Sunday, December 7, 2014

Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn - There You Go! (1965)

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Dorris Henderson and John Renbourn
There You Go!
Original release 1965 EMI
1999 reissue, Big Beat Records (CDWIKD 186)

1 Sally Free And Easy    (Cyril Tawney) 3:56
2 Single Girl 2:30
3 Ribbon Bow 1:28
4 Cotton Eyed Joe 2:16
5 Mr Tambourine Man  (Bob Dylan) 3:47
6 Mist On The Mountain 1:46
7 The Lag's Song (Ewan MacColl)  2:34
8 American Jail Song 2:42
9 The Water Is Wide 2:42
10 Something Lonesome    (John Renbourn) 2:09
11 Song (Falling Star)   (Lyrics -  John Donne, music - John Renbourn) 2:04
12 Winter Is Gone 2:51
13 Strange Lullaby   (Lyrics -  Judith Piepe, music - John Renbourn) 1:49
14 You'll Need Somebody On Your Bond  (Blind Willie Johnson) 3:17
15 One Morning In May 2:24
16 Darling Corey 3:07
17 Going To Memphis 3:09
18 Hangman 2:32
19 Leaves That Are Green (Paul Simon)  2:18


   Guitar, Backing Vocals  John Renbourn  
   Vocals  Dorris Henderson

Photography By  Brian Shuel


Flabber blabber:

Some very early John Renbourn here, paired with US-born Dorris Henderson.  She sings in a very early-60s trad "folk revival" style heavy on the vibrato, not so bad as to shatter crystal like Joan Baez, but it's still not my thing and often grates on my nerves.  Although this album may be more of historical interest for folk collectors and Renbourn fans, it does have its moments that shine.  The guitar playing, it goes without saying, is fantastic all throughout.  The one vocal duet, Misty Mountain, is lovely, and when Dorris loosens up - as she does on 'Cotton Eyed Joe,' 'American Jail Song' or 'Darling Corey,' I can connect a bit more.  The record would have benefited from more of John's compositions, which even atthis early date had a very characteristic sound.  "Strange Lullaby" is great, and the tune "Something Lonesome" is sort of an earlier version of what would turn into "The Bells" later with Bert Jansch.  And matching poems by Elizabethan poet John Donne or Robert Penn Warren to original music is pretty neat.  Henderson had a good knack for arrangements of traditional tunes too, as 'Winter Is Gone' sounds like she wrote it herself with Renbourn.  A pleasant album, even if not as evocative as it could have been.


Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Lazarus - Lazarus (1971)

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LAZARUS
"Lazarus"
1971 Bearsville (BR 2044)



A1         Refugee     3:30    
A2         Whatever Happened     4:25    
A3         Looking Through     5:00    
A4         Listening House     4:10    
A5         Circuit Rider     4:08    
B1         Warmth Of Your Eyes     2:58    
B2         Blessed     3:14    
B3         Eastward     4:19    
B4         Memory Of A Stranger     3:38    
B5         Doncha Cry     4:00    
B6         Rivers     4:40    



 Carl Keesee - Vocals, Bass
 Bill Hughes - Vocals, Guitar, Violin
 Gary Dye - Vocals, Piano, Organ

    Cover design by Milton Glaser
    Musical Director – Peter Yarrow
    Engineer, Mixed By – Phil Ramone
    Photography – Benno Friedman
    Producer – Peter Yarrow, Phil Ramone
  
    Written-By – Bill Hughes, Gary Dye (tracks: A3, B5)


Recorded at A & R Studios, New York City

Vinyl; Pro-Ject RM-5SE turntable (with Sumiko Blue Point 2 cartridge, Speedbox power supply); Creek Audio OBH-15; M-Audio Audiophile 192 Soundcard ; Adobe Audition at 32-bit float 192khz; Click Repair; individual clicks and pops taken out with Adobe Audition 3.0 - dithered and resampled using iZotope RX Advanced (for 16-bit). FLAC files made with XRECODE II.  Tags done with Foobar 2000 and Tag and Rename.

Liner notes by Peter Yarrow:

It was like living in a movie.  We were twenty minutes out of Abilene, Texas at the end of a dirt road in a small farm house.  We sat on the floor around a single candle that lit all our faces.  There was a quality in the room that reminded me of the those early morning hours after the Newport Folk Festival concerts.  Unable to sleep, we would trade songs and young dreams all night long.  The love was so thick in the air you could let it fall on your like a comforting blanket.  I asked softly (when, anymore, does one speak softly?) "Will you play the tape?"  And then the room was filled with the reason we had come together.

