Jesus on the Charts, 1957–1970

The Edwin Hawkins Singers, “Oh Happy Day” (1969)

Before there was Christian pop, before Christian record labels invested in radio-friendly popular music, there was Christianity in pop. Historian Don Cusic, in addition to his many books on country music, has also written extensively about Christian popular music, including an early biography of Sandi Patty (1988) and a comprehensive history of Christian music, Saved by Song: A History of Gospel and Christian Music (2012; a revision of The Sound of Light: A History of Gospel Music, which was first published in 1990). Cusic’s historical sweep in Saved by Song is expansive, addressing music of the Bible, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and others before turning to Christian music in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century US. But the bulk of Cusic’s history draws upon his extensive knowledge of the US music industries in the twentieth century and the growth of the three major genres of Christian popular music: Black gospel, Southern (white) gospel, and contemporary Christian music (or CCM).

There are a lot of trajectories that contributed to the success that CCM experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. But chief among them, Cusic would argue (and I would agree), was the fact that religious themes were not uncommon in popular music in the years preceding Christian rock and CCM. Indeed, many of the most popular artists counted gospel music as a key influence on their music, including Pat Boone, Aretha Franklin, and Elvis Presley, among others. Songs addressing religious themes found success on the radio and in stores, as measured by their popularity on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart (formerly the Top 100). Some of these include singers’ versions of traditional songs, such as Judy Collins’s “Amazing Grace,” Fats Domino’s “When the Saints Go Marching In,” Tommy Leonetti’s “Kum Ba Yah,” The Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Peter, Paul and Mary’s “Tell It on the Mountain,” and Presley’s “Peace in the Valley.” Many artists with Christian roots charted with religious songs: The Edwin Hawkins Singers’s “Oh Happy Day” (as seen/heard in the recent documentary Summer of Soul), The Impressions’s “Amen” and “People Get Ready,” Patti Labelle’s “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” and Billy Preston’s “That’s the Way God Planned It,” among others. Several artists whom we wouldn’t think of as Christian nevertheless addressed religion in hit songs, including The Byrds’s cover of “Turn! Turn! Turn!” (with lyrics taken from Ecclesiastes, chapter 3), Bobby Darin’s “Child of God,” Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” (“Jesus loves you more than you will know”), and James Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” (“Won’t you look down upon me, Jesus? / You’ve got to help me make a stand / You’ve just got to see me through another day”).

Below is a list of three dozen songs that charted on the Billboard Hot 100 during the years 1957–1970 which contained religious themes in their lyrics. The list, largely taken from Cusic’s Saved by Song (pp. 226, 238–42), is organized here by year and then alphabetical by artist within the same year. The first thing to note is the sheer number of top-10 hits here—fifteen, including five #1s! The second thing to note is the large amount of pop songs with religious themes in 1969 and 1970, which partly reflects the popular interest in religion (generally) and the Jesus People Movement (specifically) at the time. Several of these songs (marked with an asterisk) appear on the Spotify playlist for God Rock, Inc., chapter 1, and I encourage you to search out the others. After 1970, the incidence of religious themes in charting songs largely dropped off, but during the many years represented here listeners to the secular pop airwaves would not have been surprised to hear artists singing about Jesus—doing so was far from the largely disqualifying characteristic it would later come to be. And this does not even begin to address how common it was to hear religious themes in country or soul music.

• 1957

  • Pat Boone, “There’s a Gold Mine in the Sky,” Dot, peaked at #14

  • Elvis Presley, “Pease in the Valley,” RCA Victor, peaked at #25*

• 1958

  • Pat Boone, “A Wonderful Time Up There,” Dot, peaked at #4*

  • Laurie London, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands,” Capitol, peaked at #1

• 1959

  • Fats Domino, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” Imperial, peaked at #50

  • Wink Martindale, “Deck of Cards,” Dot, peaked at #7

  • The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” Columbia, peaked at #13

• 1960

  • The Highwaymen, “Michael,” United Artists, peaked at #1

• 1961

  • Bobby Darin, “Child of God,” Atco, peaked at #95

• 1963

  • Peter, Paul and Mary, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Warner Bros., peaked at #2

• 1964

  • The Bachelors, “I Believe,” Decca, peaked at #33

  • The Impressions, “Amen,” ABS-Paramount, peaked at #7

  • Patti Labelle and Her Blue Belles, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” Parkway, peaked at #34

  • Peter, Paul and Mary, “Oh Rock My Soul,” Warner Bros., peaked at #93

  • Peter, Paul and Mary, “Tell It on the Mountain,” Warner Bros., peaked at #33*

• 1965

  • The Byrds, “Turn! Turn! Turn!,” Columbia, peaked at #1*

  • The Impressions, “People Get Ready,” ABC-Paramount, peaked at #14*

  • Barry McGuire, “Eve of Destruction,” Dunhill, peaked at #1

  • Elvis Presley, “Crying in the Chapel,” RCA Victor, peaked at #3

• 1968

  • Simon and Garfunkel, “Mrs. Robinson,” Columbia, peaked at #1*

• 1969

  • Norman Greenbaum, “Spirit in the Sky,” Reprise, peaked at #3*

  • The Edwin Hawkins Singers, “Oh Happy Day,” Pavilion, peaked at #3*

  • Tommy James and the Shondells, “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” Roulette, peaked at #2

  • Tommy James and the Shondells, “Sweet Cherry Wine,” Roulette, peaked at #7

  • Frankie Laine, “Dammit Isn’t God’s Last Name,” ABC, peaked at #86

  • Tommy Leonetti, “Kum Ba Yah,” Decca, peaked at #54

  • Billy Preston, “That’s the Way God Planned It,” Apple, peaked at #62

  • Lawrence Reynolds, “Jesus Is a Soul Man,” Warner Bros., peaked at #28

  • The Youngbloods, “Get Together,” RCA Victor, peaked at #62

• 1970

  • Judy Collins, “Amazing Grace,” Elektra, peaked at #15*

  • Tommy James, “Church Street Soul Revival,” Roulette, peaked at #62

  • Paul Kelly, “Stealing in the Name of the Lord,” Happy Tiger, peaked at #14

  • Diane Kolby, “Holy Man,” Columbia, peaked at #67

  • Pacific Gas & Electric, “Are You Ready,” Columbia, peaked at #14

  • Turley Richards, “I Heard the Voice of Jesus,” Warner Bros., peaked at #99

  • James Taylor, “Fire and Rain,” Warner Bros., peaked at #3