Black and White in a Grey World was Leslie Phillips’ third of four albums on Myrrh Records, once again produced by Dan Posthuma.
The songs on this record sound just like her but a little older. She is more mature in music, in delivery, and with even deeper songwriting than on Dancing With Danger. There are still plenty of praise songs and messages of encouragement here. Later, Leslie would say that she felt a lot of pressure from the record company to record certain kinds of songs and that is why she eventually left to go to Virgin Records.
Leslie does a great job of pulling in the pop/new wave high energy sound into her her songs without watering down any message. This album is very well done and deserves even more critical acclaim than it got.
Tracklist
1 – Black And White In A Grey World – 4:20
2 – Tug Of War – 3:20
3 – When The World Is New – 4:31
4 – Psalm 55 – 3:48
5 – Your Kindness – 4:03
6 – The More I Know You – 5:00
7 – Smoke Screen – 3:37
8 – You´re My Lord – 4:13
9 – Walls Of Silence – 4:54
10 – You´re The Same – 4:14
Credits:
Backing Vocals – Tata Vega
Bass – Nathan East, Neil Stubenhaus
Drums – Carlos Vega, John Robinson
Guitar – Dan Huff
Keyboards – Alan Pasqua
Mixed By – Bill Schnee
Percussion – Paulinho Da Costa
Producer – Dan Posthuma
Petra recorded this album (using the name Classic Petra) on November 20th, 2010 at Trinity City Music Hall in Hendersonville TN.
Picking 12 songs to perform and record out of a catalog as large as theirs must have been a difficult process however I think they did a great job. The choices are a wide variety of their material and I believe they left out some of their biggest hits quite intentionally. Because of that, this retro release is just about perfect.
Track Listing:
1 – Bema Seat – 4:38
2 – Clean – 3:32
3 – Angel Of Light – 4:45
4 – Rose Colored Stained Glass Windows – 4:43
5 – Godpleaser – 5:07
6 – Second Wind – 4:55
7 – More Power To Ya – 3:37
8 – Let Everything That Hath Breath – 4:29
9 – Grave Robber – 5:24
10 – Adonai / Back To The Rock – 9:21
11 – Too Big To Fail – 4:50
Credits:
Art Direction, Coordinator [Project Coordinator] – Mark Kelly
Bass Guitar, Vocals – Mark Kelly
Booking – H2O Artist Agency
Design [Art Design / Creation] – Julie Sturgeon
Drums – Louie Weaver
Engineer [2nd Engineer] – Jon Blass
Engineer [Live Tracking Engineer] – Greg Malenovsky
Engineer [Mix Engineer] – John Jaszcz
Guitar, Vocals – Bob Hartman
Keyboards, Vocals, Producer, Edited By [Studio Editing], Engineer [Tracking Engineer], Engineer [2nd Engineer] – John Lawry
Lead Vocals – Greg Volz
Legal [Legal Counsel] – Lannie J. Cates
Management [Band] – Bob Bender Productions
Management [Business] – Kim Hartman
Photography By – Jon LeMay
This is Amy Grant’s second Christmas album, her first one being some 30 years earlier.
This album includes appearances by her husband Vince Gill.
Track Listing:
1 – Tennessee Christmas – 4:27
2 – To Be Together – 4:11
3 – Christmas For You And Me – 3:04
4 – Melancholy Christmas – 3:02
5 – December – 3:29
6 – White Christmas – 2:23
7 – Joy To The World – 3:08
8 – I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm – 3:24
9 – Baby, It’s Cold Outside – 3:15
10 – Christmas Don’t Be Late – 3:16
11 – Still Can’t Sleep – 3:11
12 – Another Merry Christmas – 2:22
13 – O Come, All Ye Faithful – 3:07
Credits:
Executive-Producer – Peter York
Producer – Ed Cash (tracks: 7,9,11,12), Mac McAnally, Marshall Altman (tracks: 3,4,6)
This is Randy’s debut record from 1971 or maybe 1973. This copy is marked 1973. He has another release from 1973, “Get Me Out of Hollywood” but this isn’t that one.
Side one is a live recording that sounds a little like a church basement, but also a lot like an old school coffee house performance. The crowd is incredibly courteous, completely silent during the songs and responsive to each one. You can almost picture someone sitting in front of Randy holding a little microphone and a hand held cassette tape recorder. I think it was a higher quality affair than that, but it is this intimate.
Side two is a series of studio songs, several of which would later be recorded in more famous versions by Larry Norman. Some were released with different song titles. Larry produced this album, so it’s a little unclear how the songwriting credits were supposed to work. In particular, the song “Norman’s Kitchen” ended up on Larry’s 1990 album “Home At Last” titled “Sitting In My Kitchen”
This is a rarely heard treat that shows us the early start of Randy Stonehill, who is still going strong with a busy touring schedule over 45 years after recording this.
