Glasnost or Revolution
Charlie Peacock's At the Crossroads
Mark Joseph
April 1, 1999
At the Crossroads: An Insider's Look at the Past, Present, and Future of Contemporary Christian Music, by Charlie Peacock (Broadman & Holman, 1999), 244 pp. By my count musician Charlie Peacock did at least three important things in the 1990s. First, he wrote, produced, and performed on a magical album called The Secret Of Time, which, unfortunately, by virtue of its being released by the CCM label Sparrow, was never heard by the rest of the popular culture. Next, Peacock wrote a book politely challenging CCM to reform itself. Then shortly after its release, he courageously decided to abandon his career in "Christian" entertainment and to become instead a pastor and teacher. Before all of that, however, Charlie Peacock was king of the burgeoning Sacramento music scene, where Mary Neely, a pastor's wife, nurtured a group of artists away from CCM and into mainstream pop and rock music. She formed Exit Records, a glorified production company, and arranged for deals with pop labels like A&M and Island. She also shrewdly found "secular" management for her artists and generally refused to allow them to be sequestered in Christian America. Charlie Peacock was her star pupil. Peacock first made a splash singing and appearing in California commercials discouraging drug use, warbling, "You got a right to say no, right to say no!" Granted, it was a corny jingle, but it was a Christian getting out into the world—no small accomplishment in 1986. Peacock's first album for Island, the home of U2, sold roughly twenty thousand units. He began to tour with established rock acts like The Fixx. Then, according to Neely, Peacock and the other artists began to get restless at the pace of their success. In the late '80s Peacock did what many ...
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