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Gordon in the Library of Congress

Posted: Thu May 18, 2017 6:01 pm
by Jon G
I don't know if anyone else has noticed that Larry Norman's second album, Only Visiting This Planet, was one of only 25 recordings from the entire history of recording to be put on the registry of the US Library of Congess in 2013.

The citation said: “Only Visiting This Planet” (album)—Larry Norman (1972)
“Only Visiting This Planet” is the key work in the early history of Christian rock. Norman was a veteran of the American rock scene of the 1960s—as well as a street-corner evangelist—and his songs were musically assured and socially aware. Many earlier efforts in this genre concentrated on joyful affirmations of faith, but Norman also commented on the world as he saw it from his position as a passionate, idiosyncratic outsider to mainstream churches. “Only Visiting This Planet” was recorded at George Martin’s AIR studio in London with a group of top studio musicians that included John Wetton of King Crimson (and, later, Asia) on bass. The album set new production standards for Christian music. For some, Norman and his work are still controversial, but his influence remains strong."

Gordon played acoustic on The Outlaw. At that time (ie 2013) the total number of recordings on the register was only 400, so it's quite a feather in the cap not only for the late Larry, but for Gordon and the others involved in the album, including those nice people at Triumvirate who produced so many of Gordon's greatest band albums as well as this one.