Track Listing:
1 – I Need You
2 – Hand In The Hand
3 – He’s Got The Whole World
4 – Help Me Lord
5 – Thank You
6 – Never Can Repay
7 – All Right Now
8 – Passing Stranger
9 – I Love You
10 – Christmas Time
11 – Norman’s Kitchen
Credits:
Producer, Arranged By, Photography By – Larry Norman
The songs on Labor of Love are a refreshingly different sound to hear from Larry Norman. They are far less brooding, and much less singer-songwriter or blues artist approach to songs. The reason? These songs are written by Tom Howard.
Labor of Love is one of 3 records included in the bARCHAEOLOGY boxed set released in 1984. Labor, and Letter of the Law, another of the 3 records in the set are comprised mainly of songs written by Tom Howard. There was also an album released called Quiet Night, under the name “Larry Norman & The Young Lions” although there is no evidence that the Young Lions were anyone other than Larry and his brother Charly. Actually that’s a pretty credible theory.
Larry was promoting Tom Howard on the Solid Rock label, and produced one album for him. Apparently at one point Larry decided that if he recorded some of Tom’s songs, they would be easier to promote, and it would result in better album sales for Tom.
There isn’t any evidence that this was a big boost for Tom Howard’s career, but he did have a few albums out on his own, including the one on Solid Rock Records.
There are a couple of “L’Etudes” tracks here, which are the only pieces written by Larry on this record. They serve as interludes between some of the songs.
Track Listing:
1 – Where His Love Touches Down
2 – Let The Master Make It Right
3 – Stairway L’Etudes
4 – Farther On
5 – Come On In
6 – Piano L’Etudes
7 – Mansion On The Sand
8 – Twilight L’Etudes
9 – Higher Calling
10 – Jesus Is The Song
11 – Drum L’Etudes
12 – One More Reason
Great rock’n’roll out of Canada! This is Daniel Band’s third album and by this time they had everything going. They had the sound, they had the energy, and they had the clear response to all those 666 t-shirts the rock fans in the 80s were wearing.
The 1980s high school uniform for a while was one of those baseball style 3/4 sleeve shirts done in black and white with an upside down cross, a bat, some blood, and a 666 on it.
Daniel Band took that 666 and drew a circle around it and put a line through it. They found a way to embrace the genre without embracing the wrong message and it really took for them.
Track Listing:
1 – Don’t Give Up – 3:51
2 – Run From Darkness – 4:41
3 – Walk On The Water – 3:38
4 – Never Gonna Die – 3:42
5 – Sixteen – 3:07
6 – Live Connection – 2:50
7 – Let’s Get Ready – 4:19
8 – Walls – 3:52
9 – It’s Over – 4:15
Credits:
Drums, Percussion – Matt DelDuca
Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar, Lead Vocals – Tony Rossi
Lead Vocals, Bass Guitar, Keyboards – Dan McCabe
Mastered By – George Graves
Mixed By, Recorded By – Mark Wright (3)
Rhythm Guitar – Bill Findlay
There were moments when 1983’s CCM version of Weird Al Yankovic was Randy Stonehill. His sense of humour comes through on a number of songs in this collection.
Randy was a serious musician and had been for a long time. He has several very serious songs on this album, including the opener “Light of the World”, “China”, and “Turning Thirty.” However there is a good collection of novelty songs on this one. He always enjoyed hamming it up, going all the way back to “Lung Cancer” on his Welcome to Paradise album.
American Fast Food, Shut de do, Cosmetic Fixation, Big Ideas, are all fun songs but not light on message.
Track Listing:
1 – Light Of The World – 4:10
2 – Big Ideas (In The Shrinking World) – 4:37
3 – Shut De Do – 2:46
4 – Even The Best Of Friends – 4:52
5 – American Fast Food – 3:19
6 – China – 5:32
7 – Cosmetic Fixation – 4:17
8 – Turning Thirty – 3:49
9 – Hide Them In Your Love – 3:29
10 – World Without Pain – 3:54
Credits:
Art Direction – Paul Gross (3)
Concept By [Album Cover] – Randy Stonehill, Terry Taylor
Engineer [Engineered By] – Thom Roy
Illustration – Kurt Triffet
Management – Ray Ware
Musician, Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Lead Vocals – Randy Stonehill
Musician, Bass Guitar [Base Guitar] – Tim Chandler
Musician, Drums, Percussion – Alex MacDougall
Musician, Keyboards [All Keyboards] – Tom Howard
Photography By [Inner Sleeve Photography] – Charles Allen (7)
Producer [Produced By] – Terry Taylor
Rick Cua is one of 49 members of The Outlaws over the past 6 decades or so. The “Southern rock” sound of The Outlaws translated somewhat into his solo career, but Rick has his own sound.
Rick left The Outlaws after turning to Christ and wanted to start making music with a message. He made several Christian albums, but never quite made it to household name status.
This debut from 1982 is a classic to me nonetheless. It reminds me of those teenage years spent listening to music in the basement, and all the time spent with friends back then.
