A few days after I learned about Larry Norman going home, I decided to honor him in my own little way, by heading over to his online store, and picking up a couple of CD’s.

Boy was I in for a surprise!

Since I own most of his well known stuff I went to the collector and rare CD page to browse around. I thought about picking up two CD’s. I did, but only one was by Larry Norman!

The Norman CD I bought is called Tourniquet, and was released a few years after Stranded In Bablyon. It has nine cuts on it, which is a little sparse. But given how sick Larry was when he made this, I don’t think you can really complain about that.

It starts off with a eco-ballad, and there’s another social issues song towards the end. Both are vintage Norman, linking current events with his apocalyptic view of history. You can all the way back to the late ’60′s and early ’70′s and listen to him discuss the pending end of the world in nearly every interview he did.

Larry took the second coming seriously, which is not a bad thing! My favorite song on the entire CD is Rock The Flock. It’s has a classic Norman verbal hook, “I’m gonna rock the flock, till kingdom come.” It’s a great song about standing up for Jesus and witnessing to everyone, something else Larry was big on.

I highly recommend this!

As I continue scrolling down the page I hit the big surprise – a CD by Mark Heard! I had no idea Larry Norman had any songs recorded by Mark Heard, much less10 of them! And I’ve never heard any of the before!

Here’s how the CD is described on the store site:

When Mark Heard died of a heart attack at age 41, the world lost a musical visionary and Larry lost one of his closest friends. In his short lifetime, Mark released 16 albums, but recorded many more songs which were never released. Until now. A recent foray into the vaults yielded several artifacts that Mark recorded during his time at Solid Rock, some of them never before heard. We’ve included them on this collection of songs written by a true American poet, ten tracks filled with Mark’s trademark wit and wisdom.

“Mark Heard was my dear friend. We were always loyal to each other, which is what you need when things start falling down around you. We continued to work together in the studio almost up to the time of his death. He was perhaps the gentlest and kindest of any musician I have ever known. He never said anything negative about anyone, at least not to me”. – Larry Norman

Heard died in 1992, and I can hardly believe it’s been so long! I was doing Christian Radio back then (as a volunteer – no money there honey!) and we did an entire show in tribute to him when he died far too young!

Mark’s lyrics have always been powerful and spoke to me in a way that’s rare. This CD is what I expected it to be, full of early Heard music, very folky sound. The songs are simple, the musicianship is incredible, and the message is very direct and fairly simple as well.

There’s also a sample of Mark Heard humor on Missionary Pie, which is a plea to God not to send him out to the jungles to be cooked in a missionary pie! Very funny stuff, done in a low key style.

If you like Heard’s music – this is a must have! At $16.98 it’s a steal – go get it!!

These two great men of God have gone home to glory, but their music remains to instruct us, comfort us, shake us out of our comfort zones, and stand as a tribute to the incredible music gifts God gave them.
Thanks Lord for their lives and ministries – I can’t wait to hear them in heaven.