Larry Norman - Restless In Manhattan '72

Reviewed by Dougie Adam

It’s a shame that the release of this concert from New York City in the summer of 1972 comes amidst a bundle of other live releases as this is easily one of the best live solo releases Larry has ever issued. It’s also one of the few recent releases to come with a great CD booklet with liner notes and memories of the Jesus Movement era from Larry complete with great photos from the period. Apparently this is a soundboard recording from cassette which was painstakingly digitally cleaned up by a fan after the original tape was found by one of their friend’s cleaning out their stuff. Long standing fans will enjoy hearing Larry’s vocals on this one as he sounds almost angelic on the more reflective songs just like he did on the live tracks from ‘Bootleg’ and ‘Street Level’ and more thought and care is invested in his guitar playing (eg, compare the live version of “Moses” here with the same song on other live albums and you’ll see what I mean). Some songs like “Blue Shoes White” and “Righteous Rocker” soon dropped out of Larry’s stage repertoire so it’s nice to hear them here.