Mike Rimmer chronicles the turbulent history of a Jesus music icon, a go-for-the-jugular film maker and his own encounters with both

So, whilst 'Fallen Angel' paid tribute to Norman's musical and ministry impact, it also didn't shy away from some of the more difficult aspects of his life. There was his troubled relationship with fellow artist and one-time best friend Randy Stonehill. There were the complications of Norman beginning a relationship with Randy's wife Sarah while Randy and Sarah were still together. And there were the broken promises made to Randy from Larry concerning the songwriter's publishing. Back in Ray Ware's house, I watched in astonishment as Stonehill broke down in tears on the couch as he watched himself talking about what he felt was Larry's betrayal.

But most devastating of all, the film also revealed that in the late '80s Larry Norman fathered a child, Daniel, in Australia after a relationship with one of his backing singers, Jennifer Wallace and that after Daniel's birth Larry refused to recognise the child and endeavoured to cover the matter up.

As news of the film emerged, an internet battle broke out between Norman's family and fans on one side and Di Sabatino on the other. Every time the Fallen Angel movie was mentioned furious internet exchanges would ensue. Larry's family led by brother Charlie Norman began to work tirelessly to block the distribution of 'Fallen Angel' and, when that failed, whip up hardcore supporters in an effort to discredit it.

When I announced towards the end of 2009 that I would be interviewing Di Sabatino and Jennifer Wallace on Cross Rhythms' Rimmerama programme, I immediately began receiving messages from Larry Norman fans, many of whom had never listened to my show before. Some fans even sent emails to the trustees of the Cross Rhythms charity and to the programme controller complaining about my choice of interviewees. They wrote demanding that the interviews not take place. One typical example from B Dukes read, "I hear on the grapevine that Mr Rimmer is a personal friend of the film maker Mr Sabatino so how can this be an unbiased programme?"

Through the decades Larry has attracted an international enclave of fans. Unfortunately a minority of these supporters have allowed a passionate enthusiasm for a man's art and ministry to mutate into blind obsession. Such fanatical fans struggle to believe that their hero could ever do anything bad. They simply cannot equate the impact Larry's music has had on their lives with the flawed disciple Randy Stonehill, Jennifer Wallace and others spoke about in Fallen Angel. In the strange realm of the Larry Norman fanatic David Di Sabatino is regarded as little less than the Devil! On receipt of the emails, I endeavoured to assure my detractors that my "friendship" with Di Sabatino comprised of one radio telephone interview, one meeting with him at the evening at Ray Ware's house and the radio interview about the documentary which you're about to read. Prior to that we had spent a while having Facebook conversations about the film. So with the support of the Cross Rhythms ministry. the radio interviews went ahead. In view of the quantity of emails I had received I decided to use much of the interviews with Di Sabatino and Jennifer Wallace to put some of the fans' complaints about the film - that Wallace's claim of an affair with Larry was a fiction, that the critical elements in the film were "revenge" because of past disagreements Di Sabatino and Norman had had over the earlier Frisbee film - to my interviewees. Unfortunately, such a hard journalistic approach did not meet with the approval of Di Sabatino. After the programme the film maker, gave vent to his anger. After the show he sent me some messages on Facebook condemning me for a lack of journalistic integrity or skill. He then de-friended me on Facebook, not wanting to have anything more to do with me.

Now, to document this whole Christian arts and media soap opera, I set out here an edited version of the Rimmerama interview.

In the beginning, Di Sabatino was a Larry Norman fan. Said the film maker, "I was fascinated by Larry like you were. I was 14 years old and heard the song 'Rock That Doesn't Roll' and was just really moved by that. For me this combination of counterculture, questioning everything that came down the pipeline and its embrace of Christianity was very, very appealing. So I loved the music and I was a fan of the guy. Over the years though, I kind of drew nearer and took a look and found that there was a story that wasn't being told. And when I did the Lonnie Frisbee feature, which got a little bit of success, I thought, well maybe we should do Larry next? And it was just a natural progression."

