Customer Reviews

Upon This Rock

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After leaving the band People, who had a charting single of the Zombies' "I Love You," Larry Norman created this album on Capitol records, which marketed it in relation to the Beatle's chart topping album, as "The Sergeant Pepper of Christianity." That was bad enough, but then Capitol sold it to Impact, the new "youth" label started by Benson (which never paid Norman royalties on the album).

The impact (sorry) of this album cannot be underestimated. It became both the anthemic hymn book of the Jesus Movement and spawned such youth group staples as "Sweet Song of Salvation" and "I Wish We'd All Been Ready." The Left Behind books were named for the last line in the latter song.

This marks the album's first release on CD, but this double disc limited edition includes much more. Side one includes the entire album in the remixed version that was released by Impact (and I think is better than the Capitol one), along with various alternate versions, and a few songs that would later appear on the double album, Bootleg (not a bootleg). Steve Camp recorded "Strong Love Strange Peace" on his first album.

There's also a rare radio interview from the Baptist-related Powerline show, and the Capitol version can be heard in the background. Upon This Rock remains a great Norman album full of strong songs (some of which he would re-record later) and presages the concept trilogy albums, Only Visiting This Planet, So Long Ago the Garden and In Another Land. For more info on this and other Norman albums check out larrynorman.com or see the Beginners' Guide to Larry Norman at alivingdog.com.

Larry Norman/ Upon This Rock: Larry was a great writer, musician and singer who was respected by many of the rock `legends' of his era, but he basically dropped off the radio radar once he put his trust in Jesus and dedicated his talent to singing about his faith. "Upon This Rock" was produced by Capitol Records who simply didn't understand the there was a market for Christian Rock and so they insisted on adding the saccharine sweet backup singers and the Prelude and Postlude to the LP in order to make it more palatable for the Church going folks. The result almost ruined the album but those additions did not damper the great songs that Larry does here. However, Larry's departure from Capitol was inevitable after this. This is a great album (despite the Capitol additions) and yet, Larry's best work was yet to come.

Upon This Rock is a bombshell of an album from an artist who few outside of the American West Coast would have known.
Recorded and released in 1969 it took Christian music by storm, being the start of Christian rock.
Disc 1 has many highlights, top of them is Forget Your Hexagram, great lyrics, fantastic bass line and piano playing.
The Last Supper has some of best and most aggressive piano I have heard for long time and Nothing Really Changes is a powerful live cut which runs into the closer, Postlude.
The bonus tracks are less wonderful, although a demo of The Day That A Child Appeared, is excellent.
Disc 2 contains a radio broadcast Powerline from 1970, with Larry being interviewed about this album and his Christian faith.
It's good stuff, although not suprisingly dated in places.
The bonus songs and Larry's coments are not so essential to me.
Overall a suberb recording with the highest production standards and Larry sings from his heart and his head !

This is a remixed version of the original album. I hate it when they do that - even if it is the artist who does it. Larry should have made this a two disc set with both versions.

Takes me back to college days. My husband has been wanting this in CD. We have original record