Old Enough to Forget

I'm kind of surprised I didn't write about In Another Land earlier. I suspect this may be longer than it needs to be (likely a lot longer), sorry in advance but you should stick around anyway - it may be worth it. In terms of watershed albums this is right near the top of the most influential albums I have ever heard. The album was released in 1976 and a number of the older kids knew about him, but I was pretty clueless about Christian music. I was at a youth conference in '77 or '78 (things get fuzzy ) and the cool kids (who were likely four or five years older) were talking about an upcoming concert he was going to have in Vancouver, likely the Queen Elizabeth theatre but honestly the details are sketchy. The fact I remember anything at all is kind of amazing.  It was the youth group dances in the late '70s and early '80s where I first got a taste of his music. The big dance songs were "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music" and "The Roc...

I've been squirrelling down a rabbit hole the last couple of days. When I pulled out the Randy Stonehill record I found myself going back and playing a bunch of stuff tangentially related to Larry Norman through his old Solid Records imprint. To say that Larry was like the Kevin Bacon of my rock world, especially in the "Christian" market, is understating the connection to so much of what sits on my shelves. Like many of Mark's fans I started with his 1979 release Appalachian Melody . Even then you knew there was something special about this guy. However the depths of his talents as a musician, writer, and producer were never fully plumbed as his was a life cut far too short. Mark Heard's initial golden run ran from 1981 to 1985, and I have to say I am more than a little partial to Stop the Dominoes and Victims of the Age, his first two albums on Home Sweet Home. By the time he had released Mosaics in '85 I had become a little less enamoured with where he wa...

Although the album came out in 1976, it wasn't until a few years later that I picked this up. For me it served as a bookend to Larry Norman's 1975 album In Another Land . Both albums were produced by Larry Norman, and both engineered by the legendary Andy Johns, with assistance from Tom Trefethen. These were the albums that introduced me the guitar playing of Jon Linn a player who was mind mindbogglingly tasty and did stuff that still makes my head spin.  Welcome to Paradise was a rock record filtered through Randy's acoustic guitar and his distinctive voice. The album kicks off with "King of Hearts" a song that has more than stood the test of time. Randy followed up with a two punch combination "Keep Me Running" and "The Winner (High Card)" that are still among my favourite songs - ever. It's these three songs alone that have made this album such an important part of my musical journey. As good as he'd be in later albums, with flashes...

I suppose I really should have gone with In Another Land as that was my first Larry Norman album, and one that was a really big deal to me - but it was also the foundation upon which my love for this particular album was built. An album I felt at the time was the best thing he'd ever done - of course with the benefit of hindsight I can unequivocally say that isn't true. Larry Norman is a polarizing figure to a lot of people but I only knew him from his music, and first hand accounts from my dear dead dear friend Dave who went on tour with him doing live sound many years ago. Dave had nothing bad to say about him, and to quote good ol' Forrest Gump, " And that’s all I’ve got to say about that." To me Larry was as big a deal as there was and for many years I eagerly bought everything I could get my hands on - heck I even mail ordered all of those rehashed Essential anthologies. Even if he was more "Do what I say, not what I do" what he said made a big im...