John Michael Talbot, the best-selling Catholic musician, came to Ireland in Advent 2003.
It was the early seventies, the height of love-ins and hippies. Eighteen-year-old John Michael Talbot was performing with the rock group Mason Proffit at the Ozark Mountain Folk Fair in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. His group had shared the stage with some of the biggest acts of the day, including The Byrds, Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead.
On this particular evening they were opening for the queen of rock herself, Janis Joplin. Talbot watched her backstage as she downed bottles of Southern Comfort. The sight seized him deeply, and when the concert was over he walked back onto the empty stage. Looking out over the arena floor, he was shocked to see, lying before him a sea of bottles, beer cans and drug paraphernalia littered as far as he could see.
There must be something more
Up to that point he had shared stages and dressing rooms with rock stars, which gave him an insider’s view. After meeting some of his heroes and seeing how they really lived their lives, Talbot came to an inescapable conclusion. “There were some real tragic scenarios being played out,” he says, “and it caused me to stop cold and do some serious thinking.”
As a result, Talbot left Mason Proffit and began a spiritual journey that went in many different directions before he found what he was looking for.
He spent almost four years praying and searching for answers. He read sacred and philosophical texts, exploring everything from Native American religions to Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and Christianity. He worked on a farm in Indiana selling vegetables during the day and studying the world’s religions at night, until finally, in a singular moment, it all became clear to him.
Experience of Christ
“I asked God what I was supposed to do,” he explains, “and God said, ‘Play your music and I will open and shut the doors’.” Staying true to that calling, Talbot started to use his musical talents to express his faith by joining the newly emerging Christian music scene. He recorded for Warner Brothers Records, delivering an album entitled “Reborn”, and later recorded two additional albums for Sparrow Records, “John Michael Talbot” and “The New Earth”.
“As a secular musician I remember trying to do spiritual things without really knowing it. Now as a Christian musician,” he explains, “I’ve honed my craft, writing music that flows out of prayer and becomes sacred.”
Talbot has produced more than forty recordings over the years with sales around four million albums. His songs were the first by a Catholic artist to cross well-defined boundaries and gain acceptance by Protestant listeners. In 1982 he won the Dove Award for Worship Album of the Year, “Light Eternal” with producer and longtime friend, Phil Perkins. Four years later, he became one of only nine artists to receive the President’s Merit Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and, in 1988 he was named the No.1 Christian Artist by Billboard magazine.
Meditation and music
Visitors to the Franciscan monastery gathered with him to pray, meditate and seek the Holy Spirit. He welcomed them and led prayer with songs he had arranged from the scriptures and sacred writings. As the number of visitors continued to increase, Talbot’s spiritual advisor, Fr. Martin Wolter, suggested that he start his own community and begin a music ministry. In 1982 he moved to Eureka Springs, Arkansas and founded “The Little Portion Hermitage”. “I had sold everything,” he laughs, “but no one would buy the twenty five acres of land I bought in the Ozarks while on tour with Mason Proffit. It seemed that God had a special purpose for it.”
That purpose became a community built on the monastic heritage. “It is an applied way of life so that everything is focused on being with God,” Talbot explains. “Our impetus is one of contemplation, a spiritual life that some have labelled a ‘monastic ambiance’.”
Today this community, “The Brothers and Sisters of Charity,” has about forty members living at the monastery and some five hundred more domestic members in their own homes worldwide. It is the only community in North America with canonical status from the Catholic Church and one of only ten communities in the world to encompass celibates, single people, married couples and families. All take evangelical councils of chastity, poverty and obedience appropriate to their state of life.
Music for worship
To support his prolific writing, Talbot formed a record label in 1992 and named it what people have been calling him for years, “Troubadour for the Lord”. Under its banner Talbot has released several of his own albums and works with other Christian artists. “The music I write isn’t gospel, contemporary Christian or grandiose. It’s sacred, which touches upon all those categories but isn’t really a part of them. It’s a unique niche,” he explains, “and having an independent label gives me the focus I need.”
As such, it’s clear that to simply call John Michael Talbot a successful Christian artist would be a gross understatement. Although he uses his art to communicate his beliefs and love of God, he also feels a responsibility to those who may not be aware of Christ and His teachings. “The world’s a community,” Talbot explains, “and it’s completely interdependent. Everyone is affected by what other people do, and there is a wonderful array of things we can do for God, for Christ and for His church.”
In 2002 he played for Pope John Paul II at the World Youth Day Prayer Vigil in front of 850,000 young people gathered from all over the world.
As for his music, it has evolved quite a bit from his early rock stylings. Talbot now has a more reflective, meditative style that combines his crystal-clear tenor vocals with classical guitar. He is best known for creating albums designed for worship and quiet meditation.Inspired by the life of St. Francis of Assisi, he sold everything he owned and joined a secular Franciscan order in 1978. He built a hermitage in the woods and fashioned a monk’s habit from used army blankets. “At first, I planned to live a life of quiet meditation as a hermit,” he recalls, ” but as I studied the history of the church, I saw that community had always been a part of it.” As a result, he founded a house of prayer called “The Little Portion” to share with others his love of Jesus. “I won’t call it a visionary experience,” Talbot maintains, “but I saw a Christ figure. I knew it was Jesus, and He made everything personalized for me.” “Suddenly,” he recalls, “the rock star life seemed empty and sad. It wasn’t at all what I wanted my life to stand for.” It caused him to question his whole lifestyle and ask: “Isn’t there something more?”