In the Frisbee documentary, Di Sabatino wanted to use Larry Norman's music in the soundtrack but, it's been reported, Larry wouldn't let him. Di Sabatino filled in the details. "I approached Larry with the Lonnie film and I said to him, 'Lonnie was the kind of guy who I think your songs would kind of fit. You're singing basically the storyline to his life; I think the storyline to your life too. I think you guys have a lot in common.' So initially he said 'yes' to allowing the songs to be used. The problem was that we never could be clear on who actually OWNED those songs (the publishing rights of Norman's songs are owned by a number of different secular publishers) so I was playing two people up against the middle. Because on the one hand I was looking to Larry for his support but I don't know that I really needed it because I don't think any of the songs that I wanted to use were his to give. I still think and I still maintain EMI Publishing own [most of] those songs. So I was talking to them and talking to Larry, getting one story from Larry, and it was really convoluted. So at the end when everything kind of derailed and EMI said 'no', I had already begun to the work on the Larry project. When Larry got wind of it and decided that he was against it, he started spinning this story that the reason that I was doing it was because I was mad that he had pulled the songs from the soundtrack."

Bizarrely, Norman released a kind of pseudo-soundtrack album, 'Frisbee', of tracks that were supposed to have been on the soundtrack of the Frisbee feature but weren't. Di Sabatino commented, "Now when he put out the soundtrack that ticked me off, because it was like we were talking about putting something out together and then he went ahead and started selling it at his concerts. But all that did was raise my curiosity. Why would somebody do this? Why would somebody who says they're a Christian pull a stunt like this? And then we started to get into it and I realised this was a long drawn out cycle of behaviour that he would pull. So that kind of became the sad story. I wasn't the only one. This happened over and over and over again."

How did David respond to fans who insisted 'Fallen Angel' was an anti-Larry Norman film? "I think the film is not solely those things," Di Sabatino countered. "I think from a Larry Norman fan's perspective they look at it as some sort of revenge motif; obviously that's how they're going to see it. But that's not what the film is about. The film is about a guy who deserves kudos for what he did, and we try to do that in the first 60 minutes. And then we tell the rest of the story, that there were things that were problematic in his life. So we tell the whole story."

So how does the film maker respond to those Christians who suggest there's no justification possible for dragging a Christian brother's name and ministry through the mud in order to make some point. "I would point out that the Bible writer who told King David's story, was he guilty of what you're saying? Because 5,000 years after the fact we still gain good information and spiritual knowledge from the fact that King David was a man after God's own heart but committed two of the most egregious crimes that you could possibly perpetrate. He committed adultery and then he had the woman's husband murdered. This is a story that we tell in Sunday School over and over again. I think the people who are complaining about [my film] need to go back to the Bible and see that about 75 per cent of it is negativity. It's the ongoing redemption of fallen man, through the wonderful grace of God."

According to 'Fallen Angel' Larry neglected to support his son and would not acknowledge him properly. Di Sabatino explained, "Jennifer Wallace is a woman Larry met when she was 18. She did concerts with him. She did background vocals for him. And then in the late '80s as her marriage was dwindling. . . I'm not sure the status of Larry's marriage at the time. . . they came together and conceived a child. And Larry made a lot of promises. Jennifer's story is that Larry pretty much left her literally holding the baby and whenever she tried to contact him he pretty much just neglected her."

Norman fanatics have suggested online and elsewhere that Di Sabatino has absolutely no evidence for this assertion. The film maker responded, "To say that there's no evidence - I just want to say this one simple thing: a court of law in Oregon has been petitioned and they have said there is overwhelming evidence because they allowed the Wallace family to see the will. They don't just do that with anybody! You have to have evidence suggesting that the son is actually related to the deceased. So there IS overwhelming evidence. If you keep saying there's not that doesn't mean anything. A court of law has ruled on this."

On the same Rimmerama programme as my interview with Di Sabatino Jennifer Wallace talked to me from Australia. She sounded just like what she is, an Australian housewife and mother trying to make sense of everything that was happening to her and her son. She explained how her relationship with Larry began. "When both of our respective marriages had finished, in '88 I did a tour for Larry in Australia. I think we did 28 concerts in 30 days in August of '88 and I organised those concerts for him."