Agitator: The Essential

Description

Agitator is a compilation album by the American singer and songwriter Larry Norman, independently released on Solid Rock Records in 2002. It is volume 2 in The Essential Series.

When we published Dougie Adams’ groundbreaking annotated Larry Norman discography in CR62 and CR63 it must have become clear to all our readers just how mind-bogglingly complex is the recorded history of Larry Norman. The undeniable inventor of Christian rock music has treated his vast recorded output with flamboyant eccentricity forever reshuffling tracks, finding new ones in the archive and remixing and overdubbing with a seeming disregard for the sanity of that clique of LN collectors determined to assemble everything the great man has committed to tape. But now even the most hard bitten of Norman anoraks are unlikely to resent the latest batch of albums which sees some never-before-released items put out with old classics which they’ll already have (some on many, many other releases). For Larry is very, very ill and the sales of these albums will go directly towards covering the pioneer’s huge hospital bills. The three tracks the hardcore collectors will want here are «Sweet Silver Angels», an undocumented recording; «God Part 2», the original 1971 version; and the original recording of «People In My Past». But it’s the 21 other tracks here which will hopefully pull in new music enthusiasts to one of the great songwriters of the 20th century. His ‘60s and ‘70s versions of «I Wish We’d All Been Ready», «Righteous Rocker», «Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus», «Six Sixty Six», «Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?», «The Great American Novel» and «Reader’s Digest» are as good as Christian music gets. If you’ve yet to discover the man who pioneered the music you love, this is the album to kick you off. [Tony Cummings, Cross Rhythms, May 2003]

CD tracklist:

01. Sweet Song Of Salvation
02. You Can’t Take Away The Lord
03. I Wish We’d All Been Ready
04. What Goes Thru Your Mind
05. Even If You Don’t Believe
06. Taking My Time
07. Lonely By Myself
08. Righteous Rocker
09. Song For A Small Circle Of Friends
10. Why Don’t You Look Into Jesus
11. Diamonds
12. One Way
13. Peacepollutionrevolution
14. U.F.O.
15. I’ve Searched All Around
16. Six Sixty Six
17. Why Should The Devill Have All The Good Music
18. The Great American Novel
19. Reader’s Digest
20. Be Careful What You Sign
21. Nightmare
Previously unreleased bonus tracks:
22. Sweet Silver Angels – undocumented recording
23. God Part 2 – original version 1971
24. People In My Past – original recording

Note: Available at Bandcamp: https://larrynorman.bandcamp.com/album/agitator