#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.

#297 SAY A PRAYER by Lenny LeBlanc (1983)

SAY A PRAYER by Lenny LeBlanc (1983)
Heartland Records - WU 38649

Producers:

Jon Phelps, Lenny LeBlanc


File Under: Pop & Soft Rock

Time Capsule-Worthy Track:

Say a Prayer

Having already experienced a great deal of success in mainstream pop music, Lenny LeBlanc brought his radio-friendly voice, soft rock sensibilities and hook-filled songwriting talents over to the CCM world following his conversion to Christianity in 1980. His initial Christian offering, 1983’s Say A Prayer, did not disappoint; the title track became a top-10 single. Granted, this was another rent district altogether from the success LeBlanc had with Falling in the late 70s. But his life was together and he was making good music that reflected the new priorities in his life. It was all good, as we used to say.

Lenny LeBlanc was born in 1951 and grew up in Daytona Beach, Florida. “Pete Carr and I had a local band back then and on weekends Duane and Gregg Allman would sit in with us,” Lenny recalls. “Daytona was a good town for music back then. It was a good place to start. You could make a decent living playing clubs.”

Several years later, Lenny’s friend and former band mate, Pete Carr, had become part of a happening music scene in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, and he encouraged Lenny to join him there. LeBlanc has called Florence, Alabama home ever since.

Lenny found work as a studio bassist and background vocalist, and soon found himself earning a living doing what he loved – making music. Before long his talent was noticed and he was encouraged to send a demo tape to the famed producer Jerry Wexler. Wexler liked what he heard and Lenny LeBlanc inked a deal with Atlantic Records. After a mildly successful solo album, it was suggested that Lenny and his friend Pete form a duo. LeBlanc & Carr was born, and a song called Falling made them famous. They appeared on influential national television shows like American Bandstand and The Midnight Special; and you could hardly turn a radio on in the late 70s without hearing Falling.

L-R: Lenny LeBlanc, Dick Clark, Pete Carr

Falling was that quintessential 70s soft rock love song; if you’re a man of a certain age, it reminds you, in a good way, of the girl you had a crush on in high school. It was a huge hit, staying on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for 28 weeks straddling 1977 and 1978. Carr eventually decided he was better suited for studio life and LeBlanc moved on to Capitol Records.

In 1980 Lenny LeBlanc heard from an old friend that he knew as a Vietnam vet and a drug smuggler. Not just a drug user, a smuggler. The guy had surrendered his life to Jesus. He asked Lenny if he was saved. Lenny said yes…but now admits that at the time he didn’t even know what 'saved' meant. 

“He said, ‘Lenny, I’m going to Heaven and I want you to be there with me,’” LeBlanc remembers. “I really knew this guy. He had been like a brother to me growing up. Something profound was going on, and I knew that my own life was about to change.”

The friend sent Lenny a Bible and he began to read it. Within weeks, he too had decided to follow Jesus. “Finding Jesus was like a sign post in my life,” Lenny says. “My friends would come over and they would say, ‘What has happened to you?’ They could just see it in my countenance, that something was different.” Lenny adds, “Whatever storm comes, I know I can look back and never refute what happened to me.”

Lenny had already grown somewhat disenchanted with the music business. Yes, it paid the bills, but it had cost him his first marriage and just wasn’t providing any real sense of peace or fulfillment. So he began to transition to CCM without even knowing what was happening. 

“At the time I got saved, I was still signed to Capitol Records,” LeBlanc recalls. “I had one record left on my contract to fulfill. So I would sit down and try to write a love song, but before I got halfway finished with the song, it’d be about Jesus! That’s what was happening in my heart. I didn’t care anymore about writing love songs; I wanted to write about this amazing God that had changed my life and gave me peace for the first time! So I had a dilemma. The record company was not going to want these ‘Jesus songs.’ I knew that right away. So I called my manager in Los Angeles and I asked him if he thought Capitol would let me out of my record deal. He thought I’d lost my mind, and so did most of my friends. All of my income was tied to that record deal. Because there was a songwriting deal in there, a publishing agreement, a recording contract – that’s where I earned my living. Now, I think I could’ve been a pop artist and a believer. I think we need believers in pop music, and there are many of them in country music and pop music. But for me – I felt God leading me somewhere different. And keep in mind that 'Contemporary Christian Music' was very small as a genre, it was kind of still in its infancy at that time.” 

