In the late 1960s and 70s, droves of hippies and freaks bounced back from various countercultural bummers by embracing the “One Way” of Jesus Christ. Though they rejected many aspects of the underground scene—fun stuff like drugs, free love, and the occult smorgasbord—the Jesus Freaks kept others very much alive. They had a strong yen for intense spiritual experiences and communal tribes, as well as an apocalyptic sense of imminent global transformation. In stark contrast to previous generations of American Christians, who largely rejected popular culture as the devil’s work, these hirsute believers also embraced countercultural media—street newspapers, bumper-stickers, coffee shops, and especially rock music—to get the word out. (Elsewhere I have written about how the fabulous Haight Street poster artist Rick Griffin kept designing Grateful Dead album covers and underground comix after finding Jesus in 1970. Above "Pieta" handbill photo by Griffin and photographer Bob Seidermann.)
A lot of Jesus Freak music was inexpensively recorded and pressed on private labels, which means that its tough to track down (a boon for collectors) and often amateurish in execution. But with the most incandescent bands, a smattering of which are introduced below, the rough edges are more than made up for with a roaring passion and visionary intensity almost entirely lacking in the more commercially successful “CCM” dreck that this obscure and driven music helped spawn.
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