Avoiding Randy Bachman Syndrome
By Kent Larsen | 8.03.09
Mormon culture too often loses something when LDS authors and artists choose the national and international market over the LDS market. I call this the Randy Bachman Syndrome.
Bachman, for those who don’t know, joined the LDS Church in his native Winnipeg, Canada, in the 1960s, as the band he was in, The Guess Who, started to gain notoriety. At the same time that the Osmonds were known worldwide as Mormons, Bachman was regularly hitting the top of the music charts, first with The Guess Who, and later with Bachman Turner Overdrive. But despite the fame and accomplishment, he wasn’t widely known for being Mormon, and relatively few Mormons knew that he was LDS. Unlike the Osmonds, Bachman had little or no impact on Mormon culture.
I’ve seen this same thing happen over and over with LDS artists. They gain respect and even fame outside of Mormonism, and somehow fail to get any respect or even attention from within Mormonism. Its as if Mormon culture has blinders to members that don’t meet some unknown set of qualifications. Some may suggest that these qualifications include being faithful. But Bachman was faithful (until relatively recently — he left the Church earlier this decade, years after his fame had declined to “whatever happened to…” status), as were many others who have gone through the same relationship with Mormon culture.
Another example is Clayton Christensen, who wrote the New York Times bestselling book The Innovator’s Dilemma and was earning thousands of dollars from giving speeches to business groups years before he was called to be an Area Authority Seventy. Yet it wasn’t until his call to service as a Seventy that many Mormons knew much about him, and I’d guess than most still don’t, and won’t until (and if) he is given a more visible calling. And even then, will members be aware of his bestselling book? [On the other hand, I'd bet more members know of Gerald Lund's books than his calling as a General Authority!]
My point here isn’t that fame is important, or that Mormon culture should adopt anything in particular from the culture of the world. It is that fame and notoriety are fickle things, and this is especially true in Mormon culture. Those authors and artists seeking success in the world are only rarely known for being Mormon, and their Mormon affiliation is infrequently an influence on others, and even less frequently an influence on Mormons.
It seems that success in the world only very rarely gives Mormon artists the opportunity to influence many people for good.
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8.03.09 | 10:47 am | comment permalink |
I suspect more people came to know Bachman was Mormon once his son left the church and became a constant critic. I’ve heard mixed things about whether Bachman sr. is still in the Church. I know he was, for a time, a Bishop in Vancouver.
8.03.09 | 1:36 pm | comment permalink |
Didn’t the Osmonds do some direct outreach to the LDS market though, with firesides, etc? Kind of like David Archuleta and the 5 Browns. I don’t think Bachman Turner Overdrive ever directly targeted the LDS market with any sort of outreach or with any sort of “Hey, This is LDS!” flag being sent out. On the Other hand, Brandon Flowers’ few interviews revolving around his religion has given me more interest in the Killers. I’m not aware of any specific books Clayton Christiansen has marketed to the LDS group, while a fellow LDS business Author, Stephen Covey, has published and marketed directly to the LDS Faith for over 30 years and has a large following there.
8.03.09 | 1:50 pm | comment permalink |
If an artist / writer is producing stuff for the larger market, I don’t see what relevance he has to the LDS market per se at all. Of course if he is well known, he/she can benefit the Church with firesides and the like, but on such occasions one doesn’t usually talk about a product…
8.03.09 | 2:48 pm | comment permalink |
If I migt recite some classic lines from BTO you might just see how LDs they really are
You get up every morning–(LDS people do this)
From your alarm clock’s warning
Take the 8:15 into the city
There’s a whistle up above
And people pushin’, people shovin’
And the girls who try to look pretty
And if your train’s on time
You can get to work by nine
And start your slaving job to get your pay
If you ever get annoyed
Look at me I’m self-employed
I love to work at nothing all day–
(here is the sarcasm from a Bishop tired of people making runs on the storehouse)
And I’ll be…
Taking care of business every day
Taking care of business every way
I’ve been taking care of business, it’s all mine
Taking care of business and working overtime
Work out!–(we all know the extra hours Bishops have to put in for their community)
If it were easy as fishin’–(if it were easy as fishin, but we know its not again the irony)
You could be a musician
If you could make sounds loud or mellow
Get a second-hand guitar
Chances are you’ll go far
If you get in with the right bunch of fellows–(right bunch of fellows-he’s talking about the church its obvious)
People see you having fun–(ward partys)
Just a-lying in the sun–(Missions)
Tell them that you like it this way–(again Missions)
It’s the work that we avoid
And we’re all self-employed
We love to work at nothing all day–(OK here is the sarcasm again- we need to put our shoulders to the wheel)
and another classic of conversion
She took me to her doctor
And he told me of a cure.
He said that any love is good love
So I took what I could get mmh,
Oooh, oooh she looked at me with big brown eyes
And said:
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain’t seen nothin’ yet,
Here’s something that you never gonna forget,
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Any love is good love
So I took what I could get mmh,
Oooh, oooh she looked at me with big brown eyes
And said:
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,
OK that was all obviously about him being converted and going to the Temple and how he had not seen anything yet when he was outside of the Church. And he took what he could get, now if only Tal, didn’t have to sing about getting high.
