Reviewed by Dougie Adam

After Larry's relationship with Word Records became fractious and his own albums began getting delayed along with new albums by Randy Stonehill, Daniel Amos and others a cassette began circulating among industry insiders at the end of the '70s which contained extended rough mix versions of many of the songs which would finally appear in 1981 on 'Something New Under The Son' as well as a few covers of spirituals ("Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "If I Got My Ticket"), "Parson Brown", Woody Guthrie's "Jesus Christ" and a few assorted originals such as "The Tune", "Deep Blue" and "It's Only Today That Counts" which hadn't been released before. One snag which later bootlegs of the rough mix cassette had was that some of the starts and endings of songs were chopped off, Solid Rock have now corrected this for the official two CD release. Casual fans would be better sticking to the official release of 'Something New Under The Son' for the shorter edited version of these songs as the alternate versions here can run on for another two or three minutes after the point where the regular album versions faded out. Arch collectors on the other hand will enjoy hearing some of Jon Linn's guitar work in the longer jammed endings and some of the harmony ideas Larry had mixed out the final versions. Essential for huge fans of Larry while casual fans will complain these mixes go on too long and could have been better produced and won't be too bothered about getting the opportunity to hear a different ending to "The Tune". A nice release in the latest series of 'Illegal Noise' (bootleg) recordings, the audio quality is very good and the digipak presentation looks nice also.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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