a pretty fair judge of talent over the years, and he invited Carman to go on the road with him as his opening act. His name was Bill Gaither.

“I figured my stuff was too far out for him,” Carman recalls, “but he really loved what I did. So I went right out and bought a suit and tie.” Carman gained a tremendous amount of exposure opening for the Bill Gaither Trio, and learned quite a bit from the experience.

Carman’s official debut album included a funny and popular track called Some-O-Dat, and it was on his sophomore release that we were first treated to the kind of story-song that would become his trademark, in this case an epic re-telling of the resurrection of Christ called Sunday’s On the Way.

Comin’ On Strong was Carman’s third national release, his first for the Myrrh label. The album was distributed by A&M, bringing Carman to the attention of more listeners than ever before, and it boasted a more consistent sound than his previous records, thanks in large part to the efforts of producer and keyboardist Keith Thomas.

While Comin’ On Strong was considered a more cohesive effort, it was still nearly impossible to categorize Carman by music style. That’s because pop, comedy, Broadway, country, rap, rock, Gospel and soul were often offered up on a single release.

The record’s opener is a directive to Satan—who begins an album with a song to the devil?—called Get Out of My Life, with music that sounds like it could’ve been part of the soundtrack to an action-adventure flick or maybe a video game. Only Carman could sing a line like Devil, you’re losing and cruising for a bruising and make it sound semi-respectable.

His Mercy Endures Forever and Ask of Me are worshipful ballads, while Spirit-Filled Pizza draws on Carman’s biography and uses Italian stereotypes to get a few laughs. Blessed Is He Who Comes is a Palm Sunday anthem that, for some reason, is given a calypso island treatment, while He is the Son of God relies on a robotic, synthetic feel (complete with Simmons drums, synth parts and Moog bass) to present the life of Christ.

But the album’s tour de force was a dramatic story-song called Lazarus, Come Forth. This retelling of the account of the raising of Lazarus made for compelling listening and never failed to raise the hair on the back of your neck in a live concert setting.

The dramatic story-song—a combination of singing, narration, acting, choreography, humor, catch phrases, and storytelling, usually accomplished in about 7 minutes—is what Carman did best. It was a genre unto itself that was rarely even attempted by other artists. He’s Alive by Don Francisco maybe comes closest…but nobody did it as well or as consistently as Carman. Beginning with Sunday’s on the Way, I think he had at least one of these on every album from that point forward. I don’t know how in the world he remembered all the words in a live setting.

One more thing about Lazarus Come Forth – if you attended a certain type of church in the 1980s, you definitely saw that song dramatized or interpreted by your church youth group or mime team or dance ministry. Usually to varying degrees of effectiveness.

Comin’ On Strong closed with The Light of Jesus to the World, an earnest plea with a message that is needed more today than in 1985. The song seems to be ripped directly from the headlines and confronts moral and political issues, taking on Wall Street, gangs, prostitution, abortion, gambling, homosexuality, drugs, Hollywood, public schools, and dishonest politicians. The song contains the convicting question…

Tell me, when was the last time

You witnessed to your neighbor
And told him Jesus in the way?

On the back cover of Comin’ On Strong, Carman articulated what could be his philosophy of ministry. “This album,” he wrote, “is dedicated and carefully constructed to minister to the Church by moving the inner man.”

Much bigger and better things lay ahead for Carman, including gold and platinum albums, Dove Awards and concerts to stadiums filled with people. Yes, stadiums. He would also face severe trials, including a serious automobile accident and a cancer diagnosis. 

“I will continue to minister and win souls until I can’t do it any longer,” he wrote recently. “My life has always been about ministry. I have a call of God to touch lives with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and that’s what I will do until the Lord calls me home.” He added: “I will not leave this world quietly and I want the devil to know that he put cancer on absolutely the wrong Italian.”

As I write this blog post, he is still alive and well…and touring. Ever the showman, his website promotes his current concert tour as follows:

Carman Live! A CinemaSonic experience! It’s a concert. A movie. A play. A crusade. A must-see event!

And I’m sure it is.