A New Calling..Artists Who Found Religion

Rudolf Isley..Eddie Holman..Joe Simon..Al Green..Lil Richard[off and on]..Solomon Burke.

 

Are we talking about those artists who have adopted a certain type of religious outlook in which they choose not to perform secular music ?
Because , otherwise, there are untold multitudes of artists who have religious faith but do not see that as prohibiting their performing of secular music.

 

Artist who quit secular music for the pulpit.

 

Bob Dylan. George Harrison and Cat Stevens. One of the guys from Korn. Dave Mustaine?

 

Richie Furay and session man Mike Deasy immediately spring to mind...

 

Joe English from Wings

 

Started drinking again as well

 

Van Morrison released Avalon Sunset, Hymns to the Silence, and Enlightenment in the late 80s/early 90s. I like to think of it as his holy trinity.

 

Switched from secular to mostly, if not entirely, religious music:

Dan Peek from the group America
Barry McGuire
Lauren Daigle (twice made it to the Hollywood round of American Idol before choosing a contemporary Christian music career)
George Beverly Shea (turned down a spot on the radio version of Your Hit Parade to sing religious music instead)

 

Bryn Haworth
Jeremy Spencer

 

Jeff "I was in Black Sabbath, really, I was!" Fenholt

 

Tommy Collins

 

For a period of time... Joe Tex.

 

Richard Coles of The Communards became a priest.

 

Kerry Livgren from Kansas (even Kansas themselves issued a few albums with lots of Christian music)
Larry Norman (he started out in the band People and became the Father of Christian Rock)
John Michael Talbot and Terry Talbot of Mason Proffit notoriety (their CCM recordings are classic and seminal recordings in the genre)
Keith Green (not many people know he started his career as a youngster doing secular music)
Al Green
Mylon Lefevre
B.W. Stevenson (he did the CCM album Lifeline featuring the classic "Headin' Home" in 1980)
B.J. Thomas (his CCM output was huge selling and ended up saving his career)
Mallary Hope (she had a few minor hits in mainstream country that didn't do quite as well as her current career in Contemporary Christian Music although she was a successful mainstream country songwriter)
Debby Boone (in the 1980s, she was a major CCM hitmaker)
Danny Gokey
Benny Hester (he recorded an album in the early 1970s with Elvis' TCB band which was recorded for an independent label and shortly before release, the album masters got in a fire although there were promo copies that remained and became collectibles. He would later get the album remastered from his personal copy of the promo vinyl and this is available on iTunes, Amazon, etc. as a download. He would become a huge CCM star in the late 1970s-1980s.)

 

I love this period of Van Morrison!

 

Freddie Stone, brother of Sly and original guitarist with the Family Stone, is now a pastor.

And Sinead O'Connor is a priest. BBC News | ENTERTAINMENT | O'Connor becomes a 'priest'

 

Roger McGuinn and Johnny Cash - they didn't give up music though.
Alice Cooper as well.

 

Richard Thompson, by way of Mighty Baby's conversion to Islam.

 

Chris Hillman too. Didn’t give up music either.

 

Cliff Richard did a bunch of religious music albums as he is a known Christian, did not give up secular music either.

 

Mark Farner

 

I don’t have any artists to add, but this bit from the Who’s “Success Story” comes to mind:

“There's a rock and roll singer on the television
Giving up his music, gonna take up religion
Deserted rock and roll
To try to save his soul”

 

3/4 of U2 but that was before they were famous.

 

Dave Morgan of ELO became a born again Christian in the late '80s, though his earlier solo work also incorporated some religious themes as well - the Call album from 1997 is perhaps his most obvious example.