“They said a four-minute single containing lyrics about Jesus would never get played on pop radio”: The US singer loved by John Lennon and hated by right-wing Christian groups who wrote the last great hippie anthem – and then vanished into obscurity

Norman Greenbaum posing for a photograph in 1969.

Norman Greenbaum was working as a cook in Northern California in 1986 when he heard that a cover of his most famous song had gone to No.1 across the Atlantic. The track in question was Spirit In The Sky, and it wasn’t just Greenbaum’s biggest hit – it was his only hit.

“All of a sudden the record was covered by a group from England called Doctor and the Medics,” Greenbaum, told Rolling Stone in 2020. “And it became No.1 all over Europe. That was a big thing: It had gone from the back room of the one-hit wonders to all this interest in this song.”