On October 2, one of my true heroes, Glenn Kaiser, will play his first Nashville show in decades. It’s a small line in the world’s festival calendar, but for anyone who came up through the world Kaiser helped build, it’s a significant one. 

Kaiser and his wife, Wendi, fronted Resurrection Band, one of the earliest bands to bring hard rock into Christian music spaces that, in the 1970s, mostly weren’t ready for it. The band’s uncompromising sound and lyrics made them pioneers of what would become known as Jesus rock, years ahead of an industry that eventually caught up to them. When the Christian festival and label world didn’t know what to do with a band like Rez, the Kaisers didn’t wait around. As co-founders of Jesus People USA, an intentional Christian community in Chicago, they and their fellow pilgrims built their own recording studio, record label, and, eventually, the Cornerstone Festival, which ran for 28 years and became one of the most influential faith-rooted music and arts festivals anywhere. Cornerstone gave early stages to artists who went on to shape the wider music world, including Switchfoot, Sixpence None the Richer, and P.O.D. 

Cornerstone is personal for me. I was at the first one in 1984,right before I turned 14. I started True Tunes there in the late ’80s, joined the festival’s staff in 2000, and spent most of the 2000s as the main stage MC until the festival ended. I directed a documentary about it, Cornerstone Festival: 20 Years and Counting. So, when I say having Glenn Kaiser play a show the night before Wild Bison Festival is an honor, I mean it specifically: a little bit of Cornerstone’s DNA gets to be part of what we’re building here in Nashville.

The weekend starts Friday, October 2, with a free conversation at noon at the Museum of Christian and Gospel Music, where I’ll interview Glenn and Wendi about their journey. That night, Glenn plays a rare solo set on cigar box and acoustic guitars at The Well in Green Hills, with my band The Wayside opening – just like we used to do in Chicago. A very small number of tickets are available for $20 (get them here), and the show is sponsored by the museum. 

Saturday, October 3, starting at 11:30 am, The Wild Bison Festival takes over Lipscomb University’s Bison Square: free, all day, two stages, headlined by Fulton Lee and presented in partnership with The Arcadian Wild, with sets from Broomestix, Pomegranate, Jolie Wing, and more, alongside student films and poetry. Glenn will lead an early seminar on the role music and community played in the Jesus movement of the ’60s and ’70s. The genres on the two stages span rock, pop, Americana, singer-songwriter, and country. What connects them isn’t a market category. It’s artists working with integrity and a spiritual point of view, whether that lands them in the “Christian” section of a record store or a playlist or not. Follow Wild Bison on Instagram @WildBisonFest for all the details.  

Thanks are due to the Museum of Christian and Gospel Music, International Justice Mission, and the students and staff of Lipscomb’s School of Music, the Music Industry Studies program, and Red Dog Productions (Lipscomb’s live music practicum), who make it all possible. 

 

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