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In Another Land: The Trilogy, Part Three – THE FUTURE. Death is conquered though you slumber… seven is the perfect number. [ “the garden the planet the land of the Son – past present and future the trilogy’s done; each life has three parts till three become one. Eternity stretches for aeons to come.” (Excerpt from the liner notes of In Another Land) ]

In Another Land is the fourth studio album by the American singer and songwriter Larry Norman, released on his own label Solid Rock Records in 1976, through the Jubilation Group distribution arm of Myrrh Records, a division of Word, which recently had been bought by ABC. (It was this LP that launched Solid Rock Records.) The album was recorded by the British engineer Andy Johns (who earlier had worked on iconic rock albums like Led Zeppelin’s IV and The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street) at various studios in Hollywood, California – Mama Jo’s Recording Studio, Sunset Sound, and Solid Rock Recording Studios – with Larry Norman producing. The production is stellar and the use of limited spacing between songs keeps the record moving in non-stop fashion. The front cover was painted by Joe D. Taylor, a close friend of Larry and Pamela Norman. The album was Larry’s best selling album ever and sold in more than 125,000 copies back in the day.

Larry Norman enlisted members of the formerly Warner Bros. Records-signed country-rock combo Mason Proffit for the two first releases on his newly established independent label, Solid Rock Records – his own album In Another Land as well as Randy Stonehill’s Welcome To Paradise. Thus Jon Linn handles lead and rhythm guitar while the rhythm section consists of bassist Tim Ayres (credited as t-bone in the album’s liner notes) and drummer Mark Walker. The Mason Proffit founders, brothers John Michael Talbot and Terry Talbot, contribute as well – on banjo (“Six, Sixty, Six”, a song later covered by Pixies’ lead singer Frank Black on his solo album Frank Black & the Catholics) and acoustic guitar (“I Love You”), respectively. Another cut on the album, “The Sun Began To Rain”, features the British actor and jazz musician Dudley Moore on piano, whom Larry and wife Pam had befriended while living in London during the recording of Larry’s previous two albums.

New Companies: Larry Norman, singer-songwriter, has launched Solid Rock Productions in Los Angeles as a subsidiary of Street Level Artist Agency headed by Robert Balian. First product to be issued on Solid Rock will be Norman’s “In Another Land” and a Randy Stonehill LP, “Welcome To Paradise.” [Billboard Magazine, May 22, 1976 (General News section)]

Larry Norman, who has been called the “poet laureate of Jesus music,” has completed an LP trilogy with the release of “In Another Land.” Released on Solid Rock Records, and distributed as part of Myrrh Records’ Jubilation Group, the album joins his previous efforts, “Only Visiting This Planet” and “So Long Ago The Garden.” [Billboard Magazine, August 7, 1976 (Gospel section)]

Larry Norman is the musician’s musician. He is clearly a leader: innovating, creating, moving by giant leaps forward. This album is a shining example of all the best that Jesus music has to offer.

Included with the album is the transcript of an interview in which Larry expresses his idea of what a good album should be. He says, “I think every Christian album should be so special and beautiful that you just can’t listen to it without realizing how special and beautiful God is. It should have a lot of thought go into it. The songs ought to be really incredible. I don’t want to record and album until it has 10 great songs on it. And the songs really have to say a lot and not the usual stuff. The songs have to contain a spiritual depth and an artistic depth. Or in some way express the special relationship that man can have with God.”

Larry Norman has done all that and more with this album. Here is Christianity faithfully, relevantly expressed with the utmost competence in a variety of contemporary styles. For example, «Shot Down» is a tight Elton-John-type rocker, while «Six Sixty Six» is a Neil-Youngish lament. But both songs (and all the rest) incorporate a vision nowhere to be found in their counterpart’s music. This is a superlative effort by a man who understands his art – an artist in every sense of the word. Buy this album and listen to it often. (Better still, buy it for a friend who needs to know what Norman is singing about.) [Campus Life, November 1976]

And the classics just keep on comin’. Many of the songs that appeared in primitive form on Street Level and Bootleg would get the professional studio treatment they deserved on In Another Land, probably Larry’s most familiar recording. This debut for the Solid Rock label together with Randy Stonehill’s Welcome to Paradise would serve as a one-two punch for the Christian rock scene and set the standard for those who liked their Jesus Music a bit more on the long-haired radical side. Sheesh, just look at the covers – I remember how these guys stood out like sore thumbs in the record racks displayed next to the clean-cut likes of Dino, Tom Netherton and all the rest. From the opening riff and jolting “woooooh!!!” of «The Rock That Doesn’t Roll» (sure to immediately distance the anti-rock crowd) to the majestic symphonic climax of the closing «Hymn To The Last Generation», Norman covered styles as diverse as retro rock n roll («Shot Down») and old-time Broadway («The Sun Began To Rain») along with his regular mix of acoustic tunes, orchestrated ballads, hard rock, etc. Lead chops are rendered by Larry’s favorite guitarist Jon Linn while Randy Stonehill contributes additional guitar and harmonies. [Ken Scott, The Archivist, 4th Edition]

