Larry Good & The Good Times Band - Half-Alive at the Sahara - Album Cover art by Jack E. Davis - 1971

Larry Good & The Good Times Band - Half-Alive at the Sahara - Album Cover art by Jack E. Davis - 1971, originally uploaded by JasonLiebig.

Larry Good & The Good Times Band - Half-Alive at the Sahara - Album Cover art by Jack E. Davis - 1971

This album has a personal connection to me, and my childhood, which is why I've decided to share it with my Flickr friends.

It features Larry Good & The Good Times Band, on an album called "Half-Alive at the Sahara". The Sahara is a small bar in my hometown of Columbus, Nebraska.

While it was recorded in Nebraska, it was reasonably successful in the midwestern market. Larry was a talented guy and always toured and always made his living making music.

My mother dated and lived with Larry Good from 1973 until about 1979. So as kid, I knew all of these musicians. I also loved this album cover art, and one of these covers was thumbtacked to my and my brother's bedroom wall back in the 1970's.

That was a long time ago, and while I hadn't forgotten about the band, I had forgotten about this art. Earlier this year I became curious about Larry Good and started doing some Ebay searches -- eventually this album turned up. When I saw the artwork, the memories flooded back in.

After getting it and doing some research, I found out that the cover art represents some of the earliest work by noted children's book artist, Jack E. Davis. Pretty cool, as he must have done this as a kid just starting out in the advertising world.

Another thing that's pretty neat is that John Cline, the band's drummer and sand-castle maker here, gave my brother and I our first Spider-Man comic books. Two decades later, I would work at Marvel Comics here in New York City.

I could go on and on about this cover and the musicians featured on it, but I'll finish here.

If you're curious about the music, it's actually pretty cool. It's live country/rockabilly/rock.

I've Mp3'd the entire album and posted it, in compressed .rar format at the following location. Beware, though, the file is 75 megs LARGE:

www.wishbookweb.com/LarryGood.rar

If you DO download it, let me know what you think... unless you hate it. I probably don't need to hear that. ;-)