Larry Norman kept every single missive, letter, handwritten note, scribbling and confession that his friends sent to him over the past fifty years. Poring over Larry’s immense archives of correspondence with Randy has been simultaneously revelatory, eye-opening, disconcerting, and clarifying, often within a single letter.

In addition to all the letters from Randy to Larry, the archival filing cabinets also contain all of Randy’s correspondence with Sarah Stonehill during the years they were married, letters written during and after their divorce, and all of the legal documents and divorce papers that ended Randy and Sarah’s marriage, including the true reasons why the marriage ended.

As an example of how extensive the archives are, I’ve included here part of the very first letter that Randy Stonehill ever wrote to Larry Norman. Scribbled on the back of an air-sickness bag on his flight home from his initial visit to Larry’s Los Angeles bungalow in 1969, here are the ramblings of a young Randy Stonehill trying to contain the newly found zeal that is coursing through his teenage head… It’s not strictly germane to the purpose of this web site, but I’ve included it because I think it will be of interest to fans of Larry and Randy, and also illustrate the extent of the Solid Rock archives. Click for JPEG.

Where does one begin when attempting to write about Randy Stonehill and his behavior over the years?

A complete report on Randy’s letters and actions over the years is beyond the scope of this website, but many of these documents will be scanned and posted here over the next couple of months. Some are not very flattering to Mr. Stonehill, but then, Randy speaks plainly in the Fallen Angel movie about the importance of making the truth known. In one part of the movie Randy Stonehill says “I respect him enough to actually tell his truth.” In this website I will be actually telling the truth about Randy Stonehill through his own letters and statements backed up with documentation rather than empty words.

Part One – Randy and His Wives

The Fallen Angel movie implies that Randy Stonehill’s wife Sarah had an affair with Larry.

This concept of Larry having an affair with Randy’s wife is not only implied, it is also believed by people who’ve seen the movie. In a review of Fallen Angel, the Orange County Weekly newspaper wrote that in the movie “Stonehill alleges Norman screwed him out of songwriting royalties. Oh, yeah, and he and just about everyone at Solid Rock not named Larry Norman allege he was screwing Stonehill’s wife, an indiscretion compounded by the fact that Norman was still married to Newman (Pam), while Stonehill was out on tour.”

The truth of the story is vastly different than what is implied. Larry and Sarah were not having an affair. In fact, during their separation Sarah pleaded with Randy to stay together and expressed hurt that Randy had already become entangled in relationships with several other women. Randy married one of the women mentioned, Sandi Warner, just a few weeks after Sarah and Randy’s divorce was finalized. Here is a timeline of Randy and Sarah’s marriage:

August 2, 1975 – Randy Stonehill and Sarah Finch are married at the First Congregational Church, Los Angeles. Click for PDF or JPEG.

May, 1980 – Sarah, now separated from Randy, writes him a letter in which she professes her continuing love for him and points out that if Randy had really loved her he would have tried to salvage their marriage instead of entering into extramarital relationships with other women. She says that if Randy loved her he would have…

“dressed up for me instead of for Debbie B… you would have kissed me instead of (L. M. – name obscured) or Sandy. You would have had a crush on me instead of (D.P – name obscured)” Click here for a PDF or JPEG excerpt from this letter. The entire letter won’t be shown here because of privacy issues that would be embarrassing to innocent third parties.

SEPTEMBER 22, 1980 –An Interlocutory Judgment of Dissolution of Marriage is filed: Click here for PDF or JPEG. Just weeks after Randy and Sarah’s divorce is final, Randy marries his girlfriend Sandi. Larry turns down an invitation to their wedding and instead writes Randy a letter expressing his disappointment that Randy would leave Sarah and marry another woman. This event triggers the beginning of the end of the friendship between Randy Stonehill and Larry Norman. The incident is referred to in a letter Larry wrote to Randy years later. Click for PDF or JPEG.

March 25, 1981 – Soon after their divorce, Randy writes a letter to Sarah in which he apologizes for marrying his new wife Sandi so quickly after he and Sarah were divorced. He states “I am also sorry that my re-marriage so quickly after our divorce was painful to you. It was certainly not intended as a slap in the face to you and I’m sorry if it looked like I could just waltz from one life to another so easily.”

In this same letter, Randy goes on to state that he believed that his remarriage was the right thing to do and that it wasn’t a rash act, even though it must have looked that way to everyone. He also says that he is very happy in his new marriage.

Randy continues, “I also truly hope that you will be able to know this same happiness with someone the Lord brings to you. You certainly deserve it.”

