Marjoe Gortner - World's Youngest Evangelist (mp3s)

[bananas]

Downloadable mp3's and album artwork at wfmu.
I listened for about ten seconds to #1 and #8.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2007/02/365_days_35_mar.html

February 04, 2007
365 Days #35 - Marjoe Gortner - World's Youngest Evangelist (mp3s)

MP3:
01 To This End Was I Born (Age 4) (5:28)
02 You'd Better Get Ready (Age 4) (2:36)
03 Now Is The Hour (Age 4) (3:00)
04 The Great Judgement Morning (Age 6) (3:18)
05 Jesus Came (Age 4) (2:58)
06 I'll Carry The Torch (Age 6) (3:19)
07 It's In My Heart (Age 6) (2:53)
08 Lovers Lane (Age 6) (2:52)
09 Hell With The Lid Off (Age 8) (2:43)
10 God's Blockade (Age 8) (6:01)
11 I Love That Man Of Galilee (Age 8) (3:08)

Marjoe! Marjoe! Marjoe!

- Contributed by: Otis Fodder

Images: Front Cover, Back Cover

Media: 12" LP
Album: World's Youngest Evangelist

[MADem]

1. He's in his sixties now. There's a great film about him that won best documentary thirty some odd

years ago.

Get a load of this, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zHqKI4X8bA

[murielm99]

2. I rented that documentary

from Netflix not long ago. I am not quite sure why I thought about it and ordered it after all these years. But it was worth the viewing.

Sure, Marjoe wore seventies clothes and spoke in now dated California/drug scene slang when he was not evangelizing. But some things about evangelizing have not changed.

All those preachers worked a circuit of tents and churches. They knew each other. They knew how to get money out of the crowds. At one point, an older preacher sees Marjoe counting his take, and says, "You done good, boy."

Marjoe tried to quit the circuit, but the money was too good. He would preach for six months, and live off the proceeds for the next six months.

The current evangelists work crowds in much the same way. They all know each other. The difference is that they have a TV audience and donor database these days so they can take in more money.

Everyone should see this documentary. They should show it in adult Sunday school classes.

Marjoe had a career as a B movie actor. He quit doing that when he turned fifty. It never was much of a career. These days, he does a job that he has been trained for since childhood. He is a professional fundraiser. Groups or businesses hire Marjoe, and he talks the pennies off the eyelids of corpses. Ironic.

[Journeyman]

3. Gortner showed up at a Leon Russell concert I attended in the '70s. . .

We'd never heard of him but Russell introduced him, so we gave a polite listen.

He launched into some evangelical gibberish and the crowd grew restless, then loudly rude. Eventually, he stepped to the side of the stage and another guy, a short fat guy, stepped to the mic and began ranting -- for some unfathomable purpose -- about how unreasonable the fire department had been about the seating in the arena. This was at The Forum, in Los Angeles, some 30,000 seats arrayed around the main floor, the stage at one end. I was in the second row on the floor, less than 30 feet from the stage.

Suddenly, this maniac's rant about seating turned homicidal and he invited everyone -- everyone -- to COME ON DOWN! In a panic, I whirled about while 30,000 stoned concertgoers rose en masse and moved toward the floor!

The look of panic in the Yellowshirts' eyes -- the college football players and wrestlers who were hired as security -- was palpable. In a flash, I sized the moment and knew what I was going to do -- if it turned to a stampede, my best hope was to get to the stage, and if I made it I knew without doubt I'd kill Gortner and his fat friend. I don't say that lightly, but only because I knew if I made it my way would be cleared by the deaths a lot of people on that floor. Fortunately, reason prevailed, someone else pulled the mic from the fat idiot, and Gortner slunk away.

Leon Russell then cut his concert short. He was pissed that we didn't afford Marjoe! the proper respect, but then, Russell sold us pretty cheap, too. I haven't listened to his music since.