Living Colour: Corey Glover (vocals); Vernon Reid (guitar, background vocals); Muzz Skillings (bass guitar, background vocals); Will Calhoun (drums, percussion, background vocals).

Liner Note Author: Greg Tate.

Recording information: CBGB, New York, New York.

As the band at the vanguard of the collective known as the Black Rock

Coalition, Living Colour was one of the only all-black rock bands of

their era to achieve mainstream success. As such, they had a huge

sociocultural impact, but LIVE FROM CBGB, which finds the quartet at the

peak of its powers in 1989, underscores the fact that they were musically significant. The energy level they generated in a small, gritty venue like the famed NYC punk club is palpable. Corey Glover's strong, wailing voice belts out socially conscious, often racially oriented lyrics atop a nonstop firestorm from fretboard maniac Vernon Reid and the muscular rhythm section. Reid and company seamlessly mix funk, heavy metal, sampling, classic rock, and even the occasional power ballad ("Open Letter to a Landlord") with a sensibility that's informed by punk's energy but bears leagues more sophistication. LIVE FROM CBGB is an urgent document of this band's power, and is probably a more fitting legacy than even their contemporaneous studio recordings.