Click here for PDF of this very telling letter.

So here you have it…

The Fallen Angel movie implies that Randy’s wife Sarah ran off with Larry Norman. But in a letter from 1981, a few months after his divorce, Randy apologizes to Sarah for hastily re-marrying another woman, and then he goes on to express his hope that Sarah would one day find happiness with someone, as she certainly deserves it. Randy underscores this same attitude when he recounts this event in Fallen Angel: “my divorce was going to be final, on paper, she had said goodbye to me, I thought, maybe….they’ll end up getting together… wouldn’t it just be nice if SOMEBODY was happy?!?”

April 29, 1982 –Larry and Sarah marry after a brief whirlwind romance. Both of them have been stunned and shaken by the activities of their previous spouses and find solace in the company of each other. Almost immediately, rumors begin to circulate that Larry has “stolen” Randy Stonehill’s wife. Over the next few years, when Larry would arrive in various cities and be asked by local promoters how he could justify marrying Randy’s ex-wife, Larry simply replied “Why don’t you ask Randy?”

October 28, 1982 – After six months of hearing accusations around the world that Larry had an affair with Sarah while she and Randy were married, Larry and Sarah contacted Randy and Sandi Stonehill and confronted them about the rumors. Sandi wrote a reply to Sarah in which she stated that she and Randy had also heard the same “silly gossip and rumors” and that she thought that people must be coming to their own conclusions since Larry and Randy no longer worked together and that Larry and Sarah’s relationship must be the reason why. Sandi goes on to call this a totally unfair assessment by people who merely “want to gossip and talk.” Click here for PDF or JPEG.

It’s also interesting that if you look closely at Sandi Stonehill’s reply you can see where the next page is slightly visible through the paper. Through it you can read where Sandi writes “As Randy said ‘gossip and rumors are evil and we shouldn’t give them any of our time or energy.'”

Perhaps someone can ask Randy point blank if Larry and Sarah had an affair the next time he appears live on stage for a “Q & A session” at a showing of this film. In fact, I have a whole list of questions for Stonehill and Di Sabatino. If you can attend a showing, please email me on the feedback page and I’ll send you a list of questions to ask them just in case I can’t get all of mine answered at the “premier” in Nashville.

UPDATE: March 21, 2010 – Randy Stonehill announced on his Facebook page that he was divorcing Sandi, his wife of thirty years. Sandi posted on her Facebook page that she felt “blindsided once again” by Randy not informing her that he was going to publicly announce the divorce in such a way. Sandi, to her great credit, has engaged me in conversation even knowing that I am a long time friend of Larry Norman. Some of the other participants in Fallen Angel stopped communicating with me as soon as they found out that I am friends with the Normans.

These are but a few of the letters and messages that will be posted here over the next few months as time allows.

Why in the world would Randy Stonehill appear in a movie that casts false innuendo and tries to destroy the legacy of a brother in Christ who is no longer around to defend himself? I think Randy should make a public statement admitting what he has done. When I tried to contact him through his manager, Ray Ware, my personal correspondence was forwarded to David Di Sabatino instead.

The common perception of Randy is that he was a young artist who naively signed a contract with Larry that was “unfair and one-sided.” In the movie Randy tells a sob story about Larry and how he got Randy to sign over his publishing. In reality, Randy was not a naive artist. He went over his contracts with a fine-toothed comb and made notes questioning various clauses and contractual points. Here is an example of one such contract from the mid 1970s, with Randy’s notes for alterations to be made in the final draft: Click for PDF or JPEG.

At some point in their career, almost every artist wishes they hadn’t signed away their publishing. This is usually when they are economically stable with a steady income and at a stage where they wouldn’t need to assign their copyrights to a music publisher in return for help with their career. Randy is no exception. In the early 80s he decided he wanted Larry to give him his publishing back. Larry wasn’t convinced. The reason Larry was skeptical is best explained in a letter written by Larry to Randy in November of 1998. It’s a lengthy (11 page) letter that covers a lot of the problems in Larry and Randy’s relationship over the years. The matter of publishing is discussed on pages 3 and 4.

Portions of the letter have been blacked out, largely to protect the innocent, and because some of the “anecdotes” concerning Randy described within aren’t suitable for this web site.

Here is the letter in PDF format.

Randy surmises in the movie that eventually Larry handed over all of Randy’s publishing, and reunited with him in concert after 22 years because Larry was lonely and tired of the friction between them. The truth is that Larry was tired of hearing from promoters and others around the world that Randy was still telling stories about him after two decades. So Larry decided to give Randy his publishing on the condition that Randy would stop making disparaging statements about him. This stipulation was written into the contract which Randy agreed to and quickly signed.