But Lenny just didn’t have the desire to write straight pop songs anymore. He wanted to write about God. 

“So financially, everything went south,” he laments. “We lost just about everything. I had just started dating the woman who was to become my wife at about the time I got saved; she got saved along with me. We got married a few months later, and we struggled for about five or six years. We drove old, clunky cars, and at one time a bicycle was all I had for transportation. But I had peace. I had that peace that no one can give you. Money can’t give it to you; fame can’t give it to you. I was happy singing songs about the Lord, and I never dreamed that God would give me the opportunities that He has.” 

I’ll mention those “opportunities” at the end of this post, but Lenny ended up doing skilled carpentry work to earn a modest living and along the way began to design and build handmade furniture. Eventually, music came knocking again, and Lenny recorded a full-length Christian album for Heartland Records in 1983, the warmly-received Say a Prayer. 

Lenny’s songwriting talents are on full display here; it’s a record full of musical hooks that get stuck in your head for hours at a time. Musically, it’s the kind of pop and soft rock that LeBlanc was known for, the perfect vehicle for his smooth, comfortable, distinctive vocals. There are a couple of straight-ahead rock and roll songs on Say a Prayer (Give Your Heart to the Lord and I Don’t Understand) but the majority of this project is accessible, radio-friendly fare. Recorded in Nashville, Orlando and Muscle Shoals, the album featured an impressive lineup of musicians, including Will McFarlane, Jon Goin, David Hungate, Larrie Londin, Farrell Morris and Shane Keister. Michelle Pillar sang back-up vocals. The album cover, designed by The Malone Group in Jacksonville, Florida, shows a cleaned-and-scrubbed Lenny holding the famous painting of an old man praying over a meal (along with a very-80s graphic treatment of his name).

LeBlanc's sophomore CCM release, 1984’s Person to Person was similarly pleasant – well played, sung and produced. Looking back, perhaps Say a Prayer and Person to Person got lost in the crush of CCM records coming out in the early 80s, most of which were either delving headlong into arena rock or new wave.  

Lenny in the 1980s

LeBlanc has recorded several albums over the years, but he truly found his voice and his calling as a worship leader and a writer and composer of worship songs. Like his friends Terry Clark and Kelly Willard, Lenny was worship before worship was cool. His songs like Above All, There is None Like You and We All Bow Down have been recorded many times and sung the world over by believers in large rallies, church services, home groups and quiet personal devotions. Lenny has also found songwriting success as popular secular acts like Sawyer Brown, Randy Travis, Ricky Skaggs, Willie Nelson and others have recorded his songs. 

Today, LeBlanc still makes his home in the deep South (with his wife Sherrie), still has a passion for creating high-end, custom furniture pieces, and literally travels the world, sometimes alone and sometimes with his friend Don Moen, training worship leaders and helping God’s people discover intimacy and authenticity in worship. 

Falling? Yeah, he still sings it now and then. In fact, he recorded a new acoustic version of the song a few years ago. You just can’t keep those awesome, mushy 70s romantic soft rock ballads down for very long. They’re always going to pop back up now and then and visit for a while…you know, like an old friend.

Trivia:

• LeBlanc & Carr were originally expected to be on board the airplane that crashed in 1978, killing several members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd. “They offered Pete and me two seats on the plane because they had them available,” recalls Lenny. “We declined because the rest of our band was driving, and we didn’t want any dissension to arise in the band.”

• Lenny LeBlanc has written songs that have been recorded by Olivia Newton John, Willie Nelson, America, Roy Orbison, Michael W. Smith, Rebecca St. James, John Tesh, Twila Paris, Jamie Owens Collins, and Kelly Willard. He has sung background vocals on projects by Michelle Pillar, David & the Giants, Annie Herring, Twila Paris, Kelly Willard, and many more. 

• Falling was named a BMI Millionaire Song signifying one million or more radio airplays. It was also named one of Billboard’s All-Time Favorite Top 40 Hits.

