Қоңыр тас рекордтар: Христиан рок тарихындағы маңызды кезең

American record label

Solid Rock Records is a record label started by Larry Norman. It was established in 1975 to distribute his work after he had been released by Capitol Records. Solid Rock had a distribution deal with Word Records until 1980. The label's roster also included Randy Stonehill, Tom Howard, Mark Heard, Daniel Amos, Pantano & Salsbury (formerly known as the J. C. Power Outlet), and Salvation Air Force. Norman worked with David Edwards, who released his debut album on Myrrh Records in 1980, as well as Steve Scott. Scott recorded one album, Moving Pictures, produced by Norman and Heard, that was unreleased.

Strongly influenced by Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, and his community at L'Abri in Switzerland, which Norman had visited with his wife Pamela on his honeymoon in 1972, and "possibly inspired by the Apple imprint of The Beatles", in 1974 Norman founded Solid Rock Records to produce records for Christian artists who, like himself, had "no commercial value." Norman intended Solid Rock to be "a "musical L'Abri", "Solid Rock became an important moment in the history of Christian rock music since it was the first truly artist driven label". According to Norman, the purpose of Solid Rock was "to help other artists who didn't want to be consumed by the business of making vinyl pancakes but who wanted to make something 'non commercial' to the world". Solid Rock "was a community of shared ideas and discussion. Artists would work on each other's projects and even tour together. It seems to have been a place where they were trying to create art that would cross over. Larry Norman in particular had a desire to not simply create Christian music but music that was from a Christian worldview that would stand up in the mainstream and that people could accept and be challenged by". According to Solid Rock alumnus Tom Howard: "We ate together, laughed together, cried together, travelled together. It wasn't like a cult or anything; I mean we'd go off to our own families and our own pockets of friendships but there was definitely a sense of gathering among that small handful of artists". In addition to his own recordings, Larry Norman produced music for several artists on his Solid Rock label: Randy Stonehill, Mark Heard, Tom Howard, Norman also produced artists who were signed to other labels, such as Malcolm and Alwyn, Bobby Emmons and the Crosstones, and Lyrix. While Norman received production credits for two songs on Sheila Walsh's first album Future Eyes, he remixed the songs that were already recorded. In 1977 Norman signed James Sundquist to Solid Rock, which produced some of the songs on Sundquist's Freedom Flight, an album that blended ragtime and ballads, that was later released by Pat Boone's Lamb & Lion label. About 1978 Norman produced an album, Moving Pictures, for British poet and musician Steve Scott that was never released.

In December 1978 Norman signed Christian rock band Daniel Amos to Street Level Productions and also to his Street Level Artists Agency. Daniel Amos had almost completed Horrendous Disc, their third album, co produced by Mike D. Stone, when under contract to Maranatha! Music. When Maranatha! released them, as it was changing direction to children's and praise music, Horrendous Disc still needed to be mixed. Norman asked the band to replace two songs, had the album mixed and took new photos of the band for the album's cover to replace those he deemed too controversial for the Christian market, and in September 1979, Norman released a test pressing. In mid May 1980 Norman released Daniel Amos from their management contract with Street Level Productions, resulting in an estrangement in their relationship. Just before the finalization of his divorce from Pamela, in August 1980, Norman performed at the Kamperland Youth for Christ Music festival (now the Flevo Totaal Festival) in Zeeland the Netherlands with Daniel Amos band backing him. Due to the laryngitis of Terry Scott Taylor, lead singer of Daniel Amos, Norman sang their songs from Horrendous Disc with the rest of Daniel Amos backing him so that Daniel Amos could be paid.

At the Greenbelt Festival held a few days later, Daniel Amos refused to back Norman as previously agreed due to their unfolding legal action against Norman, forcing Norman to recruit another group of musicians. During this performance, Norman sang for the first time, "May Your Feet Stay On The Path", as a beatific benediction to the Solid Rock artists he had released. Horrendous Disc was not finally released by Solid Rock until April 10, 1981, ten days before the band's follow up ¡Alarma!, was released on NewPax Records. In 2000 Norman sang "Hound of Heaven" on the Daniel Amos tribute album, When Worlds Collide: A Tribute to Daniel Amos.

In June 1980 the Solid Rock community imploded due to concerns about delays in releasing albums, royalties and publishing rights, and Norman's personal life. One of the areas of disagreement within Solid Rock was over their philosophy of ministry. According to Rimmer, Fallen Angel claims that "it was at this memorable meeting that Larry, rather than bowing to the concerns of his fellow artists and the Solid Rock family, chose to strike out. With accusations against his co workers, he began the process of winding up the Solid Rock operation and the dreams of the artistic community came crashing down."

American Christian rock historian John J. Thompson identifies several factors in the collapse of Solid Rock, including possibly an over reliance on Norman's celebrity; Norman's confrontational lyrics and music, which alienated both the Christian and mainstream music industries; Norman's over commitment, including producing almost all of the Solid Rock albums, contributing songs, and singing backing vocals; and "by releasing high quality music by the best bands, Norman doomed his label to almost certain failure. He was simply way ahead of the curve". Additionally, the emergence of several punk influenced Christian bands in the late 1970s, who "cranked out music that made Larry Norman and Love Song look like antiques. Some of them even considered the members of Daniel Amos to be geezers". Stonehill opined in 1994: "As artistically heady as the days at Solid Rock were and as good as the ideas were on paper, the business end was always very loose knit. We were young guys with good ideas but not a whole lot of business sense". Norman acknowledged in a 1984 interview: "I've never been really good in the business side of it. I haven't had a problem with creativity but I've never had the business side of it together." In a 1998 letter to Randy Stonehill, Norman indicated: "I DIDN'T DO IT RIGHT: You know I never cared about money, so it's something I never worried about. Which was probably not helpful to running a record company and keeping track of everything to the artists' satisfaction. I couldn't run the label without competent assistants. I trusted Philip [Mangano] to keep track of royalties, gave him an open checkbook, and never looked over his shoulder. I thought he was my other half. And Philip just wasn't that man. He made a lot of money and I'm sorry about your royalties, but I ran the musical side and Philip ran the business side". Norman gave his rationale for the winding up of Solid Rock Records in a 1989 interview: "I couldn't run Solid Rock Records anymore because of my mental condition due to an accident, I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't finish anybody's album. I couldn't get any work done in the office, it was just real hard. And I'd already done the one album for each artist that I'd promised, and I wanted to liberate them and get them signed up with a real big record company. But they all wanted to stay together because that was what they knew I hadn't intended to produce any second albums for any of the artists. They were all out of contract. My contract wasn't really a contract to hold them to me. I had a contract with them because Word required it of Solid Rock. So, I just gave them their contract back as soon as their album was out. There was a lot of personal strife in everybody's life. My wife had decided she wanted to marry somebody else and all of the artists at the same time were leaving their wives, and I just thought this was an appropriate time for introspection. I didn't want to be up on stage and having kids come back afterwards and ask me why everyone was getting divorced. The tensions of the Solid Rock community resulted in the fracturing of several personal and professional relationships, Norman's departure overseas, the dispersal of the Solid Rock artists to other labels, and to the formation of Phydeaux Records. Norman became "a musical hermit, ceasing relationships with record companies and focusing on selling his music directly to his fans through the mail".

In February 1992, Norman had a heart attack and limited the activities of his record label until his death in 2008, but work continued to release CD versions of archival material from the 1970s.