8.03.09 | 4:19 pm | comment permalink |
I think being in the location of Utah also has a lot to do with making it big in the Mormon Market. Bachman is in Canada, Clayton is at Harvard. Archuleta, Osmond, and Stephanie Meyers are all in Utah…
8.03.09 | 6:38 pm | comment permalink |
Cheap shot! Randy Bachman left The Guess Who at the peak of their fame because he could no longer deal with the “sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll” milieu. He formed BTO as probably the only big-time hard rock group which outlawed the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco among the group members. He spoke at church firesides all over the world. Just because he didn’t wear his sainthood on his shoulder and exploit it to improve record sales among the Mormons, does not mean that he did not “influence many people for good”.
8.03.09 | 8:32 pm | comment permalink |
BTO was straight edge? That’s awesome. Yeah, I don’t know who would be the best person to name this syndrome after.
A more interesting one, imo, is non-LDS artists/works that become incredibly popular among LDS but are much less popular with non-LDS. Newsies is the one that comes immediately to mind.
—-
Stephenie Meyer technically lives in Arizona (or did when she wrote Twilight — I’m sure now she and her family live in some remote area of Italy out of the reach of fan pilgramiges).
8.03.09 | 8:54 pm | comment permalink |
Kent wrote: “It seems that success in the world only very rarely gives Mormon artists the opportunity to influence many people for good.”
It probably goes without saying, but of course there are many opportunities to “influence many people for good” without being identified as Mormon, either inside or outside the LDS community…
I think it would be great for people to identify more examples of Mormon artists they think fit into both categories: that is, those who are well-known for their Mormonness, and those who aren’t. Within sf&f, I’d say that Scott Card is well known for his Mormonness, but not so much Dave Farland/Wolverton, Tracy Hickman, or Brandon Sanderson. To name a few. (I’d welcome diverging views, though, from those who may have followed their reputations more closely.)
8.03.09 | 11:24 pm | comment permalink |
Pfftt. From what I’ve seen in general, we cling to “our” celebrities (no matter how “our” they are–or not, as the case most usually is) like al dente pasta on a textured wall.
I see SheDaisy has not been mentioned nor Brenda Novak nor Christine Feehan nor Madeline Baker/Amanda Ashley. Of course, of the latter 3, I can see how, if you write explicit sex in genre romance you *might* not want to put it about…
8.03.09 | 11:32 pm | comment permalink |
“Stephenie Meyer technically lives in Arizona”
Also know as Souther Utah..
8.04.09 | 1:54 pm | comment permalink |
#6 Larryco: agreed. I certainly remember a fireside he gave in London at the end of the 70’s.
#” Matt: All the members of the Osmond family continue to give firesides, which, in this country at least, are almost impossible to get tickets for. I know of at least one friend who was baptised a couple of years ago after attending one, and I am sure there will be others.
I’d love to see a Brandon Flowers fireside. Tickets for that would be very hard to come by.
8.05.09 | 10:25 am | comment permalink |
“Due to health concerns and desiring a change in lifestyle, which would include spending more time with his young family, Randy left the Guess Who at the height of their success.” http://www.randybachman.net/main.php?ch=bio
This is from Bachman’s bio on his website re leaving the Who. There is no specific mention of being or having been Mormon.
nndb.com often mentions the religious background of artists and other celebrities on its site. The Osmond’s are noted as being Mormon while Randy Bachman’s religious preference is not mentioned.
8.05.09 | 8:54 pm | comment permalink |
Interestingly the wiki notes both why The Guess Who broke up and his Mormonism. I’d imagine that had he left the Church like his son it would have been noted.
8.08.09 | 2:57 am | comment permalink |
Some Mormons are “celebrityzed” by the Mormon Church for specific cultural reasons – the Osmonds. Some Mormons wear their religion and culture on their sleeves – Orson Scott Card. Some Mormons have integrated their beliefs into their art, scholarship, or commentary with subtlety, focusing on universal issues of human life – Randy Bachman and many others.
There is no “Randy Bachman Syndrome”. There are only a diversity of individual and institutional approaches to the work and the resulting “fame and fortune”; Some approaches are destructive, some are constructive.
This blog strikes me as a case of mistaking “celebrity” for influence.
8.08.09 | 4:27 pm | comment permalink |
Kent, what number does comedic performer/author/political commentator Glenn Beck’s rank on the Backman Syndrome scale?
8.19.09 | 1:35 pm | comment permalink |
Greg (12), Bachman’s site no longer indicates his Mormonism because he isn’t Mormon any more and doesn’t want to broadcast it. I have a copy of his 2001 autobiography (written with John Einarson), Randy Bachman: Takin’ Care of Business
, which makes his then Mormon beliefs clear and a major theme of the work.
8.19.09 | 1:38 pm | comment permalink |
Disraeli (14), I’m not sure that what you claim implies that there is no syndrome here. My point isn’t that some people promote their mormonism more than others, but rather that Mormon culture as a whole ignores the Mormonism of some and promotes the Mormonism of others despite what the person does. I suppose I could be wrong — that its only the Mormons who promote their membership who get the notice. But it doesn’t feel like that.