> Larry Norman, In Another Land, Solid Rock Records (SRA 2001), 1976

The final part of the first trilogy looked ahead to the future or the End Times and made subtle references to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian’s life. ‘In Another Land’ was Larry’s best selling album ever.

Larry’s comments: ‘In Another Land’ was fun to make because I employed all of my friends. Jon Linn and I played all the guitar parts and doubled guitars with a few other friends. I did all the voices and wrote out every note of the orchestra parts using Anthony Harris to do take-down. And then I actually sang some of the horn parts and string lines and blended them with the orchestra pads so I could get unusual textures. If you listen with headphones you can hear me doing French horn parts and shadowing string lines. I did 18 songs for the album but the record company took off a few because they thought they were too strange. I was working on ‘In Another Land’ right up until the last minute. The album was totally finished but I just didn’t like some of the layers on songs so I went back into the studio to add some more harmonies to «Hymn To The Last Generation» and I added some more harmony to «I Am A Servant». Word refused to include «Top 40 Survey» because they thought it was too negative and also didn’t want «Looking For The Footprints» because they thought it sounded Arabic, which meant it sounded ungodly. They cut so much off the album that I felt it was a real mess. And I wanted the album to be about the same length on both sides because of the problems it would solve with cassettes and 8 track tapes. So I threw on a version of «I Love You» with different lyrics from the version I had produced for Randy Stonehill on ‘Born Twice‘. I didn’t really want to release the album with all of the changes Word was demanding, but after a six month stand-off I realised they weren’t going to live up to the contract under which they had promised me complete artistic control. Their head just wasn’t up to speed, culturally. They were not aware of what was going on in the real world and they were more afraid of what store owners wanted than what God possibly wanted. I wanted to put out a three-album boxed set of ‘The Complete Trilogy’ but they refused because they said ‘Only Visiting This Planet‘ wasn’t a Christian album. And they liked ‘So Long Ago The Garden‘ even less, so that project remained undistributed. And when later I gave them ‘Something New Under The Son‘ they also refused to release that and that’s when I started Street Level Records and soon after that started Phydeaux Records. They didn’t release ‘Something New Under The Son’ until five years later when they decided it was safe to. Very frustrating making great albums like ‘Le Garage Du Monde’, ‘Voyage Of The Vigilant’ and Steve Scott‘s ‘Moving Pictures’ and then having them be rejected because they didn’t sound “Christian”.

«I Dreamed That I Died», «Looking For The Footprints», «Top 40 Survey», «Presque Vu», «I Wish We’d All Been Ready» have all been listed as songs which were intended for the album but were not released by Word although a couple of them have featured on the special edition Phydeaux cassette from 1988 (which also contains some alternate mixes) or the various CD releases. An 18 song test pressing version also exists which included «Strong Love, Strange Peace». First re-released on CD in 1993 by Spark Music in Europe. The CD contained the 15 songs originally released by Word plus four bonus tracks which include «Looking For The Footprints» (one of the censored songs) and a great studio version of «Strong Love, Strange Peace». A 32 page booklet also helped make this re-release a bit special. Sadly Spark’s plans to re-release the whole Solid Rock back catalogue ran into problems due to Larry’s failing health and the condition (and whereabouts or ownership) of the original master tapes of the albums concerned. Solid Rock still hope to release the full series on CD in the near future. In 1999 Solid Rock issued a second CD re-release of the album. In addition to the 19 songs on the Spark CD version from 1993 here we have 4 new bonus tracks but only one is really worth repeated listens, the stomping blues rocker «Delta Day Jam». Another new CD booklet and a new picture CD mark this re-re-release… but most of the censored songs still aren’t here! The latest version of the CD is still available from Solid Rock and Spark still have copies of their original CD version. [Dougie Adam, Cross Rhythms, May 2001]

> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/in-another-land/280469792)

LP tracklist:

Side One
A1. “The Rock That Doesn’t Roll” – 3:32
A2. “I Love You” – 3:08
A3. “U.F.O.” – 2:54
A4. “I’ve Searched All Around” – 3:22
A5. “Righteous Rocker #3” – 0:48
A6. “Deja Vu” – 3:58
A7. “I Am A Servant” – 3:06

