Bold, Strange and Beautiful
Charlie Peacock's strangelanguage
Dwight Ozard
October 1, 1996
One of the most genuinely surprising-and exciting-musical experiences I've had came a few years ago watching Charlie Peacock at the Cornerstone Music Festival. Festival crowds are, well, unsubtle things-they want sensation, and they want it now. Most performers respond by whipping the crowd into submission with a barrage of manic musical energy, or a chant or cheer designed to remind their audience of their righteousness. Not so Peacock. Having been introduced by an overly zealous emcee ("Are you ready to dance?"), he mounted the stage with restraint that defied festival logic. As if to taunt the expectations of his introduction, for six songs Peacock cleverly deconstructed rock and roll's cheerleading strut and transformed Cornerstone's outdoor amphitheater into a living room, offering his songs in intimate and understated arrangements that demanded attention, and quiet. With 15,000 fans near silence, the artist gently unveiled his heart.
For those of us familiar with Peacock's work as artist, songwriter, producer, teacher, and now, record company president, this quiet boldness was no surprise. Throughout Peacock's fifteen years in Christian music, he has nurtured a decidedly Christian aesthetic of grace. Even his most mainstream recordings have been marked by a bold desire to create an art that is intelligent, instinctive, and above all beautiful, dealing with all of life out of a Christian worldview, and suggestive of the ways God makes himself known to us.
At a time when contemporary Christian music as a whole was retreating into the safe if boring structures of overt, propositional piety, Peacock was delving into themes as diverse-and biblical-as depression and sexuality, offering insight on the reach of the holy into ...
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