One of the most amusing parts of the Fallen Angel film occurs when Randy discusses Larry’s appearance onstage with him at Cornerstone 2001. Randy implies that it was some sort of publicity stunt on Larry’s part to help his own image and career. It’s difficult to not laugh at this scene in the movie where Randy thinks back ponderously on this event. The truth is that Larry didn’t need any publicity to aid his “waning career” and Randy knows it. Larry was one of the top draw headliners on the main stage of the festival on Saturday night, while Randy was relegated to performing in a small tent opening for the Sweet Comfort Band on the previous Thursday. Click for PDF or JPEG.

This, by the way, is a recurring and ridiculous conceit in the Fallen Angel film… that Larry’s career was over after 1980. In fact, he continued to be a top draw headliner at festivals and concert halls around the world until his death in 2008. This is a fact that I will explore further on the MISC. RUMOURS page of this web site…

I’ve barely scratched the surface of the Solid Rock archives, and I’ll be posting new information pertaining to the Fallen Angel movie as I uncover it. If you wish to be notified of any updates to this web site please send an email to: feedback@thetruthaboutlarrynorman.com

Responses and Comments

Some of David Di Sabatino’s associates have been complaining publicly that there is no way for them to respond to this website, even though there has been all along! Anyway, to make things easier for those who wish to comment, a FAILED ANGLE FACEBOOK PAGE has been created for anyone and everyone to leave their thoughts about this web site. Unlike Di Sabatino’s Fallen Angel Facebook page, there will be no censoring or deleting of comments.

HOWEVER, foul language and four letter words will not be tolerated, so don’t include any, please.

A Parody by Allen Flemming
of David Di Sabatino’s Film
Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Larry Norman, a Bible Story

When you stop to think about it, it’s very easy to dismantle someone’s legacy using the method David Di Sabatino employed in crafting “Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Larry Norman.” If I were a struggling playwright in the first century who had decided to destroy the legacy of the recently ascended Jesus of Nazareth, I could do it simply by using the Di Sabatino method (with apologies to Albert Goldman). A documentarian could easily do this with Abraham Lincoln or Mother Theresa or Bono or Lonnie Frisbee or Francis Schaeffer or your neighbor or you. But I have chosen Jesus because most players in Fallen Angel claim to believe that Jesus is the sinless Son of God. (Of course neither Larry Norman or anyone else comes near the stature of Jesus. I knew Larry. In my upcoming biography Rebel Poet I will reveal him warts and all.) Imagine now that you lived during the time of Jesus, heard Him speak a few times, maybe bought some scrolls about Him, but were not part of His inner circle. I have come to your town to put on a play…

Buffoon Theatre and the Ignoble Players present:

Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Jesus Christ.

A Bible story. By Ovid of Bologna

(As this scroll title is unrolled the chorus sings:)

Some say He was an outlaw, that He roamed across the land,
With a band of unschooled ruffians and few young fishermen.
No one knew just where He came from, or exactly what He’d done,
But they said it must be something bad that kept Him on the run.

::::::::::::::::::::::
ACT I
::::::::::::::::::::::

A chorus of actors who supposedly knew Jesus appears on stage and one after another the actors step forward to recite their lines:

“And there was this rabbi, not very good looking, but a real mountain presence, and He spoke with authority.”

“In Galilee, Jesus was totally popular for years but Galilee was way too small for Him. The world hasn’t heard of Jesus but they need to because He has something to say. He was trying to wake up the young rich people and the old Pharisees in the Temple.”

“He was a virtuoso I think at writing a sermon, and as a magician. And He was certainly a virtuoso when He climbed the mount and started preaching.”

“It was as if Jesus was walking right into The Kingdom of God and said to everyone else ‘Follow Me’.”

“Jesus was like King David in Goliath’s body.”

“Yeah. This sounds like the Jesus I’ve heard about.”, you say to yourself. “Maybe the title Fallen Angel is meant to be ironic or something.” Then, with your defenses down, you are flooded with alternate accounts about Jesus by people most of whom you have never heard of but who claim to have been close to Him.

Chorus:

“Just when you were really starting to love Him, Jesus would go beyond pushing the envelope. Yeah. I love Jesus but . . . He hangs out with tax collectors and prostitutes. Yeah. I love Jesus but He wastes community money that could have gone to feed the poor.”

