It's Supernatural

 

SID: Jesse, I am so intrigued by your background. I don’t think man people know about it.

 

JESSE: That’s right.

 

SID: And also I’m intrigued by the humor. You tell me, before you became a believer in the Messiah, you weren’t a funny man.

 

JESSE: No, I was not funny. In fact, when God saved me, the first time I ever preached, people were falling out the pews. And I was so mad, I went home and told Cathy, and said, “What’s wrong with these crazy people?” And she said, “You’re funny.” I said, “This is serious business. What are you talking about being funny?” I mean, I told a joke every once in a while like everybody else. But when the Lord came in my life, I got so happy, Sid. I’m so full of joy, which is the fruit of the Spirit, and I’m so happy, which is an emotional feeling, I’m just a dangerous individual.

 

SID: Tell me about you. I can’t even picture this long-haired, rock and roll singer that has a bottle of Scotch every day.

 

JESSE: Every day.

 

SID: That does everything a rock and roll singer is notorious for doing. How in the world did you get saved?

 

JESSE: Well I’ll tell you. It’s a miracle. I drank a fifth of whisky a day, smoked a little dope a week, snorted cocaine, PCP, crystal meth, took trips and never left my house. You understand what I’m saying. Now I’m sitting there, but what happened was Cathy, she was watching Billy Graham. God made Cathy tell me something that got my attention. Now I worked on the same circuit as Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk, KISS, Alice Cooper. I mean, let me tell you something, you young people, girls screaming, and that was your mama or your grandma, one or the other who was doing that. But anyway, I was ready to do a rock show in Boston, Massachusetts. I’ll never forget it, Sid. Quickly, Cathy said, “Jesse, Billy Graham is coming on.” And I thought, “Okay, what do I want to watch him for?” And she said this: “He pulls more people than you do.” And it caught my attention. I said, “You know, the guy does fill up stadiums.” So I decided to watch him to get Cathy off my back. I was sitting in a hotel just like this. You know how Billy Graham says at the end, “If you’d like to get saved, write me and I’ll send you the same literature that I send, and go to church next Sunday.” I jumped. I got off that bed. You got to understand how I looked, long, dark, chocolate-brown hair, makeup. I had a good body in those days. You got to believe it by faith, but I did. I had a six-pack. I got a keg now. I had a six-pack, you know what I’m saying. And I got up, I immediately left and went into the bathroom, but I couldn’t close that door fast enough. God got in that bathroom with me.

 

SID: Why did you go in the bathroom?

 

JESSE: Because I was told never to cry. I was raised with a bunch of Sicilians. You do what I got to do. My grandfather said, “If somebody mess with you, we don’t fight in this family. That’s what the Mississippi River is for.” I’m serious. When you’re raised on the streets of New Orleans, you do what you got to do. Now what happened was I didn’t know how to pray. I said this: If there’s such a thing as a God, whatever Billy said, then you do that. I got born again. Something supernatural, now I didn’t hear thunder and lightning, and I had to go do a rock show. Are you ready for this Sid? I come out of there, my three-year-old daughter looked at me and said this, Jodi, she said, “Daddy not going to hell no more.” And I said, “Cathy, did you tell her I was going to hell?” She said, “No, she just saw it.” I went down, did that show. Now I walked in there, the night before it was fun. When I walked in, it was an upholstered sewer now. I saw sin for the first time in my life. And I opened up that show with Sly and the Family Stone, “I Want to Take you Higher.” Real quickly [singing] dah, dah, dah… [talking] And I’m supposed to sing, [singing] Feel it getting stronger. [talking] But what came out of me blew me away. I went, [singing] Everybody in this place is going to hell! [talking] That’s a true story. And people smoking dope. They went, wow, babe, we’re going to hell. That’s a true story. And the drummer, he told the lead guitar, “Grab him. He’s tripping. He’s on some bad drugs.” So anyway, I closed out that session, I mean that set, and Jimmy said, “What happened, man?” I said, “I met Jesus.” He went, “Wow, man.” You know, that kind of stuff. From that day I knew something had happened, but I couldn’t explain it because when you’re not taught you don’t know.

 

SID: But what happened with that bottle every day? What happened with the drugs? What happened with the womanizing?

 

JESSE: Instantly delivery, completely. I mean, I shut down. I told Cathy, I said “Let’s go to church tomorrow.” This was on Saturday night, Labor Day weekend, 1974. She thought, my God, you’re going to church?

 

SID: You have such a childlike, simplistic faith.

 

JESSE: Yes.

 

SID: You sit down. You have conversations with God.

JESSE: Yes.

 

SID: Not necessarily, we understand, not necessarily the audible voice, but you know God’s voice, and so many with love to be able to hear God’s voice.

 

JESSE: Oh yes.

 

SID: But the problems that you have, do you remember, how do I know that you have problems? I’m a member of the same race. It’s called the human race. Of course, you have problems. But if you knew you could sit down and have a one-on-one with Jesus you wouldn’t have a problem. Am I right? I want to find out how he hears God’s voice and he says what the Bible says. God is not a respecter of persons. So Jesse says anything that God does for him, you can do. You can do it better. Be right back.