If you haven’t heard of Larry Norman, who died Sunday at age 60, don’t worry.

In fact, I’d be surprised if you HAD heard of him and were a) born after 1980 or b) not raised in the evangelical Christian subculture, like I was (although my parents were way more relaxed and cool than a lot of parents I’ve heard of).

For the uninitiated, Larry was one of the seminal figures of the Jesus Movement of the 1960s and 1970s and one of the first artists in what would become known as Contemporary Christian Music.

But his stuff is way more raw — and aesthetically pleasing — than some of what you hear on K-LOVE and similar stations today. (Yeah, I said it. I listened almost exclusively to CCM when I was in middle and high school, but thankfully, four years at Calvin cured me of that!) It’s full of passionate appeals not only for unbelievers to accept Christ, but for Christians to get their act together. Larry’s Jesus is a revolutionary taking on the establishment who wants his followers to join in.

I mention Larry on this blog because apparently he struggled with depression (he suffered a head injury in a 1978 accident). And he had a lot of ups and downs in his relationships with other musicians, too.

Still, he found hope in “the rock that doesn’t roll” and gave a definitive answer to “Why should the devil have all the good music?”

For that, Larry, thanks.