Music of the Jesus Movement, Part 1
Photos by multiple sources
During the global revival in the early 1970s known as the Jesus Movement, dozens of new bands sprang up among the young hippies who fell in love with Jesus at Calvary Chapel. One of the most influential groups, LoveSong, plans to release a docuseries in 2024 chronicling their role as pioneers in Contemporary Christian Music.
Read below to learn how members of LoveSong were first drawn to Calvary Chapel out of the desperation in their lives.
LoveSong first performed in Calvary Chapel in 1970. From left: Bob Wall, Tommy Coomes, John Mehler, Chuck Girard, Jay Truax.
Shattered Dreams
In a beautiful house facing the ocean in Laguna Beach, CA, a group of scraggly young musicians felt like their world was imploding. Their spiritual quest had come to a screeching halt. They had sought paradise on Earth by living off the land in Hawaii, rocking music gigs in Salt Lake City, UT, and returning to Southern California—yet no amount of surfing, drugs, girls, rock ’n’ roll, or Eastern mysticism had been able to fill the emptiness inside.
John Mehler was the drummer for LoveSong, one of the first bands to introduce the music of the Jesus Movement. After he heard the Gospel at Calvary Chapel in the early 1970s, he gave his life to Christ. John was impressed by the happiness and camaraderie he witnessed among the worshipers there.
Even the pursuit of art and music had let them down. The oldest of the group, Chuck Girard, 26, had brushed with Billboard chart fame with The Castells and The Hondells. A high school alcoholic, he had moved on to marijuana and taken at least 500 trips on LSD. Chuck and the guys even talked about Jesus’ promise, “Seek and you shall find,” but they weren’t sure what it meant. A few of them tried traditional churches but were turned away. Now, they were aimless and soul-weary beyond their years.
Jay Truax was LoveSong’s bass player. This band of hippies dedicated their talents to God and started writing songs about Jesus.
They weren’t alone. In a 2014 interview, Chuck Girard recounted the disillusionment of thousands of young hippies searching for meaning or transcendence through drugs, sex, or other empty pursuits.
LoveSong performed at what was dubbed a “Christian Woodstock” music festival, a six-day event held in Dallas, TX, which drew about 140,000 people from all over the country.
“You had this huge, massive, counter-culture group going through the same changes, if you will, at the same time through the leadership of the Beatles and other groups that were … connecting with us, and reinforcing what we were experiencing,” Chuck Girard explained. “So right around the same time, everybody became disillusioned like we did: ‘OK, we’ve gone to the end of this thing, and even John Lennon is saying the dream is over, so where do we go from here?’ … I don’t know of any other time in history where you had so many people at the same plateau: ‘We’ve done all of this; we’re done.’ So there were only two choices: Go back into the world and money … or over into Christianity.”
Pastor Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, CA, stands beside LoveSong as they lead a crowd in worship at a beach baptism. From left, LoveSong original band members: Jay Truax, Tommy Coomes, Fred Field, Chuck Girard.
Drugs only led to more pain. On his final LSD trip, Chuck Girard encountered horrible loneliness, as if his soul was adrift without God. Tommy Coomes and Fred Field faced jail time. They knew they needed help but didn’t know where to go.
Aglow with Jesus
Young people rejoice as hundreds are baptized after accepting Jesus.
One night, a girl they knew from Salt Lake City knocked on their door. Fred answered and recognized Sandy Love, a sweet hippie gal whose mind had sadly been scrambled by drugs. Yet tonight, she was a new person. “Her countenance, her face, everything about her was completely changed,” Fred recalled. “She was radiant, exuding light. That was something I wanted.” With a gentle boldness, Sandy urged, “Fred, you’ve got to stop smoking marijuana and give your life to Jesus.” A puzzled Fred didn’t quite see the connection.
Pastor Chuck baptized hundreds of young people every month at Pirate’s Cove Beach in Newport Beach, CA, during the height of the Jesus Revolution. Photo by Jay McCarl
The others noticed Sandy’s transformation. “She seemed to glow from within,” described Tommy Coomes in a 2009 group interview. She invited them to a church called Calvary Chapel. Tommy remembered, “I knew it was real, that God was doing something there.” Intrigued, they drove with her that night to a Calvary Chapel-sponsored home to meet some other born-again hippies. On the way, Sandy professed, “My whole life is different now, every day since I met Jesus.”
Pastor Chuck Smith, the Calvary Chapel founder, shares the Gospel in Hawaii after LoveSong played.
In our next installment, we'll share how LoveSong members met Pastor Chuck Smith and formed the band.
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