One of the most influential and controversial of all Christian music luminaries, ANDRAE CROUCH visits these shores in October. Tony Cummings fills in the history.

"There the Lord really put a burden on my heart for people. I saw the effects of my music on people that didn't know the Lord and I began to write songs like 'A Broken Vessel' and 'I Find No Fault In Him' because there were a lot of troubles around at the time."

Andrae formed a group, the COGICS, whose personnel have at various times been quoted as including Sandra Williams, Gloria Jones, Billy Preston and Sly Stone, all of whom went on to make it big in R&B. The COGIC's "It Will Never Lose It's Power" featuring the lead vocal of Gloria Jones (later to become Mrs Mark Bolan) was a local hit for Simpson Records and a subsequent album for Chicago's Exodus Records by the COGICS was released. But by then Andrae was making his first attempt at forming the Disciples. The group's "It's Gonna Rain" single for Vee Jay sold modestly but soon the group were getting bookings from all over the West Coast. In 1968 Andrae left Teen Challenge and took Andrae Crouch And The Disciples on the road. Within a year Andrae Crouch had recorded their first album for Ralph Carmichael's Light Records 'Take The Message Everywhere". It sold well and established the group on the gospel touring circuit and 18 months later another LP, 'Keep On Singin" sold ever better. (British gospel devotees had an opportunity to hear these early recordings with the release of 'The Early Years' in the Word 20 series.)

Back In the '70s

The group kept up a gruelling touring schedule and the mass media began to take notice. A key breakthrough came when the Disciples were asked to appear on the Johnny Carson Tonight TV Show and by the time of their third LP 'Soulfully', a more sophisticated production sound surrounded Andrae's haunting and heart-warming compositions. A lugubrious ballad "Everything Changed" and a Motown-ish "Satisfied" were massive Christian radio hits. Publicists began to talk about a "unique fusion of rhythm and blues, country, jazz and Latin rock" and if this was in retrospect hyperbole it was obvious that Andrae's determination to inject contemporary music elements into religious music was richly paying off.

A solo album, 'Just Andrae', was the forerunner to his biggest achievement so far when in 1974 Andrae Crouch And The Disciples appeared at New York's famed Carnegie Hall. The sleeve of the subsequent 'Live At Carnegie Hall' album declared, "We couldn't care less about recording a concert...we had church," and certainly the album showed a highly charged, emotional experience of foot-stamps, hand-claps and 10,000 "praise-the-Lords" while still retaining the melodic choruses and soulful crooning.

By the time Andrae Crouch's sixth album 'Take Me Back' was released the Disciples had been officially expanded. In addition to its founder members Sandra, Billi Thedford and Benny Morgan, Andrae brought in a powerful-voiced chanter Danniebelle Hall and gave official group status to key backing musicians trumpeter Fletch Wiley and drummer Bill Maxwell.

Crouch and Maxwell produced 'Take Me Back' and it was an in-studio combination which was to bear fruit on several of Andrae's subsequent albums. The Disciples began to venture overseas where they achieved sell-out concerts. The release of 'The Best Of Andrae Crouch And The Disciples' double album showed the full extent of Andrae's versatility ranging as it did from simple praise choruses to gospel adaptations of the Motown beat.

The album This Is Another Day' was the most ambitious production so far. A whole welter of pop music luminaries like Leon Russell and the Crusaders' Joe Sample were brought in to give more rhythmic muscle to the backing tracks and the resulting mix, though sometimes over-produced, had enough slick, sophisticated funkiness to give it a kind of "Earth Wind And Fire go gospel" sound on the fast tracks and a lush MOR sound on the slower ones.

Danniebelle and Billi were doing their share of the lead singing but possibly not enough for them. Both left over the next two years to pursue solo careers. The personnel of the Disciples began to fluctuate from record to record and tour to tour but the 'Live In London' album still found a vast audience ready to welcome any group fronted by the multi-talented singer/songwriter.

Andrae received a gold disc for the inclusion of "Jesus Is The Answer" on Paul Simon's 'Live Rhythms' album, while his Crouch Ministries, run by the former head of the South African-based Invisible Church, organised a world wide ministry which seemed to increase in size and scope with each passing year.

In 1981 Andrae effectively disbanded the Disciples as a recording unit so that his 'More Of The Best' album was credited solely to Andrae Crouch. He still brought Sandra and an assortment of friends together for concerts but live appearances tended to be less frequent, Andrae preferring instead to spend more and more time in the recording studio.

One of the Crouch/Maxwell productions which brought acclaim was the Winans' debut album. But it was the signing of a 'split' contract with the secular record giant Warner Bros and his old gospel label Light which promised to be his launch pad to even bigger things. Sadly, the subsequent album 'Don't Give Up' failed to achieve the anticipated success in the soul and pop charts for which it had been aimed.

Containing all the funky rhythms one would expect from a massive list of top session men it somehow failed to fulfil its creative, and ultimately its sales, potential. Songs lacked the memorability of Crouch's finest. In addition, conservative elements in the church criticised what they considered a worldly album, though its references to Jesus were numerous and its disco/funk rhythms were merely a continuation of Andrae's leaning towards such sounds as displayed on previous albums. But possibly in reaction to such criticism or merely to re-establish his grassroots sales support his next album 'Finally' returned to a somewhat less rhythmic approach.

Andrae's world suddenly spiralled into crisis when he was arrested by Los Angeles police who claimed he was driving his car erratically. Suspecting the singer of being high on drugs and with suspicious substances being found in his car Andrae was arrested and held overnight. But no charges were finally made, the "cocaine" granules on the car floor turned out to be 'Cambridge Diet', a milk powder food for would-be slimmers while the marijuana roach in his ashtray contained too little drug for Andrae to be charged. Andrae's subsequent extensive interview to CCM magazine where he explained that the roach had been left by a drug dependent musician he was trying to counsel didn't quite reverse the damage the incident did to Andrae's credibility while his talk of going for psychiatric help to get over the trauma of the incident and subsequent publicity raised eyebrows among those believing a greater Healer should have been sought.

Andrae recorded one last album for Light in 1984, the magnificent 'No Time To Lose' where such tracks as "O It Is Jesus" featuring the awesome voice of Tata Vega showed that the veteran composer had lost none of his ability. But then Andrae left Christian music for more lucrative pastures. Over the next few years Andrae worked with artists such as Michael Jackson, Elton John, Venessa Williams (whose husband Ramone Hervey is now Andrae's manager), Quincy Jones and even Madonna on her notorious "Like A Prayer" single. Aside from composing music for a TV special on Dr Seuss' 'Yertle The Turtle' character, Crouch recently spent time in Africa arranging music that Elton John composed for an animated Disney film, The Lion King. (He boasts, "It will probably outsell Aladdin and Beauty And The Beast put together.")