Jan Willem Vink interviews the Jesus rock veteran.
Continued from page 6
LARRY NORMAN
AND HIS FRIENDS ON TOUR (Solid Rock/Chapel Lane, 1982)
Recorded live in London during a Chapel Lane tour, one side is
dedicated to 'friends' Norman Barratt and Alwyn Wall, and one side
offering Larry doing renditions of songs like "A Note From Mr God" and
"I'd Wish We'd All Been Ready".
THE STORY OF THE TUNE (Phydeaux/Solid Rock, 1983)
Benefit album for the Calcutta Mission with "The Tune" and four
other songs.
COME AS A CHILD (Phydeaux, 1983)
Live benefit
album for the Calcutta Mission. Rough recording with "Heaven And
Hell", "I Hope I'll See You In Heaven" and an appearance by Barry
McGuire.
QUIET NIGHT (Stress, 1984)
Larry sings Tom
Howard songs, mostly from Howard's 'Danger In Loving You' album. The
normally excellent Young Lions, Norman's back-up group, here sound
like a lounge band.
BACK TO AMERICA (Phydeaux, 1985)
EP with
interview and live versions of "Messiah" and "It's Only Today That
Counts".
STOP THIS FLIGHT (Phydeaux, 1985)
Backed by a
top-flight band, Norman shows his versatility as a songwriter on this
near-studio quality recording of fresh, new songs. Runs the gamut from
the intense "Messiah" to
his best ballad "I Hope I'll See You In
Heaven".
DOWN UNDER BUT NOT OUT (Phydeaux, 1985)
Double
album extended version of Australian album, 'Down Under', including
songs from 'Rehearsal For Reality'. Twenty tunes including a punk
version of "Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music" and a
sixteen page magazine, 'On Being'.
BARCHAEOLOGY (Phydeaux, 1986)
Three-album boxed
set containing the original version of 'Street Level' and two other
albums, 'Labor Of Love' and 'Letter Of The Law'. Includes cuts from
'Quiet Night'.
WHITE BLOSSOMS FROM BLACK ROOTS (Solid Rock Import, 1988)
An interesting collection reprising Norman's career,
but any Norman collector would already own these twelve songs. Extra
songs on the compact disc.
THE SECOND TRILOGY (Best Of) (Phydeaux, 1989)
Extended cassette with cuts from 'Home At Last' and two unreleased
albums, 'Behind the Curtain' and 'Stranded In Babylon'.
HOME AT LAST (Benson, 1989)
Larry packaged by
the CCM industry. There's at least one classic here, a song about his
son "Somewhere Out There" but it suffers from the same fragmentary,
scrapbook feel of many of his Phydeaux albums. There's still good
stuff here though with the blues and black choir-backed tracks make
riveting listening.
LIVE AT FLEVO (Spark Music, 1990)
Cut at
Holland's favourite festival with the steaming, hot Finnish blues band
Q-Stone, this captures much of the fire and ferocity of his early
years.
THE BEST OF LARRY
NORMAN (Spark Music, 1991)
No, not as the title
would suggest a 'Best Of compilation but 'new' recordings (from
Larry's seemingly inexhaustible suitcase of master tapes) including
some bonus sides with brother Charlie Norman taking the lead.
STRANDED IN BABYLON (Spark Music, 1992)
The
best album for years, with the same incisive socio-political cutting
edge we'd last heard on 'Only Visiting This Planet'. Rupert Loydell
wrote in Cross Rhythms, "Despite claims to be trendy, with samples
etc., the music is old-fashioned rock that thrives on backbeat and
guitar licks. Over this Larry declaims ("I Will Survive"), teaches
("Love Is A Commitment"), socially observes ("Step Into The Madness" -
a superb indictment of modern America) and prays ("All The Way Home").
BEST OF SOLID ROCK VOL 1 (Spark Music, 1993 -Released in
November)
A superb compilation of all those old 70's
classics, most of which have been missing from the shops, if not
Phydeaux's mailing list, for years. Buy it and discover why Larry
deserves his 'genius' tag.
I first heard Larry in the early 70's. In particular the track from In Another Land "I am Your servant" touched me as I had been a Christian since 8 years old and it seemed that I could go no where for Jesus but then in the early 70's came a revolution and some years later I was called into ministry as a pastor and did this for some 35 years. Many times I remember being in tears as I listened to "Servant".
Totally relate with you Roy. Tears of brokeness would flow many a time when listening to this song. It was part of Gods way of prepaing us for ministry to this lost and empty world. Greg from Brisbane
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