Larry Norman: From his hospital bed, the veteran talks about rock 'n roll, life and death

Friday 1st October 1993

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. CR

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.
About Jan Willem Vink
Jan Willem Vink is a regular contributor to Cross Rhythms and lives in the Netherlands.


 
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Reader Comments

Posted by Roy in Melbourne Australia @ 01:27 on Jun 14 2011

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".


Reply by (Greg in Brisbane @ 07:01 on Oct 2 2018

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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