Rocking the Red Letters
A New Kind Of Musical Experience On A New Kind Of Record Company…
In 1899 a German-American journalist, printer and spiritual entrepreneur by the name of Louis Klopsch had the rather brilliant idea of printing a Bible with every word attributed to Jesus printed in shocking and thematically relevant blood red. Over a century later those crimson characters have been set to music; rock music no less, and just as they did in Klopsch’s Red Letter Testaments, they jump off the page with the type of incendiary transformational power that Rock and Roll is supposed to be known for.
The Red Letters Project may the most radical and expansive musical - spiritual undertaking since its executive producer Russ Regan first ‘green-lighted’ Jesus Christ Superstar, a controversial and wildly successful “rock opera” that first dared to take Jesus to the mainstream in 1970. At the height of what Time and Life Magazine referred to as “The Jesus Movement,” Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s multi-million selling rock and roll exploration of Jesus Christ’s final week of physical ministry questioned whether the Savior really believed He was who He said He was. Scurrilous implications notwithstanding, Jesus Christ Superstar made believers of millions. Just two months after initially funding the project, however, it was taken from Regan’s UNI Records roster and moved to sister label MCA. It seemed that certain elements felt Regan already had his hands full with other artists he had signed, including Neil Diamond and Elton John. Though Regan’s legacy certainly ranks him among the most successful record men of all time (one estimate has him as one of only a few people directly involved with the sales of over one billion records,) the loss of the musical was long a sore spot in his otherwise rich resume. Little did he know that thirty-four years later a similar, but much more fully realized opportunity to present the actual words of Jesus to the world in an even more immersive multi-media experience would come walking into his life via two long-suffering veteran independent musicians.
THE ARTISTS
Mario Canido, whose family is of Shoshone and Mayan descent, grew up on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming where he pursued advanced piano, boxing and spirituality with fervor. He served as an altar boy and watched the local priests with great admiration. "Catholicism on the reservation is a bit different than outside of it," Canido remembers. "They allowed the Tribal Elders to speak and I got to meet priests from around the world. It gave me a different angle on it all." At the age of thirteen he wanted to become a priest. The young believer was inspired by the massive World Youth Day established by Pope John Paul II in 1984. "The Pope said 'You must first carefully prepare yourselves spiritually, in an atmosphere of faith and listening to the Word of God,'" Canido remembers of the event. Read The Full Article