Update 63

6/10/2023

Still working away here! We're now moving into the time period (mid 2000s) where Larry released many limited run 'boutique' titles. These were often live recordings and/or sourced from bootlegs, and consequently require more time to transcribe than albums containing studio recordings do. It might appear like I'm slowing down. If so it's just because 'the going is getting rough'. ;-) This is also the time period where Larry started releasing titles exclusively available to fan club (Solid Rock Army - SRA) members. If you weren't part of that elite band of soldiers then this and the next few updates might well alert you to some cool recordings you didn't even know existed....

Anyway, since last time:

Completed the following album pages and promoted them to the albums menu: Invitation Only, Christmastime, Snowblind and On The Prowl
Updated relevant song pages to reflect American Roots, Road Rage, The Very Best Of Larry Norman Volume 1, Invitation Only, Christmastime, Snowblind and On The Prowl
Created the following song pages: Jesus Christ, You Gotta Have Jesus, The First Noel, O Holy Night, Medley: Carol Of The Bells And Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy, Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem, Do You See What I See?, Let There Be Peace On Earth, Angels We Have Heard On High, Christmastime Is Here, Auld Lang Syne and Why Me Lord
Updated the following song pages: Standing At The Crossroads, The Road And The Sky, Waves Of Grace, Under His Love, Man Of Constant Sorrow, The Day That A Child Appeared, Christmas Time, Twelve Good Men, If The Bombs Fall, Medley (I Wish We'd All Been Ready / UFO), Sweet Sweet Song Of Salvation, I Wish We'd All Been Ready, PeacePollutionRevolution, Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music, The Tune, Leaving The Past Behind and The Six O'Clock News. Changes include updated or corrected descriptions, version information, lyrical corrections etc
Adjusted the banner image on the Road Rage page so that Larry's head is visible. Likewise The Very Best Of Larry Norman Volume 1
Updated The First Noel on the singles page to link the relevant song pages
Added descriptions of You Gotta Have Jesus, The Tune and The First Noel CD singles. See the singles page
Updated Something New Under The Son page to reflect the 2003 CD. Updated relevant song pages likewise. Also added Canadian cassettes SNUTS-CA3 and -CA4
Added We Were All So Young to the Other Releases page. [No images or song page yet]
Updated The Six O'Clock News page to reflect the SRA exclusive CD single

18 Comments

Jerry

17/10/2023 02:08:58 pm

I just want to say I really appreciate this site. The database is incredible and being able to know all the different versions of songs is very interesting. While I haven't been a fan for too long, with all the knowledge from this site it feels like I have been for my entire life.

Derek link

17/10/2023 05:17:41 pm

Thanks for your kind words Jerry, and welcome to the rabbit hole. ;-)

18/10/2023 07:12:53 pm

If you don't mind, I'd love to ask you a few questions. With working on this big project I'm sure you may have more insight than others might.

1. What is the most rare/valuable Larry Norman thing that you know of?

2. What's your theory for the lack of studio albums and the massive number of bootleg and live albums in the 80s?There are so many songs that I think would do very well on a full fledged album like Note From Mr. God and Why Can't You Be Good. I may be misguided in my observation but that's how it seems from what I've seen.

3. How much, if any, Larry material do you think is undiscovered, lost or still needing to be released properly?

Bonus 4th: what does D.U.F.B.Y. stand for? I haven't been able to connect the dots on that one.

18/10/2023 07:39:39 pm

1. Possibly the most rare release would be the Soul On Fire single. Blue vinyl copies of Barking At The Oops are extremely scarce too. The acetates are obviously very rare too. Then there are obvious items like the snakeskin boots, the Planet jacket or the 1977 tour ring - only two of those exist I believe.

2. Larry suffered an injury in 1978 (the airplane accident) that affected his brain, then his marriage ended and Solid Rock imploded. I'd say that 'perfect storm' affected him deeply on a personal level as well as his his creativity and ability to produce new music, at least to the same standard. Add to that the fact he saw fans buying bootleg recordings more and more, leading him to figure well, if that's what they want....

