[7][8] Joe Norman had served as a sergeant in the US Army Air Corps during World War II[9] and worked at the Southern Pacific Railroad[10] while studying to become a teacher.

[17] Norman graduated from Campbell High School in 1965[18][19][20] and won an academic scholarship to major in English at San José State University.

[23] While still in high school, Norman formed a group called The Back Country Seven, which included his sister Nancy Jo and friend Gene Mason.

performed about 200 concerts a year,[25] appearing with Van Morrison and Them, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Doors, the Who, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape, and San Jose bands Syndicate of Sound and Count Five.

[26] The band's cover of the Zombies' "I Love You" became a hit single, selling over one million copies and charting strongly in several markets.

[32] In July 1968, following a job offer to write musicals for Capitol Records, Norman moved to Los Angeles where he "spent time sharing the gospel on the streets".

"[35][36] He was initially associated with the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood,[37] and its Salt Company coffee house outreach ministry,[38][39] where he explored and pioneered the rock-gospel genre.

[41][42][43][44][45][46] The next year, Norman and his friend Teddy Neeley auditioned for the Los Angeles production of the rock musical Hair and were offered the roles of George Berger and Claude Bukowski, respectively; Neeley accepted, but Norman rejected the role of George, despite his own financial struggles, because "of its glorification of drugs and free sex as the answers to today's problems".

[57] By the early 1970s, Norman was performing frequently for large audiences, and appeared at several Christian music festivals,[39][55][58][59][60][61][62] including Explo '72, a six-day Dallas event which has been called the "Jesus Woodstock.

[66] Released in 1972, Visiting "was meant to reach the flower children disillusioned by the government and the church" with its "abrasive, urban reality of the gospel", and has often been ranked as Norman's best album.

[33] The release of Garden in November 1973 was met with controversy in the Christian press, due to the album's cover art and some songs in which Norman took the persona of a backslider.

[73] Norman also worked with several artists who were signed to other labels, including Malcolm and Alwyn, Bobby Emmons and the Crosstones, Lyrix, James Sundquist and David Edwards.

"[90] In September 1979, Norman performed his "The Great American Novel", "a Dylanesque protest song", for U.S. president Jimmy Carter and about 1,000 guests at the Old Fashioned Gospel Singin' concert held on the south lawn of the White House.

[94][95] Religious history professor Randall Balmer attributed the company's demise to "idealism, marital difficulties, and financial naivete—as well as changing musical tastes.

[101][102][103][104][105][106][107] Norman then began work on an anthology project celebrating his career in Christian music, beginning with the album White Blossoms from Black Roots: The History and the Chronology: Volume One;[108][109] however, the project collapsed when the head of the distribution company was arrested for check forgery and the company's merchandise was seized by the FBI.

[115] While visiting another musician at the close of a February 1991 tour, Norman received prayer for his long-term health problems from a pastor of London's Elim Way Fellowship.

[120][121] Norman continued to perform and release albums throughout his later years in order to raise funds for medical expenses stemming from heart problems.

He wrote in September 2007, "I love God and I follow Jesus but I just don't have much affinity for the organized folderol of the churches in the Western World.

"[124] Norman's music addressed a wide range of social issues, such as politics, free love, the occult, the passive commercialism of wartime journalists, and religious hypocrisy, that were outside the scope of his contemporaries.

[131] When Bono met with a summit of Nashville Christian music artists in 2002 to garner support for an African aid campaign, he specifically asked to see Norman.

"[133] According to Charles Normal, Larry Norman attended his "first of many" punk rock shows while touring London in 1977, seeing Richard Hell and the Voidoids, the Damned, and Dead Boys.

Regarding the punk movement, Norman stated that while he initially disliked some of the lyrical content, he was generally supportive of it and its youthful energy, which he viewed as preferable to disco.

Larry Norman began to meet figures from the L.A. punk scene, and eventually recorded tracks with former Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones.

[173][174][175] The previous day he had posted on his website: I feel like a prize in a box of Cracker Jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up.

[176]Following a public memorial on March 1 at the Church on the Hill in Turner, Oregon, Norman was buried in Salem's City View Cemetery.

[178][181] A cease and desist notice initiated by Norman's family temporarily prevented the film's public screening, and prompted Di Sabatino to file his own lawsuit against Solid Rock in March 2009.

[184] Gregory Alan Thornbury's biography of Norman proposes an alternate date and reason for Solid Rock Records being wound up and the artists released from their contracts.

Some discussions had already begun about certain artists being released from their contracts prior to the meeting on June 17, 1980, which was called to "clear up the relationship between Solid Rock and Street Level Artists Agency, and to deal with Daniel Amos' request to have all their contracts back from Solid Rock — management, recording, tapes, publishing, and so on" and which ended two hours later in stalemate and acrimony rather than resolution.