IAN ANDERSON’S COUNTRY BLUES BAND
Stereo Death Breakdown
Fledg’ling CD
www.thebeesknees.com
God, Ian Anderson must have been so pissed off. There he was in 1969, all set to have his debut album Stereo Death Breakdown released on Island Records, when it was suddenly decided that as Jethro Tull were already on the label, record buyers would be too mentally enfeebled to tell the difference between the two Ian Andersons.
The album was consequently shunted across to Liberty/United Artists, but Anderson went on to seize his name back with a parallel career as a highly respected writer and broadcaster; a tireless blues evangelist and polymath. Forty years on, his debut album reappears with the dust blown off of it thanks to a careful re-mastering job, and stands as a superior example of earnestly authentic, studious but spirited UK acoustic blues.
Members of the Panama Limited Jug Band are among the assembled worthies, but particularly striking is the harmonica work of Chris Turner, then a mere eighteen years old, who bends those piercing top notes as deftly and commandingly as Little Walter.
Marco Rossi
KAREN DALTON
Green Rocky Road
Delmore CD
www.delmorerecordings.com
The enigmatic, ill-fated Dalton was a mainstay on New York’s Greenwich Village ’60s folk revival scene, counting the like of Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin and Fred Neil among her coffeehouse pals, but she seldom recorded (two Capitol albums) and was not a songwriter. Nevertheless, her majestic, Billie Holiday-tinged vocal approach and 12-string guitar and banjo fortified interpretive ability was widely influential. This nine-track compilation features material recorded at a friend’s home in ’62 and ’63 and captures her at her most compelling, most intrepid and relaxed.
Although the sound is a little spotty at times, fans will find the traditional folk-cured repertoire appealing—from the heartrending title tune and ‘Skillet Good And Greasy’ to deft revivals of ‘Katie Cruel’, ‘Nottamun Town’ and ‘If I Had A Ribbon Bow.’ Also noted are the bluesy, folk-rocking ‘In The Evening’ and a dazzling revival of ‘Whoopee Ti Yi Yo’. Worth seeking out.
Gary von Tersch
STEVE MANN
Live At The Ash Grove
Bella Roma CD
www.bellaromamusic.com
Ace finger style guitarist Steve Mann was briefly part of The Mothers Of Invention in the mid-60s but now resides in Berkeley, California and performs infrequently. This recording was taped at Los Angeles’ fabled Ash Grove coffee house in ’67 shortly before Mann’s health-related departure from the music scene and originally issued on Pasadena, California’s obscure Half Blind’s Choice label in ’75.
Mann, influenced by pianists like Mose Allison and Ray Charles, differed from most of his contemporaries in that he injected a laid back jazz sound into a basic folk-blues format, experimenting with modernistic chord sequences and, occasionally, atonal passages. He was also equally comfortable playing and singing in a variety of idioms, whether the Mississippi Delta blues of Robert Johnson, traditional folk songs like ‘She Caught The Katy’ or ‘Pallet On The Floor’, the Texas country blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson (‘99 Year Blues’) or the current folk hit ‘Green Green Rocky Road’.
Gary von Tersch
TRADER HORNE
Morning Way
Esoteric
www.esotericrecordings.com
Originally issued on Pye’s progressive imprint Dawn in 1970, Morning Way has remained somewhat overlooked and undervalued despite the group being comprised of original Fairport Convention vocalist Judy Dyble and former Them keyboardist/ guitarist Jackie McCauley. In this case, the finger of blame can be forcefully pointed at the ghastly cover, which suggests nothing less than a children’s album. Whilst twee in places, with many of McCauley’s songs exploring themes of lost childhood, the songs themselves are a sublime mix of folk, pop, medieval and baroque sounds that showcase exquisite arrangements built around acoustic guitars, harpsichord, flute, string quartets and Dyble’s trusty electric auto-harp (with drums by Yes man Alan White).
More pop than the Fairports or Pentangle, and a little too straight to qualify as “wyrd folk,” Morning Way is nevertheless an enchanting UK folk-pop album that has languished in the shadows for too long and will hopefully be given a long overdue reappraisal with this superb sounding re-mastered edition.
Stefan Granados
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