Solid Rock was founded by Larry Norman, one of the more interesting characters coming out of the 1960s rock and roll scene. Norman was born in 1947 and raised in San Francisco. He began writing songs when he was nine, and by the time he was 18 he had penned over 500 songs. He signed with Capitol Records as part of the rock group People, and in the spring of 1968, had a top-15 hit with a remake of the Zombies' "I Love You." As the story goes, Norman quit the group in disgust the day the I Love You album hit the streets, Capitol having pulled what he considered a fast one by renaming the album without the group's knowledge or consent.

Originally, the album was to have been titled We Need a Whole Lot More Jesus (And a Lot Less Rock & Roll), but at the last minute, Capitol opted for the hit single's title rather than test the waters in an unprecidented market genre of "religious rock." Actually, the album was anything but overtly religious; the erstwhile title track was a tongue-in-cheek look at the then-new "storefront churches" springing up in the West, much like Johnny Standley poked gentle fun in 1952 at the churches of the early 1950s with his "It's in the Book." According to Norman, Capitol pleaded with him not to do songs about Jesus, but when he insisted, they dropped him from the label. He went off to write stage musicals. When the "gospel rock" boomlet that he played a role in starting hit the charts in 1969, Capitol asked him back hat-in-hand, and he recorded Upon This Rock, a solo album of "Jesus Rock" that is often cited as being one of the roots of the current Contemporary Christian Music.

When Upon This Rock failed to reach the sales target Capitol expected, they dropped Norman again. Always outspoken, Norman refused to be stifled, and continued playing Christian rock, mostly to audiences in California for the next couple of years. By 1971, he was playing at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa in Orange County, where the Maranatha label was not quite yet a reality. He recorded music and put it out two albums, Street Level and Bootleg, on his own label, One Way Records, which was described as "an underground experimental" label.

Norman and other fledgling-Contemporary-Christian artists such as Love Song and Randy Stonehill began to be noticed by record companies who looked at the way Christian praise and worship was changing, and in 1972 Norman was signed to MGM/Verve Records, where he recorded two significant albums, Only Visiting This Planet and So Long Ago The Garden. These records, while significant in their setting the stage for Contemporary Christian Music, were controversial. Accepted by many of the Christian youth, they were roundly condemned by keepers of the traditional worship paradigm. Norman wasn't deaf to this criticism; he showed a sense of humor in his answer to these missles with "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?"

By the end of 1972, Norman had been touring endlessly, and he and his wife Pamela had been, in his words, "been living a la Holiday Inn" with no real home for years. He announced that he would stop touring, and "disappeared" from the touring scene for all intents and purposes. His critics took this as an opportunity to start rumors about his giving up on Christianity, but these were unfounded. Norman took the next two years to regroup, feeling that the Contemporary Christian Music scene was not fulfilling the promise of a few years earlier. Norman himself had achieved such a high profile that he felt he may be getting in the way of the genre growing; he noted that the press had tried to label him as some kind of "superstar-hippie-evangelist. It was just too much of a circus." Besides, he was devoting a lot of time to helping other Christian artists get their starts.

By 1975, Norman was ready to start his own label again, and used Word Records as distributor. The Solid Rock logo was a design Norman had come up with back in the 1960s, a play on the two different words agape (wide open) and agape (uh-GAH-pay; an often used Biblical word for God's selfless love). Although the logo was designed in 1968, he was often asked if it was a takeoff on the Rolling Stones logo that first appeared in the early 1970s. Solid Rock was part of the Jubilation Group of small labels under Word's Myrrh subsidiary.

Norman had some interesting points to make about Contemporary Christian Music in an interview included in the liner notes to In Another Land. The issue of who the audience is for CCM is still being debated today. Norman asked, "First of all, are Christian records made as entertainment for the Christians or as an evangelistic outreach for non-Christians? If they are to created to reach the unsaved world, you immediately run into a paradox. Christian albums are only sold in Christian bookstores... and that's not where non-Christians go when they're looking for records. And when they're used to paying $3.77 discount for Led Zeppelin or Jackson Browne, why are they going to pay $5.98 or $6.98 for somebody they've never heard on the radio? I mean I hate to be the one to bring this up, but I never hear anybody else admit it.... My music has always been for the non-Christians. I don't even know if you can find my albums in very many Christian bookstores. And what with all the rumors, I don't know if they'd even special-order them for people."

Actually, Word Records, the distributor for Solid Rock, was even in 1976 trying to get Christian albums into the mainstream record outlets, and would break ground in 1984 with a huge deal with A&M to distribute Word's product in secular stores.

Never one to be shy about controversy, in the same interview Norman tossed a much-needed challenge to his Christian music bretheren. "The Christian community needs to start producing top quality albums if they really expect to reach non-Christians through music," Norman said. "And they have to start writing better songs...no more cliches, no more superficial ideas; more lyrics that are totally honest...good musicianship...." A listen to today's CCM would certainly make one think that the industry eventually came around to Larry's way of thinking, with top-notch production the rule rather than the exception, and several Christian groups cracking the pop top-40 in the 1990s.

In 1978, Norman was involved in an airplane mishap that injured him and affected his ability to perform for about ten years. Three years later, his father retired from teaching and started Phydeaux Records (named for Norman's dog, pronounced Fido) as an anti-bootlegging effort. Larry Norman began touring again in the late 1980s, but the stress of constantly being on the road took its toll. In February, 1992, he had a heart attack and had to retire from touring. He was in and out of the hospital for the next three years or so. In 1995, ForeFront Records released a tribute CD called One Way: The Songs of Larry Norman, performed by many of the biggest stars of the day in Contemporary Christian Music. For the last few years of his life, Norman limited his activities outside his home base in Oregon. He died of heart failure on February 24, 2008, in his home in Salem, Oregon.

In the 1990s, Solid Rock began reissuing some of Larry Norman's huge back-catalog on CD. We have listed many of these reissues in the discography below.

We would appreciate any additions or corrections to this discography. Just send them to us via e-mail. Both Sides Now Publications is an information web page. We are not a catalog, nor can we provide the records listed below. We have no association with Solid Rock Records. Should you be interested in acquiring albums listed in this discography (all of which are out of print), we suggest you see our Frequently Asked Questions page and follow the instructions found there. CDs listed below may still be available from Larry Norman's Web Site. This story and discography are copyright 2001 by Mike Callahan.