The Outpouring: Alive at the Community Coffeehouse

OUTA1 (Fall 1993)

The coffee-house ministry was the gathering par excellence of the Jesus Music era.  Although there are live recordings out there of concerts, coffee-house recordings are few and far between.  This site features only two, both from Texas: the Answer (and that was a rehearsal) and the Latter Rain.  And both of those were recorded from the floor, with all the reverberance to go with them.

Outpouring is no stranger to this blog; their 1979 album is probably the most progressive American album on the site, although this and this are not far behind.  It represented a push into the artistic, a push notoriously lacking in most American Christian music.

This production, fourteen years later, isn’t exactly in the Jesus Music era, but the performers certainly are, and they’re in the same community they were for the first production, too.  The idea of doing a live coffee-house recording from the board is an improvement in and of itself.  And, of course, Outpouring and their community had the task of proclaiming the gospel in the toughest part of the U.S. to do so (except for you know where…)

And the music? It isn’t as “artsy” as the first album, and it’s more directly evangelistic than the first too.  But it’s on a good level musically; there are some fun pieces, some jazzy ones, even a little country.  It’s a great representation of the genre, one that is way too few and far between.

The songs:

1. A Matter of Heart
2. Like a Seed
3. Self-Rejection Blues
4. Maybe
5. Heart Divided
6. Standing Still No More
7. Not Your Fight Alone
8. Heart of Hearts
9. Choose to Believe
10. Time to Get Serious
11. Lord’s Prayer

• Songs (2) and (9) written by Jim Albano and Fran Rosato
• Song (1) written by Jim Albano and Donna Albano
• Song (5) written by Jim Albano and Cliff Natoli
• All the rest written by Jim Albano
• Produced and engineered by Cliff Natoli and Mark Grasso
• Mastered by Tom Rucktenwald
• Outpouring logo by Barbara Christopher
• Coffeehouse logo by Vinne Albano

Thanks to David for this music.