Gospel music

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Chris Hillman of the Byrds sings (and writes) about faith, fame and musical ties that bind

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Chris Hillman of the Byrds sings (and writes) about faith, fame and musical ties that bind

The Byrds' classic "Turn! Turn! Turn!" didn't sound like anything on the radio when it hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1965.

For starters, the lyrics came from the Book of Ecclesiastes, noting "there is a season, and a time for every purpose, under Heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, a time to reap. A time to kill, a time to heal. A time to laugh, a time to weep."

What critics failed to realize, said Byrds co-founder Chris Hillman, was that covering the late Pete Seeger's classic was a logical move for musicians steeped in American roots music. Songs about struggle, glory, sacrifice and faith were common in early '60s folk concerts.

"Where did all of our music come from? Blues and Gospel. … White church, black church, the music all came from church," said Hillman, in a recent interview. "With the Byrds, we went right to that well. We didn't think twice about it. We didn't say, 'We can't do a Christian song.' "

Hillman's musical roots became more obvious as the Byrds ventured into what many started calling "country rock," especially with the landmark "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" album in 1968. Bluegrass, country and Gospel themes played a larger role as Hillman began writing songs for the Byrds and his later bands.

While the Byrds put him in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, it was Hillman's grassroots connections that made history, according to the legend who produced his "Bidin' My Time" solo project in 2017. The late Tom Petty said: "Chris was a true innovator -- the man who invented country rock. Every time the Eagles board their private jet, Chris at least paid for the fuel."

That musical and spiritual journey is clear in Hillman's recent autobiography, "Time Between," with its mix of rock lore and personal reflections. Rather than offering a tell-all about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, Hillman focuses on lessons he learned along the way and his love for the musicians who, flaws and all, helped him.

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Bob Dylan at 80: Still telling tales about divine judgment in a broken, fallen world

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Bob Dylan at 80: Still telling tales about divine judgment in a broken, fallen world

Night after night, Bob Dylan's 1979 Gospel concerts at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre made news for all the wrong reasons, according to angry fans.

The November 11th show opened with Dylan roaring into "Gotta Serve Somebody" from "Slow Train Coming," the first of what Dylanologists called his "born-again" albums.

"You may be a businessman or some high-degree thief," he sang. "They may call you doctor, or they may call you chief, but you're gonna have to serve somebody. … Well, it may be the Devil, or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody."

To add insult to injury, these concerts included fiery sermons by Dylan, while he avoided classic songs that made him a legend.

"I was 19 years old and that was my first Dylan concert," recalled Francis Beckwith, who teaches Church-State Studies at Baylor University. "The atmosphere was highly charged. Some people booed or walked out. … There were people shouting, 'Praise the Lord!', but you could also smell people smoking weed."

Beckwith kept going to Dylan concerts, while following years of reports about whether the songwriter was still a Christian, had returned to Judaism or fused those faiths. These debates will continue as fans, critics, scholars and musicians celebrate Dylan's 80th birthday on May 24th.

With a philosophy doctorate from Fordham University in New York and a law degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Beckwith is certainly not a conventional music critic. He made headlines in 2007 when -- while president of the Evangelical Theological Society -- he announced his return to Catholicism.

To mark that birthday, Beckwith is publishing online commentaries on what he considers Dylan's 80 most important songs. The Top 10: "Like a Rolling Stone," "My Back Pages," "Stuck Inside of Mobile With the Memphis Blues Again," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Visions of Johanna," "Tangled Up in Blue," "Blowin' in the Wind," "Precious Angel," "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding) and "Desolation Row."

Beckwith considered three factors -- popularity, lasting cultural significance and, finally, whether each song was "something I could listen to over and over." He stressed that Dylan's entire canon includes images and themes rooted in scripture and faith.

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Why me, Lord? Bob Dylan and the spiritual, musical ties that bind

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After decades of listening to his critics, Bob Dylan has learned to shrug, look to the heavens and keep on going.

"Critics have always been on my tail since day one," he said, at the gala saluting him as 2015 MusiCares Person of the Year. "Some of the music critics say I can't sing. I croak. Sound like a
frog. … Why me, Lord?"

Critics insist that the problem is that he keeps "confounding expectations," he said. "I don't even know what that means. … Why me, Lord? My work confounds them obviously, but I really don't know how I do it."