3. If you mean "recordings" then there are thousands of songs / tracks in the archives, but those are mostly live recordings, studio roughs, demos, songwriting ideas and the like. There aren't that many finished studio recordings we haven't heard, and even fewer completely unheard songs. There is a 'new' live album coming soon though that in my opinion will be hands down the best LN live release ever. (Except for Belfast Bootlegs maybe).

4. Dug Up From The Back Yard, a play on Phydeaux of course.

18/10/2023 07:52:57 pm

Thanks!

28/10/2023 05:58:21 am

Sorry for the all the comments on this post but I noticed a strange “misprint” on my Street Level Rock-888-5 [1978, USA], Pre-Release copy of Only Visiting this Planet. The back image surrounded by the purple boarder has the track listing and info for older copies not to mention it’s cropped. It seems like all copies probably have this judging by the copy you show too. I just found this very interesting. Couldn’t he have refound the image or at least cropped out the old info? Probably not worth mentioning anywhere on the web site but interesting nonetheless.

P.S. In the gatefold lyrics for “Six o’clock news I found a typo. Instead of “bell boy took”, it’s “bell boy gook”

28/10/2023 06:23:06 am

Also, what do you know the new live album you mentioned? I’m assuming it’ll be on Bandcamp but will it get a physical release? Also what makes you think it’ll be one of the best?

28/10/2023 10:07:58 am

Hey Jerry. No worries, I don't mind discussing matters Larry! Regarding the 1978 OVTP rear sleeve... Sleeves in those days were made by positioning the different hard copy elements and then taking an image of the end result - rather like flattening a bunch of layers in Photoshop or whatever nowadays, but all manual and on paper. For example, look at the UK MGM release - you can clearly see where they took the original Verve sleeve and overlaid some additional text, and obscured the Verve logo and copyright text. Then look at the Myrrh version - they took the MGM UK one and just plonked a blue box on top!

Anyway, for the Stonehenge layer, Larry used an unused slip from the trip-fold Verve LP - a print of the artwork not yet glued onto the sleeve. As you say it would have made more sense to use the original image before any text was added, but we can only speculate now. He may not have had that image, or been unable to find it, or he may have deliberately wanted to retain the Verve logo. Could also be that he wanted to keep the three pillars as a trilogy reference... Good spot though, I bet most people don't even notice that detail. The image is pretty much the full width of the original, but is as you say cropped at the bottom and moreso the top.

Regarding Six O'Clock News - the lyric is indeed "the bellboy gook". The song was written in the late 1960s, when such derogatory language was less "politically incorrect". The song is sung from the POV of a US news reporter who is indifferent to the horrors of what he is reporting, and evidently somewhat racist too.

28/10/2023 03:41:25 pm

Wow! I would’ve never guessed it was actually gook, but after listening to it again it certainly is.

3/11/2023 01:24:55 pm

Was looking through The Videos page and while it's clearly not done, I just thought I should mention something that's not on there in case you didn't know for whatever reason. There is a DVD video of a People Reunion concert. I don't have it right in front of me at the moment and I can't remember what exactly it's named (Something like Larry Norman live with People!). It's from the 90s for sure. I don't think it even has everyone from People! on it but i may just be misremembering. If you have any information you can't get from any of your cohorts, I'd be happy to help.

3/11/2023 07:47:43 pm

Hi Jerry. There were actually two DVDs from that concert. The solo and band sets were released individually under the title Live At The Smith, and there was also a CD, which was titled The Reunion Concert. The concert took place at The Smith Auditorium in Salem, OR in 2006 - not 1990s. Actually, I operated one of the cameras. ;-) Only Larry, Gene and Denny from the original band took part, but the whole band did reunite and perform a few songs in 2007, when they were inducted at the San Jose Rocks event. See here: https://sanjoserocks.org/rockers/people.

You are probably aware that there was an earlier People! reunion concert in 1974, though only Gene and Larry from the band were part of it. Larry released that as The Israel Tapes.

