So Long Ago The Garden has been rebalanced, re-equalized and remastered. The cover artwork has been re-scanned and the back cover is a slightly different version from the "snakeskin boots" photo used before. At the time of its release, it caused quite a stir in the gospel community. They said that Larry was naked and that this was proof he had fallen away from God. Also, there was a lightning bolt through his name, and, after all, lightning was a sign of Satan and of devil worshippers, wasn't it??? Well everybody knows it's true. Everytime there's a thunderstorm and you see lightning, well, that's not a display of God's power through nature ... it's the devil. So run and hide and cry out, "The sky is falling," "The sky is falling."

He was mercilessly attacked in the Christian press, his concerts were cancelled and he didn't get a single concert until a year and half later when Noel Paul Stookey invited him to perform in concert as his opening act. During his absence from the stage he worked on plans to start Solid Rock Records and produce other artists who also had "no commercial value." Some of the people he felt led to help were on drugs so he spent time helping them with their personal life and bringing them to a converted lifestyle. In the end, Keith Green and Larry could not work together so Larry let him go. Randy became the next artist in line and Larry produced a top rate album for him.

During this time, Larry had also started a Bible Study in his living room. It had no name and was only for musicians and actors. But after six months, "The Vineyard" was chosen as a name and although there was plenty of proof that Larry had NOT walked away from God, he kept on experiencing "blackballing" by the Christians. Bible bookstores refused to carry most of his albums if not all of them, especially in the South and Midwest.

If Garden caused him a lot of trouble with the Christians, it also brought him a lot of respect and acceptance from less judgmental people. U2 was in the process of starting a band, Dylan heard both Planet and Garden and coincidentally started going to The Vineyard for morning Bible study. And Tower Records couldn't keep either album in stock. It received rave critical reviews from the secular press ... all the more proof to Christians that Larry was doing the work of Satan.

Well, as I recall, the problem was that he was naked on the front cover of the album. Even though you couldn't see anything (the blend with the lion and the jungle brush strategically covered the appropriate parts), most Christian record stores were not prepared to stock an album with that type of cover back in 1973. (I wonder if they would even be able to do it today!)

As you can see from the photos in the earlier link, some of the later releases cropped the photo much higher so that you just saw a bare-chested Larry instead of a fully naked Larry.

I think the album cover is pure genius. The theme of the album goes back to the Garden of Eden, and so Larry is Adam naked in the garden, and the lion is a symbol of God. The blend of the two photos puts the lion "inside" Larry symbolizing the fellowship man enjoyed with God before the fall. I also love the way Larry's hair and the lion's mane blend together in the photo.

The symbolism of the photo of the snake boots and the apple with the two bites taken out of it on the back of the LP is obvious enough.

Here are Larry's liner notes about the photos from the original 1973 LP:

"the album cover was photographed by me. the lion is a friend of mine. the other is a self-portrait shot at 5:30 in the morning in rhodesia several days after the zambian shootings. (nikon ftn fitted with a 135 mm lens. exposure 1/125 sec. at f2.8 on ektachrome).

the back cover i shot in england. i could only find green apples, so fingernail polish was used to make the apple red.