“I’ve heard He used the money to wash His feet in perfume!” “Which is hypocritical of Him after telling the rich young ruler to give all his money to the poor.”

“Most of His sayings I just couldn’t parse.”

NARRATOR: The more popular Jesus got, the more difficult He became.

Chorus:

“At the beginning He came across as the Prince of Peace; with miracles of wine and bread and fish but when He got really big it was all ‘take up a sword, pluck out your eyes and chop off your hands. And go to hell.’ ”

“He also said, and this is a direct quote from the so called Prince of Peace, ‘Don’t think I came to bring peace to the world. No. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.’ “ (Matt10:34)

“I never heard anyone talk more about hell than Jesus. And what was that psychotic rage in the Temple all about?!?”

“Yeah I heard His mom was delusional too. Explained her baby out of wedlock by saying God made her pregnant.”

“And Jesus, when He wasn’t criticizing the other rabbis or cursing fig trees or talking about hell or teaching us to hate our parents, would just wander off into the desert, sometimes for months!”

“Plus, Jesus started to believe His own hype. He claimed to be The Messiah! The One Way to heaven. But He was from Nazareth! No prophets come from Nazareth! Just check the Scrolls!”

“If someone told me Jesus really had not died on the cross but was living in a cave in Qumran I wouldn’t be surprised.”

NARRATOR: These inconsistencies foreshadowed what was about to transpire.

Chorus:

“Why did the demons always seem to know Jesus’ name?”

“He spent way too much time with Mary. When she was washing his feet, I was like ‘this is SO out of line.’ ”

”And I said, ‘You know something. I bet Jesus is at Mary’s house right now.’ And I said ‘I’m gonna sneak over there and have a look.’ And there was Jesus’ donkey tied up in her driveway.”

”And I said, ‘You know Jesus; He’ll just say His donkey was left there by someone else or something.’ After I peeped in the windows I said to myself, ‘I’m gonna go knock on that door and see if He’s there.’ For me, this was my moment of reckoning. If I had invested everything I believe in, I wanted to know what’s going on. I knocked on the door. I could hear someone doing the dishes. Finally, the door just opened and there was Jesus in the hall. ‘Jesus, do you think it’s a good idea that you’re here? Your best friend is in the tomb, You’re here in his house with Mary sitting at your feet.’ “

“For sure, and what was He REALLY doing with that Samaritan chick?”

“Jesus sometimes seemed delusional…destroying the Temple… ‘greater than Moses’… Son of God?… Ha! A bit of a megalomaniac if you ask me. I mean, who did this dude think He was?”

“Well, if He said God was His own Father then He was saying that He was equal to God. Just like Satan tried to do!”

“And I never met anyone more concerned about their image. After his sermons, Jesus would rush over to His disciples and ask, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ ” (Matt 16:15)

“For me some of the most, you know, things I sort of had questions about was; What was going on when another Gospel came out, and it was like, let’s tell the same plot over and over and over again. A kind of mythologizing was starting to happen where it’s not okay to just have ONE Gospel. There had to be several Gospels to seem like it was written by Aeschylus or Sophocles or something.”

”His followers were as mythologizing as Jesus Himself was.”

NARRATOR: Jesus befriends and begins to disciple a young man anxious to get into the business. The Disciple was one of the most famous and pivotal people in Jesus’ life.

The Disciple:

“And Jesus basically said, come follow me and why don’t you just take over the coin purse? Then He offered me eternal life and let me into His inner circle, and because of Him, I just knew I was going to be famous. But, I will never forgive Him for this money matter. I could have sold that harlot’s perfume He had His feet washed with for a lot of shekels. I mean, I still had love for Jesus, but if the Sanhedrin wanted help… well, I was gonna get what was due me one way or another.”

“The most stunning thing in my recollection was to see how Jesus, right in the middle of the Temple services, turned on the pigeon and dove salesman. He started like placing blame on the pigeon man, calling the poor guy names and knocking his table over. I thought, man, something’s really wrong here. I thought, what’s going on? This man is not who He says He is. He’s not who He shows the world. It really damaged my respect for Him and my own perception of Him as a Person.”

::::::::::::::::::::::
ACT II
::::::::::::::::::::::

Chorus:

“We left everything to join up with Jesus. He promised us mansions and rewards and positions of power. Well, we did not get any of these things. I believe, and I think Peter would agree, when we decided to follow Jesus it was the end of our fishing career.”

“Why would Jesus do this to us? Promise us all these great things if we signed up with Him and then not follow through? I started to believe His critics were right, He had to have been some sort of vengeful devil.”

