This is from his website...
LARRY NORMAN
4/8/47 - 2/24/08
Hello everybody.
Our friend and my wonderful brother Larry passed away at 2:45 Sunday morning. Kristin and I were with him, holding his hands and sitting in bed with him when his heart finally slowed to a stop. We spent this past week laughing, singing, and praying with him, and all the while he had us taking notes on new song ideas and instructions on how to continue his ministry and art.
Several of his friends got to come and visit with him in the last couple of weeks and were a great source of help and friendship to Larry. Ray Sievers, Derek Robertson, Mike Makinster, Tim and Christine Gilman, Matt and Becky Simmons, Kerry Hopkins, Allen Fleming and a few more. Thank you guys. Larry appreciated your visits very much. And he greatly appreciated the thoughts, wishes, support and prayers that came from all of you Solid Rock friends on a daily basis. Thank you for being part of his small circle of friends over the years. Yesterday afternoon he knew he was going to go home to God very soon and he dictated the following message to you while his friend Allen Fleming typed these words into Larry's computer:
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I feel like a prize in a box of cracker jacks with God's hand reaching down to pick me up. I have been under medical care for months. My wounds are getting bigger. I have trouble breathing. I am ready to fly home.
My brother Charles is right, I won't be here much longer. I can't do anything about it. My heart is too weak. I want to say goodbye to everyone. In the past you have generously supported me with prayer and finance and we will probably still need financial help.
My plan is to be buried in a simple pine box with some flowers inside. But still it will be costly because of funeral arrangement, transportation to the gravesite, entombment, coordination, legal papers etc. However money is not really what I need, I want to say I love you.
I'd like to push back the darkness with my bravest effort. There will be a funeral posted here on the website, in case some of you want to attend. We are not sure of the date when I will die. Goodbye, farewell, we will meet again.
Goodbye, farewell, we'll meet again
Somewhere beyond the sky.
I pray that you will stay with God
Goodbye, my friends, goodbye.
Larry
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Thank you to all of you who were so nice to my brother over the years. Kristin and I will post funeral information in the next day or two. Right now we're not able to function very well, but the whole family is here... our mother Margaret, our sisters Nancy and Kristy, Mike Norman and his new wife Tiffany, and Silver.
We miss him beyond words. Thank you for everything.
Peace to you all in Christ,
Charles Norman
When I was a teenage and just getting into Christian music, Larry was the guy. Most other stuff was sweet and hard to swallow and, unless you really had the hots for Amy Grant, Larry was where you went for rock-and-roll with, as a friend of mine once called them, "interesting lyrics". He was too worldly for the church and too church for the world. He was "knocked down, kicked around"...he'd "been rebuked for the things I've said and the songs I've written and the life I've led"..."but here I am, talkin' 'bout Jesus just the same."
He had long, long blond hair, he could hit impossibly high notes, he pulled no punches in his music, he was considered the Father then the Father of CCM. He didn't necessarily like that title, CCM and wanted people to understand what his music was about...life and Jesus.
A freak accident left him physically weak but mentally still there. He released and re-released his albums via Solid Rock records at Larry Norman.com. I used to have his albums on cassette and have spent a lot of time and money re-acquiring them on CD. Even though some of them were written in the 60's and 70's, they still resonate to me today.
Larry...
You will be missed here on earth. But I look forward to the day we can talk on the golden streets about life, music and Jesus...
Eric
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