Chuck Fromm and Maranatha! Music

I do not believe that Chuck Fromm is devious. He is doing what good business does, namely, make a profit. If his enterprise were under the close and vetoing scrutiny of ecclesiastical authorities, the product might be different (and would probably not turn such a handsome profit). Read article

Anyway.. first there was Maranatha Music, formed as a ministry of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and located on the grounds there too. This was before my time. Maranatha owned a studio just up the street from Calvary called Whitefield. It is the stuff of legend, as a glimpse through any of those early landmark maranatha albums (and some later ones too, including the Broken releases) will show. It is the first 24-track studio I was ever in, invited to tag along with John Wimber one night, who was doing a recording there. That night I knew it was my calling and that I must learn everything I could about production.

Maranatha's then-president, Chuck Fromm had decided to form a Marantha Music offshoot more focused on ministry and on those minstrels who wanted a vehicle to allow them to fulfill their calling without having to pursue a record deal with Maranatha or any other label. This was called the Ministry Resource Center, or MRC. There were many resources made available, training, study, prayer, materials, networking, showcases. It was a kind of lower-budget, grass roots farm label too. There were only a handful of groups working with MRC that I remember and the only one that really comes to mind now is a group called Tamarack which had Rob Watson on keyboards (he has appeared on too many records to list, including Broken Christmas, and of course he is also one of the Swirling Eddies) and John Patitucci, the renowned bass player. They were kind of a jazz/fusion thing. I honestly don't remember who else was working with MRC at that time.

There was also another label Maranatha had started called Asaph & Sons, or A&S records. This was formed for artists with more edge than would have been allowable on a Maranatha release. The one artist I remember of course, is Leslie Phillips (later to go by Sam Phillips, wife of T-Bone Burnett). They also had some compilations called Back to the Rock, and I think we appeared on one of those, or we were at least supposed to have. But I get ahead of myself...

About a year later, I got another call from Chuck asking Gene and I to go down to talk, and he told us that because of some technicality with Maranatha's agreement with Calvary (Calvary had also spun Maranatha off to Chuck Fromm), that they could not complete the sale of Broken to us while they still owed Calvary money. We said that was fine, and we just gave them back everything (the original Broken masters, but not those produced under Brainstorm, logo and other stuff). Chuck was nice and generous enough to set us up with Word directly, even though we had to prove ourselves at a sales conference in Texas, which we did with flying colors. We then just started releasing everything under the Brainstorm name and logo, which was our corporation name from the very beginning. From there, Jimmy Kempner made an unsuccessful attempt to buy Broken from Maranatha, and formed Broken Songs instead, the publishing company for Frontline. Many people got confused because of this, but Broken Records never had anything to do with Frontline. Most of the original Broken and MRC bands ended up there, and we were asked to, but decided to stick with Brainstorm. Glad I did too. I still own all my own masters and copyrights.