Hidden Histories Of
Contemporary Christian Music:
The Story Of Folmsbee Zimmerman

Folmsbee Zimmerman began his career as a singer of contemporary Christian music back in the l940’s. Most people thought that “contemporary” Christian music was singing favorite hymns and removing the “Thee” and “Thy” language.

Folmsbee who actually performed under the name Zimmer had a brief hit with a "scat" version of the hymn How Great Thou Art  which he called How Great You Are .    This earned him a following among the hip younger Christians of the day.) Mostly left to his own Zimmer played a lot of small denominational conferences and was just beginning to make a name for himself when disaster struck. 

The daughter of the head of the National Episcopal Conference on Decency and Preservation of Moral Beliefs begged her father to invite Zimmer to perform at the next conference meeting. She showed her father the above picture. (She kept the more radical version of it hidden from his eyes. In the other photo, Zimmer had no tie and his collar unbuttoned.) Her father decided that Zimmer looked like a upstanding young man and granted his daughter’s request.

Everyone was shocked when Zimmer showed up to sing at the conference and brought along A BAND! A five piece jazz band that included, (gasp) drums. Zimmer opened his show with a tune called Ama-Zee Bop-a-Doo-Wa- Grace. Four people had to be carried from the auditorium on stretchers and given oxygen.

Zimmer finished his number to a crowd that was more silent than a taco-fart on a first date. He was about to launch into his second number when a crowd of older white clergy jumped on him en mass and beat him senseless with communion wafers.

In the ensuing riot, the daughter of the chairman of the committee, whose name as Vicky, pulled a battered and bruised Zimmer from the stage. Two of the five band members were taken to the hospital. Tom Heever, the trombone player, was treated for injuries involving his slide that many people would have thought to be contrary to the laws of physics.

Banned forever from many church gatherings in multiple denominations, Zimmer was welcomed by a branch of the Congregational church which later became the United Church of Christ (who also welcomed both Sponge Bob Squarepants AND Tinky Winky.)

Soon after his singing career folded, Folmsbee Zimmerman was given a vision by God of a church where they could write the words to the hymns on the wall and then erase them with the ease of flipping a switch.

Folmsbee returned to college and got his degree in Christian Engineering and attempted to design a sanctuary that included sliding chalk boards. The board could slide behind a wall where members of the church youth group could write the words to the hymns and then at the proper moment slide them back out again.

In a rare moment of spite, Folmsbee debuted his new technology at the same conference that had kicked him out and abused his trombone player years before. Now lecturing under the name Dr. Folmsbee Zimmerman, the organizers of the conference had no idea it was the same person who had offended them all those years ago.

The flaw in Dr Zimmerman’s theory was that writing the lyrics to the hymns required complete trust in the youth minister of the church that had volunteered to work behind the scenes.

The giant sized sliding chalkboard rolled out of their hidden spaces containing the lyrics to the beloved hymn Halleluiah Christ Arose. But buried deep in the written lyrics the youth director, whose name was Don Sturdy, looked the other way as his students wrote the line “and blew his nose” after the line in the chorus “HE AROSE”. The clergy in attendance, who were used to doing things as written, sang the faulty lyric at the top of their collective lungs. Ironically, many were not even aware they had sung improper lyrics until after the song was over at which time the same group of clergy rushed the stage.

This time, Vicky, who was carrying a grudge for not being thanked the last time she pulled his bacon from the fire, stood back and watched and wept as her high school crush was beaten to death by a group of little old men with walkers.

Dr. Folmsbee Zimmerman is just one casualty in the on-going battle to have contemporary Christian music accepted as a legitimate form of worship in a world of hard bound hymnals and organ recitals.

God Bless You Dr. Zimmerman.