3/11/2023 08:08:00 pm

Wow! You were one of the camera men! Your little author blurb seems a little modest. For all I know now you could've very well been there in recording studios with him!

16/11/2023 06:09:20 pm

I had to deal with trying to get my dad's copy of Rough Street Love Letter to rip on his computer a couple weeks ago and it was a pain. Doesn't help that the last two tracks were borked, obviously by a pretty bad scratch. That in it of itself is frustrating because that's a fairly rare release on CD from what I understand. Then getting it onto our phones sucked because the phones didn't really recognize it due to lack of labeling the files or something.

That experience had him mention that he thinks it's a bootleg that Larry took from bootleggers then sold himself. I know that he "bootlegged the bootleggers" but did he really sell what were bootleg copies not produced with his permission? He cites the printing on the CDs to be evidence of this but I'm not convinced. What do you know about this? This topic has been on my mind for a while.

16/11/2023 06:14:12 pm

Also the new Kickstarter live album looks real good! My dad and I are gonna support it sometime next month before it ends and try to get the CD, Vinyl, and (hopefully) Bonus CD. I'm just wondering how you of all people knew about roughly a month in advance.

16/11/2023 11:03:41 pm

I've known about the new album for way more than a month. I have friends in low places....... ;-)

16/11/2023 11:30:08 pm

Sorry to hear that you had so much trouble with RSLL, which is indeed quite hard to find nowadays.

Larry did repackage some counterfeit items - eg digitised copies of Upon This Rock, Bootleg, Street Level LPs etc - that were being sold among fans. That's what the Illegal Noise series is. To my knowledge Larry never directly sold on bootlegs / counterfeits that he had acquired. The "bootleg the bootleggers" items were always pressed by Larry and with artwork he made. (As opposed to any artwork the bootleggers made).

RSLL is not in that category though. The audio quality, presence of previously unreleased material and the fact the discs were factory pressed attest to that.

It is possible that your dad's copy is a counterfeit copy I suppose, but if so then I'm absolutely confident it didn't come from Larry / Solid Rock. You can compare it with the images on this site if you want to double check.

17/11/2023 12:17:17 am

Finally have put that debate to rest with him! We’re certain that he got it from Norman back in the day.

I also want to say it’s just really cool to be able to reach out and communicate with someone who knows about Larry Norman, let alone someone who knows so much.

And we haven’t even gotten into the conversation of our favorite albums of his.

Speaking of which what is/are your favorite album(s) of his?

For me, Out of the trilogy, I gotta go Only visiting this planet but So long ago the garden is close. Maybe I’d go for In another land but it doesn’t really have a “Readers Digest” or “Nightmare” type song.

My favorite ‘85-2005 album might have to be Tourniquet. I’ve wondered why they used that title but it always reminds me of when he sings of Cleopatra using one in the song Nothing Really Changes.

Something new under the son is also very high up their of course. Looking the scans of the annotationed son gave it a whole new meaning with that story and with an extended version of Watch What You’re Doing that was supposed to have the last five words of the marionette he didn’t have in the original nightmare song. It’s a shame it never came out. (I’ve looked but I’ve only seen ones with the expanded instrumental.)

What about you?

17/11/2023 10:08:04 am

I'm enjoying our conversation too. You can also contact me by e-mail at [email protected] by the way.

I can't really do "top 10" lists, but my favourite studio albums are Stranded In Babylon, Garden, SNUTS and Planet probably.

Funnily enough, Nothing Really Changes often comes to my mind too when listening to Tourniquet, and vice versa.

I'm not sure that WWYD was ever recorded with all those lyrics shown in Annotated Son, but Larry may well have been thinking about overdubbing them at that point. Much of those words are in the linear notes as you've likely noticed. White Blossoms pre-release / Gathered Moments / Survivor do have the Be Careful What You Sign reference though, as does Rough Diamonds Precious Jewels, and he often sang the verse about the cage in concert.

Update 63

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