A former teen idol turned Christian icon who refused to sell his own music.
In short: Keith Green was once groomed by Decca Records to be a rock-and-roll teen idol. After that career stalled, he underwent a radical spiritual transformation, eventually rejecting the music industry's profit model entirely. He gave away hundreds of thousands of albums for free, believing that the Gospel should never have a price.
Born in 1953, Keith Green was a child prodigy who signed with ASCAP at age 11 and Decca Records at 12. Despite national media attention, his path to stardom was eclipsed by Donny Osmond. Disillusioned, Green spent his teenage years experimenting with drugs and Eastern mysticism before finding his way to Christianity in 1973. Alongside his wife, Melody, he turned his home into a sanctuary for those in need, eventually housing 75 people, including recovering addicts and single mothers.
By 1979, Green had become a prominent figure in contemporary Christian music, but he grew increasingly uncomfortable with the commercialization of his faith. He negotiated a release from his contract with Sparrow Records and began distributing his music through a voluntary contribution model. He famously refused to charge admission for concerts or set fixed prices for his albums, arguing that he could not sell the Gospel for a profit. By May 1982, he had distributed over 200,000 units of his album So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt, with 61,000 provided entirely for free.
Green's life was cut short on July 28, 1982, when a small plane carrying him, two of his children, and nine others crashed shortly after takeoff from his ministry's property in Texas. The National Transportation Safety Board later determined the aircraft was dangerously overloaded and the pilot lacked the required training for the specific flight conditions. Despite his early death, Green's influence persisted through his wife's leadership of Last Days Ministries and a steady stream of posthumous releases, tribute albums, and honors, including his 2001 induction into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Keith Green
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