Listening to it now, I think this was a greatly underrated record.
Track Listing:
1 – Fly Me To Heaven – 3:38
2 – Spirit – 3:53
3 – The Rock Was Rolled Away – 3:14
4 – Eternity – 4:07
5 – Heaven Was Made For Everybody – 3:34
6 – You Can Still Rock ‘N Roll – 3:01
7 – Crossfire – 3:19
8 – Just A Little Bit More – 3:56
9 – I Wanna Be Like You – 4:46
10 – Melt My Heart – 2:53
Credits:
Backing Vocals – Diane Tidwell, Donna McElroy, Lisa Silver
Design [Album Design] – Bill Brunt
Drums – David Dix, Joe English
Engineer – Jeff Levine
Engineer [Assistant] – Haran Hunter, Jim Baird
Executive-Producer – Ray Nenow
Guitar – Freddie Salem, Will McFarlane
Lacquer Cut By – HW
Lead Vocals, Bass – Rick Cua
Percussion – Matt Greeley
Photography By – Larry Dixon
Piano – Mike Duke
Producer, Arranged By – John Rosasco, Rick Cua
Synthesizer – Alan Steinberger
Written-By – Greg Nelson, Rick Cua, Scott Roley
This double album was released on vinyl shortly after Larry’s death in 2008. I have a lot of different anthologies that he released over the years. White Blossoms from Black Roots being one of the ones that was meant to be career-spanning at the time. This one includes his real mainstays, the songs he became known for, and probably the ones that were his favourites.
It’s pressed on heavy vinyl and I’ve only played my copy a few times. I remember discovering each one of these songs decades ago, and I think that’s the point of the collection.
This would have been the last thing Larry worked on before he died. Larry wrote short descriptions for each song on this record in September of 2007. They are included in the liner notes pictured, check out the photo.
The opening track is the version of I Love You from his time with the band People!. The recording sounds a little 1969 because it is. This was a radio single at the time and would have been released under Columbia Records. After that, Larry struggled with releasing his music on his own with complete control, and there is probably a lot that we will never hear.
True to LN fashion, the back of the jacket lists 5 tracks on each side of disc 1, but there are 4 on side A and 6 on side B. The same thing happened on disc 2. Ha Ha World is listed as the last song on side A but it is actually the first song on side B. At least the record labels are correct. Not a big deal, but the details always seemed to be a killer at SR Studio.
The lead-out etching on side 1 of disc 1 says “Death is conquered while you slumber.” This is an obvious homage to Larry’s passing. He used that phrase many years earlier in liner notes and it seemed to come up here and there. The other half of the rhyme is “Seven is the perfect number,” which is etched in side 2 of disc 1.
The 20 songs in this collection come from only 6 different albums, and 6 tracks are from Only Visiting This Planet, and 5 are from In Another Land. Larry obviously considered this to be his core work.
The etching on side 3 says “quasioxymoron: numbers don’t count.” This is a riddle we saw in the liner notes of Something New Under the Son. We have our guesses about it but no official sources ever answered any questions about Larry’s most cryptic notes.
Side 4’s etching says “Only Visiting This Planet Larry Norman (1947-2008)” Fitting. And the 7 is backwards.
Track Listing:
1 – I Love You
2 – I’ve Got To Learn To Live Without You
3 – I Am The Six O’Clock News
4 – The Great American Novel
5 – Moses: A Blues Recital And Meditation Of 40 Years On The Road
6 – Peacepollutionrevolution
7 – Pardon Me
8 – Reader’s Digest
9 – Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?
10 – Baroquen Spirits
11 – Nightmare #71
12 – Watch What You’re Doing
13 – Without Love, You Ain’t Nothing (Righteous Rocker)
14 – The Outlaw
15 – Ha Ha World
16 – U.F.O.
17 – I’ve Searched All Around The World
18 – I Wish We’d All Been Ready
19 – Rosemary’s Baby (The Omen-666)
20 – The Sun Began To Rain
This rather odd release from Larry Norman features 4 tracks of his own work on side 1 including a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Just Like a Woman”.
Side 2 is a sampler of British acts signed to Solid Rock records. This album was not licensed so it received no airplay and I’m mystified about the legalities of covering a Bob Dylan song.
If you only have time for one song I would suggest Alwyn Wall’s “Doctor Doctor”.
Track Listing:
1 – Larry Norman – The Tune (Almost)
2 – Larry Norman – Why Can’t You Be Good
3 – Larry Norman – Just Like A Woman
4 – Larry Norman – Deep Blue
5 – Various – The British Invasion (Medley With Cliff Richard, Lyrix, Sheila Walsh, Bryn Haworth, Steve Scott, Alwyn Wall, Barratt Band)
6 – Lyrix – Don’t Turn Your Back On Jesus
7 – Alwyn Wall – Doctor Doctor
8 – Sheila Walsh – Love In My Life