NARRATOR: The difficulties between Jesus and his followers were intensified by problems in their personal lives:

Chorus:

“I think that Jesus thought Martha had been unfaithful and so He started to hang out more with Mary.”

“Jesus just started talking about Martha’s faults to the point of dissing her for doing the dishes while at the same time publishing everybody else’s faults by writing in the sand, or shouting from the roof tops. ‘Martha is a busy body . . . Caesar is a fox. . . . Rabbis are whitewashed tombs full of dead men’s bones.’ And He never had a kind word to say about that lovely prophetess from Thyatira, Jezebel.”

“I’m sorry, but I got a little annoyed with Jesus when image overtook reality. Even when He taught us religious practices, it was always coached in presenting a false image to the masses. He’d say ‘When you go without food, comb your hair and wash your face so that others will not know that you are fasting, don’t wear shoes, don’t use a walking stick, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.’ And when He healed the blind, He made them promise not to tell anyone who had healed them. And remember when Peter guessed that Jesus is the Messiah?! Of course Jesus said, ‘Don’t tell anyone!’.

“Obfuscator!”

::::::::::::::::::::::
ACT III
::::::::::::::::::::::

NARRATOR: The only ones who could see right away who Jesus was, were the fallen angels. Why? Because, like Jesus, the devil and his demons are deceivers. Because Jesus is in league with the Fallen Angel! (Matt 12:24)

Chorus:

“Then there were all the publicity stunts. There goes Jesus posing with the lepers again. There goes Jesus talking to the lame again. There goes Jesus doing stunts with coins and fish again.”

“On another occasion, on the Mount of Olives, Jesus said some crazy things about how we should drink His blood, and nearly the whole crowd walked away shaking their heads!”

NARRATOR: Jesus also began to tell the story that He was the King of the Jews when evidence to the contrary was obvious.

Chorus:

“When Pilate said to the people ‘Here is your king. . . Do you want me to crucify your king?’ The chief priests, answered, ‘The only king we have is Caesar! Don’t call Jesus the King of the Jews!’ ”

“Oh and Jesus Christ was not the first guy to ever die by crucifixion but His followers acted like Jesus had invented the cross!”

“Jesus really seemed to have problems keeping friends. In the end nearly all of His followers and even His Father had abandoned Him.”

Disciple:

“Jesus seemed to grow paranoid too! Right in the middle of the Passover Seder Jesus started saying that one of us would betray Him. I think it was shocking to everybody in the upper room. Jesus broke up our family. There’s no other way to put it. It exploded that night. It was done. Everyone scattered.”

NARRATOR: Jesus tried to frame Himself as the victim; asking questions like “Did you have to come with swords and clubs to capture Me, as though I was an Outlaw?”

The people answered Him by taking a bat and hitting Him over the head before they led Him out to be crucified. (Matt 27:30)

“Now, some of you are probably thinking that this all flies in the face of what you might have read about Jesus in the Gospel of John and Letters of Peter and James.

But how can we really trust their views? All those writers of the New Testament were Jesus’ friends and James was Jesus’ brother. So no matter what He did, those Christ crazies will keep defending Him to the end. I don’t want to hear any more of their Jesus-speak. So whom do you believe? The people closest to Jesus who loved him to the end or those who had him crucified?

THE END
::::::::::::::::::::::

This is the one page of this web site that will not be confined to addressing the untruths in the Fallen Angel movie.

In fact, once Di Sabatino’s movie has run its short course, the name of this entire web site will most likely change to something else because David Di Sabatino is ultimately merely a footnote in the life of Larry Norman.

There have been many strange stories about Larry Norman over the years and this page will be devoted to tracking down the sources of these rumours and either setting the record straight or confirming the stories. I’ve already uncovered quite a bit of interesting documentation, including a letter from United Airlines to Larry Norman that addresses and confirms Larry’s “airplane accident” story which many people claim never happened.

I’ll scan the letter as soon as I can and get it posted here, along with a lot of other interesting stuff.

If you wish to be notified of any updates to this web site, please go to the FEEDBACK page.

What really happened at Solid Rock? Why did the label dissolve? Why did this once mighty presence in the Christian Music Industry shut its doors? Whose job was terminated? What exactly went down?

We might never know if Larry Norman hadn’t had the foresight to have a tape recorder there in the meeting room.

I need to find a studio to transfer the cassette tapes of the meeting into a digital format for posting here. Until then, If you wish to be notified of any updates to this web site, please go to the FEEDBACK page.