Side Two
B1. “The Sun Began To Rain” – 1:15
B2. “Shot Down” – 1:57
B3. “Six Sixty Six” – 2:30
B4. “Diamonds” – 1:38
B5. “One Way” – 2:21
B6. “Song For A Small Circle Of Friends” – 3:44
B7. “Hymn To The Last Generation” – 1:56

Note: Simultaneously released on 8-track tape, cassette, and 12-inch vinyl LP by Solid Rock Records. Later re-issued on CD. Available at Bandcamp: https://larrynorman.bandcamp.com/album/in-another-land

Gatefold Cover Artwork

File Under: “Jesus Rock”

Mason Proffit: (L-R) Mark Walker, Michael B. Smith, John Michael Talbot, Terry Talbot, and Jon Linn (August 1, 1954 – October 17, 2000). (Tim Ayres not present.) Picture shot by Larry Norman at Vail, Colorado, ca 1974. Norman enlisted Mason Proffit as the session band for his 1976-release, In Another Land, as well as Randy Stonehill’s Welcome to Paradise.

A full-page advertisement for the Solid Rock Records roster was featured in the February 1980 issue of CCM Magazine.

The Solid Rock artist roster, late 70s. A promo ad for the artists signed to Solid Rock Records was featured in the February 1980 issue of CCM Magazine: “Not your typical Baptist men’s choir, that’s for sure. They’re renegades, they’re innovators, they’re ahead of their time … these guys are the true artists of Solid Rock.” The following artists are pictured in the advertisement: 1) Ron Salsbury. 2) John Pantano. [ A duo known as Pantano-Salsbury. ] 3) Larry Norman. 4) Mark Heard. 5) Tom Howard. 6) Randy Stonehill. 7) Mark Cook. 8) Ed McTaggart. 9) Jerry Chamberlain. 10) Terry Taylor. 11) Marty Dieckmeyer. 12) Alex MacDougall. [ 7-12 collectively known as Daniel Amos. ]

New Companies

Larry Norman, singer-songwriter, has launched Solid Rock Productions in Los Angeles as a subsidiary of Street Level Artist Agency headed by Robert Balian. First product to be issued on Solid Rock will be Norman’s “In Another Land” and a Randy Stonehill LP, “Welcome To Paradise.” [Billboard Magazine, May 22, 1976 (General News section)]

Solid Rock Records was an independent record label founded in the mid-70s by singer, songwriter, and producer Larry Norman, distributed by Word. (Solid Rock was part of the Jubilation Group of small labels under Word’s Myrrh subsidiary.) It is considered an important moment in the history of Christian rock music since it was the first artist-driven label in this field. Between 1976 and 1981 Solid Rock Records released the following albums: Larry Norman – In Another Land (SRA 2001), Randy Stonehill – Welcome to Paradise (SRA 2002), Tom Howard – View from the Bridge (SRA 2003), Randy Stonehill – The Sky Is Falling (SRA 2005), Larry Norman – Something New Under the Son (SRA 2007), Pantano Salsbury – Hit the Switch (SRA 2008), Mark Heard – Appalachian Melody (SRA 2009), Daniel Amos – Horrendous Disc (SRA 2011).

During the 1970s the Solid Rock crew also appeared on a handful of albums released by other labels, like Lead Me Home by Dave Mattson, Strangers in a Strange Land by Salvation Air Force (an album initial scheduled for an April 1977 release on Solid Rock Records, though delayed until August the following year and finally released by Word), Freedom Flight by James Sundquist, and Midnight Fire by Randall Waller of Avion fame.

[ It should also be noted that Larry Norman and Mark Heard co-produced what would have been the debut album by British singer/songwriter Steve Scott. The album – tentatively entitled Moving Pictures – was recorded in Los Angeles in the 70s, featuring musicians like Mark Heard, Tom Howard, Randy Stonehill, Larry Norman and Jon Linn, though sadly never released. (A couple of demos from those sessions later appeared as bonus tracks when Scott’s Love in the Western World was re-issued on CD by Millenium Eight Records in 2000.)

Singer/songwriter David Edwards, once a member of the rock outfit Ron Salsbury & The J.C. Power Outlet (a band that also included John Pantano and Ron Salsbury, later of Pantano-Salsbury fame), actually was working on a solo album tentatively to be released on Larry Norman‘s Solid Rock label, though no record ever materialised. In 1981, Edwards did release a self-titled solo album on Myrrh Records, followed by a couple more albums.]