Lenny LeBlanc today

#298 WORLD OF SAND by Servant (1982)

WORLD OF SAND by Servant (1982)
Rooftop Records - RT 1000

Producers: 
Jonathan David Brown, Jim Palosaari, Servant


File Under: Synth Pop/Rock

Time Capsule-Worthy Track:

Cheap Talk 

With their first two albums Servant had earned for themselves a cult following of passionate proportions. A musical ministry arm of the Highway Missionary Society, they were true believers – holdover hippie Christians who actually lived communally and practiced what they preached. Their music and overall presentation in the early years was rough, raw, rowdy, and sometimes ragged around the edges. Their live concerts were an assault on the senses, utilizing laser lights, drama and special effects to an unheard-of degree in the late 70s and early 80s. A Servant concert was a big deal.

After 1980’s Rockin’ Revival, Servant’s community formed its own record label (Rooftop Records) in order to exert greater control over their music, and struck up a distribution deal with the Benson company. The result was World of Sand, a somewhat transitional album that found the group moving away from the classic rock and blues of their first two releases and toward a new style of synth-driven pop and new wave that was gaining in popularity. World of Sand boasted a larger recording budget, better production values, a cover illustration from the highly regarded Kernie Erickson (who gained a measure of fame for his illustrations on the covers of several Sweet Comfort Band albums), and is said to have sold over 20,000 units in the first two months of availability. The group’s biggest liability was probably their vocals. But whatever went lacking in that department was more than made up for in authenticity and sincerity.

Lyrically, World of Sand continued the Servant tradition of taking strong stands against the love of money, excesses in the Church, hypocrisy, and lukewarm Christianity. The album is most remembered for its novelty, rock-opera style tracks – namely, Jungle Music and Sudden Death.

Blogger David Lowman wrote, “Jungle Music must have sounded really good on paper…but has not worn well these many years later.” Agreed. In the vein of Larry Norman’s Why Should the Devil (Have All the Good Music), Petra’s God Gave Rock and Roll to You, Terry Clark’s A Little Rock and Roll, Rick Cua’s You Can Still Rock and Roll and DeGarmo & Key’s Don’t Stop the Music, Jungle Music is a full-throated defense of Christian Rock music as a valid art form and evangelistic tool. At the time, the so-called "Rock Wars" were raging hot, and this song made some great points along those lines. It was later dramatized in the band’s live concerts (to great effect) and the end of the song featured spoken dialogue that cleverly name-dropped a lot of the most popular Christian Rock bands and solo artists of that era. But like so many novelty songs, this track doesn’t hold up well to repeated listening. The safari sound effects and repetitious nature of the melody just wear out their welcome after a while. That said, it was very memorable and was an important apologetic for people who loved God and rock and roll…in that order.

Sudden Death is where things got real. It’s an 8-minute musical retelling of the deaths of three of Servant’s young community members in a tragic accident. It’s basically a musical suite or “rock opera” that navigates several musical and emotional twists and turns. I’m sure that this was cathartic and incredibly helpful to the band members in their efforts to come to terms with what had happened and why. And it is amazingly impressive on that front. But at the same time it can be difficult, painful, and even gut-wrenching to listen to. Which means that this song, as well, doesn’t lend itself particularly well to repeated spins. 

Sudden Death was important for another reason, however. It was a harsh reality check for those who mistakenly believed that “Jesus takes away all your problems” and that bad things never happen to “good” people. On their official website, the members of Servant wrote, “In a glitzy, self-centered era, the notion that following Jesus might entail horrific loss was a message that found its way to many wounded hearts. That God was big enough for our anger and confusion was healing to many, ourselves included.”

The tragedy of Sudden Death is resolved in the hopeful “altar call” song Come, Jesus, Come…ending World of Sand on a high note.

The initial release of World of Sand featured eight songs on the main LP with an included 7” bonus record that featured Cog in the Wheel and a muscular instrumental titled Treeplanter Stomp.

After World of Sand, Servant moved even further toward an 80s sound and continued to deliver their message of holiness and Bible-based social justice in some of the most entertaining ways possible.