Elmer Gantry is a fast talking, hard drinking traveling salesman who always has a risqué story and a hip flask to entertain cronies and customers alike. He is immediately taken with Sister Sharon Falconer, a lay preacher whose hellfire and damnation revivalism has attracted quite a following. Gantry uses his own quick wit and knowledge of the bible to become an indispensable part of Sister Sharon's roadshow but soon finds that his past catches up with him in the form of Lulu Bains, now a prostitute. While Gantry seeks and eventually gets forgiveness from Sharon, tragedy strikes when she finally manages to get out of her revivalist tent and opens a permanent church.
Stretch were a 1970s British rock band that grew from the collaboration between Elmer Gantry (real name Dave Terry) and Kirby (real name Graham Gregory). Gantry had been the frontman of Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera. Kirby had been a member of Curved Air. The band was put together in 1974 with help from Fleetwood Mac manager Clifford Davis and drummer Mick Fleetwood, to perform as Fleetwood Mac on a US tour because the existing Fleetwood Mac were not in a position to fulfil outstanding contractual obligations. However, Fleetwood did not join the tour as planned, and later denied any knowledge or involvement, and partway through the tour it became obvious to audiences that there was no original member of Fleetwood Mac in the band, and the tour collapsed. Bass player Paul Martinez claimed, "Mick Fleetwood pulled out at the last minute claiming not to know who we were!"