Maybe its time, he said, for another Gospel album, perhaps with the legendary Blackwood Brothers, including the hymn "Stand By Me." Dylan quoted the lyrics, ending with: "In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. When I do the best I can, and my friends don't understand, Thou who knowest all about me, stand by me."

For decades, armies of experts have pondered the contents of Dylan's mind. Secular critics and religious scribes of various stripes can quote chapter and verse while debating whether the alleged voice of his generation, now 73 years old, is a true believer in their various causes.

Now, in two revelatory blasts -- his MusiCares speech and a lengthy AARP the Magazine interview -- Dylan has gone out of his way to stress that there is no great mystery. The bottom line: He is an American songwriter and artist, one with roots deep into America's spiritual and musical soil.

Dylan does his Dylan thing in China

The drama that unfolded in Beijing began when police evicted the unregistered Shouwang "house church" from its usual meeting place. The police arrived again when this same flock tried to gather in a public place last Sunday. A church member who escaped told the Associated Press that about 200 were arrested.

This kind of persecution is old news for those concerned about the 60 million or so Christians in China's "underground" churches. The crackdowns have become so common that they rarely inspire protests from human-rights activists.

Bob Dylan, however, is another matter. His first-even concert in China opened with an edgy gospel rocker that slipped past the Ministry of Culture officials who allegedly screened the April 6th set list to make sure it was safe.

"Change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules. … Gonna put my best foot forward, stop being influenced by fools," sang Bob Dylan, performing a classic from the "Slow Train Coming" album that opened his "born again" era.

So who might the "fools" be in this context?

Seconds later, Dylan veered into alternative lyrics for "Gonna Change My Way of Thinkin'," written for a duet with gospel star Mavis Staples. These lyrics added a clear reference to "end times" doctrines and the second coming of Jesus -- subjects Chinese authorities have tried to curb in sermons, music and religious education.

"Jesus is calling," he sang. "He's coming back to gather his jewels. ... Well, we live by the golden rule, whoever's got the gold rules."

Many critics, however, noted that the set list omitted Dylan's most famous anthems of political protest, such as "The Times They Are A-Changin' " or "Blowin' in the Wind." The Washington Post coverage claimed that the set was "devoid of any numbers that might carry even the whiff of anti-government overtones."

Then again, maybe the mainstream writers who voiced similar sentiments about this historic concert in the Worker's Gymnasium in Beijing were only listening for messages about politics, as opposed to messages about religious freedom.

Many years ago, commentator Bill Moyers told me that the reason so many journalists struggle to cover religion news is that they are "tone deaf" to the music of faith in public life. That image still rings true for me, after 23 years of writing this column for the Scripps Howard News Service and more than three decades of research into life on the religion beat.

For me, the coverage of the Beijing concert was a classic example of this "tone deaf" syndrome. It certainly seems that many reporters attended, but they didn't hear what they wanted to hear. They decided that Dylan had copped out, since he didn't sing the songs that they knew and respected.

In a column called "Blowin' in the Idiot Wind," Maureen Dowd of the New York Times proclaimed -- with a bitter snap -- that Dylan "may have done the impossible: broken creative new ground in selling out." His sins, she added, were even "worse than Beyoncé, Mariah and Usher collecting millions to croon to Qaddafi's family, or Elton John raking in a fortune to serenade gay-bashers at Rush Limbaugh's fourth wedding."

This was a rather typical comment in this mini-firestorm.

It's hard to believe that scribes who were familiar with the wide spectrum of the Dylan canon could miss the point of that opening number, said Jeffrey Gaskill, who produced "Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan," the 2003 album that included the Dylan-Staples duet.

"It is absolutely safe to assume that he's going to make a statement with his first song in a concert as symbolic as that one," said Gaskill. "That's Dylan history, right there. That's what he is going to do."

Truth is, Dylan's music has always contained a stream of religious images, he added. This was true long before he began mixing his Jewish beliefs with an apocalyptic brand of Christianity -- influences that continue to shape his music to this day.

This faith-driven worldview, added Gaskill, is "the most important aspect of his career -- hands down. It has lasted longer than his so-called political protest period, an era in which his work already contained religious themes. ...

"Some people simply refuse to come to terms with this side of Bob Dylan. They just can't handle it."