Larry Norman was born in Corpus Christi, Texas. In 1959, Norman performed on the syndicated television show The Original Amateur Hour. While still in high school, Norman formed a group called The Back Country Seven, which included his sister Nancy Jo and friend Gene Mason. After graduating, Norman continued performing locally.

In 1966 Norman opened a concert for People! at the Asilomar Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove, California. He later became the band’s principal songwriter, sharing lead vocals with his Back Country Seven bandmate Gene Mason. People! performed about 200 concerts a year, appearing with Van Morrison and Them, the Animals, the Dave Clark Five, Paul Revere & the Raiders, the Doors, the Who, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Moby Grape, and San Jose bands Syndicate of Sound and Count Five. The band’s cover of the Zombies’ ”I Love You” became a hit single, selling over one million copies and charting strongly in several markets. Norman left People! just as Capitol released the band’s first album in mid 1968, but reunited with Mason for concerts in 1974 and 2006.

Soon after Norman left People!, he had ”a powerful spiritual encounter that threw him into a frenzy of indecision about his life [and] for the first time in his life, he received what he understood to be the Holy Spirit”.

In July 1968, following a job offer to write musicals for Capitol Records, Norman moved to Los Angeles where he ”spent time sharing the gospel on the streets”. He was initially associated with the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, and its Salt Company coffee house outreach ministry, where he explored and pioneered the rock-gospel genre.

In 1969 Norman and his friend Teddy Neeley auditioned for the Los Angeles production of the rock musical Hair. They were offered the roles of George Berger and Claude Bukowski, respectively; Neeley accepted, but Norman rejected the role of George, despite his own financial struggles, because ”of its glorification of drugs and free sex as the answers to today’s problems”. Also in 1969, Norman wrote a musical called Love on Haight Street and a rock opera called Lion’s Breath, which led Capitol to re-sign Norman to record an album, with the promise of complete creative control.

In 1969, Capitol Records released Norman’s first solo album, Upon This Rock, is now considered to be ”the first full-blown Christian rock album”. Norman was denounced by various television evangelists, and Capitol deemed the album a commercial flop and dropped Norman from the label. However, his music gained a large following in the emerging countercultural movements. Sales of the album rose following its distribution in Christian bookstores.

By the early 1970s, Norman was performing frequently for large audiences, and appeared at several Christian music festivals, including Explo ’72, a six-day Dallas event which has been called the ”Jesus Woodstock.” He earned $80 per month from Capitol for polishing and refining songs for Capitol artists. In 1970, Norman began a record label, One Way Records. He released two of his own albums Street Level and Bootleg on the label as well as Randy Stonehill’s first album, Born Twice.

In 1971, Norman first visited England where he lived and worked for several years. He recorded two studio albums, Only Visiting This Planet and So Long Ago the Garden. Released in 1972, Visiting has often been ranked as Norman’s best album. The release of Garden in November 1973 was met with controversy in the Christian press, due to the album’s cover art and some songs in which Norman took the persona of a backslider.

In 1974, Norman founded Solid Rock Records to produce records for Christian artists ”who didn’t want to be consumed by the business of making vinyl pancakes but who wanted to make something ’non-commercial’ to the world”. In the same year, Norman founded the Christian artist booking agency Street Level Artists Agency.

In Another Land, the third album in Norman’s trilogy and the best-selling album of his career, was released in 1976 by Solid Rock and distributed through Word. Soon afterward, Norman recorded the blues-rock concept album Something New under the Son, but it would not be released until 1981. Following clashes with Word over Something New and several other projects, Norman started Phydeaux Records in 1980 to release his albums.

In 2008, Christian rock historian John J. Thompson wrote, ”It is certainly no overstatement to say that Larry Norman is to Christian music what John Lennon is to rock & roll or Bob Dylan is to folk music.” Thompson credited Norman for his impact on the genre as a musician, a producer, and a businessman.

In February 1992, Norman suffered a nine-hour heart attack that resulted in permanent heart damage, leading to frequent hospitalizations in the years that followed. By early 1995, Norman had been hospitalized thirteen times and had a defibrillator implant, which enabled him to perform occasional small concerts.

After a lengthy illness, Norman died on February 24, 2008, at the age of 60 at his home in Salem, Oregon.