A thousand talented kids, their eyes telling me my own story, had spoken to me after concerts, asking me to hear their tunes or come have some food.  Why had I not simply explained my fatigue to Bill, Gary, and Carl and offered them an address to send the tape?

When I heard their music it was all clear, I knew the role I was to play in this movie.  ANd I smiled that particular smile - their songs just made me feel so good.

When they sang of Jesus, I really didn't know where to put it in my brain, so I put it in my heart and accepted their path for them - because they were more loving and more giving for it.  When they sang simply about people being with people, they told me the story of their own search for some light.

The rest of the story is more like weeding the garden than watching drifting clouds.  Lazarus came to New York and then came to Woodstock.  They lived in my magical cabin which was too crowded and cold for anyone sane.  They got further apart, then closer together - worked and doubted the dream - worked and reaffirmed it once again.  Then they met Phil Ramone and he smiled - so then we were five.  And on and on, and now it's two years later - and now it's your turn to smile.  
(August, 1971)









  In a rare occurrence of inattention to LP etiquette,  I accidentally played the second side of this LP before the first, on the very first time I listened to it.  As it happens, most of the heavy Christian songs seem to be on side two, and even though they aren't particularly "preachy,"  I still wasn't initially charmed by the whole hippie "Jesus people" vibe.  Some time passed before I even played the first side.  However, if a person had only listened to the first side of the record they would likewise only have an inkling of the groups spirituality, which almost makes me think it was a deliberate production decision to sequence the record this way so as not to alienate potential listeners in the freewheeling early 70s.   Like Peter Yarrow says in his liner notes, he also didn't know what to make of the whole Jesus thing (given that he is Jewish, it must have been special sort of awkwardness), but the songs are so well-done and obviously sincere that they won him over.  I wish I had played that powerful Side A from the very start and been won over sooner.  When you get down to it a lot of the awkward lyrical moments are no more or less awkward than many another musical offering from 1971 - it's hard not to cringe at any song that opens with a straight-faced "I am a lonesome cowboy," for example.  Their spiritual longings mostly take form in narrative and metaphor rather than exegetical sermonizing:  "Looking Through" is written as a letter from one friend to another, "Listening House" seems like a metaphor for an ecumenical vision of The Church.  "Memory Of A Stranger" sounds like it could be about a recovering alcoholic or drug addict but could also just be about "sin" (not much different from the discourse of Al-Anon or Narc-Anon anyway).  The record oozes with a melancholic hopefulness that probably resonated well with the kind of burnout a lot of people were going through in the early 70s.  In fact Lazarus reminds me of a group you might here playing in Golden Gate Park or outside of a Dead show, trying to get the teenager runaways to accept J.C. as their personal savior.


Stylistically these guys had a heavy dose of the Graham Nash end of CSN, with perhaps a little Byrdsiness thrown in for good measure, and similarities to other early 70s harmony-centric acoustic groups like America or Bread would not be amiss either.  Phil Ramone, who recorded a lot of stuff I absolutely hate, sure knew how to engineer and got these guys down in pristine audio.  The production is very tasteful too, the arrangements limited mostly to acoustic guitar, piano, and electric bass.  Two tracks have violin/fiddle solos, and there are some nice organ chords hanging in the background keep things interesting, as well as what might be an accordion, harmonium, or other bellows-driven instrument (on "Circuit Rider").  Only one song has some drums (uncredited), the magisterial coda to "Looking Through."

These guys made one more record.  I've never heard it.  I read somewhere that it was more of a commercial soft-rock/folk album.  Someday maybe I will track it down but for now I've been happy with this mysterious bit of Jesus People hippie folk.  The record may not blow your mind, but it grew in my esteem over time from just an average folk or folk-pop 70s album to something more unique and, well, inspired. 

There is surface noise on this album, but to my ears it never gets obtrusive and is really only noticeable at the beginnings and ends of songs.  This came from a white label promo that in spite of not having a scratch on it, wasn't as pristine as I would have liked.  One of these days maybe I'll find a 'near mint' copy and do another needledrop but until then, this serves pretty well.


Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Shirley Collins - The Power Of The True Love Knot (1967)

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Shirley and Dolly Collins
"The Power of the True Love Knot"
Originally Released 1967 (Polydor)
CD reissue, Wing and a Prayer / Fledg'ling Records 2000 (FLED3028)
Also reissued on vinyl in the 1980s by Hannibal / Rykodisk



1 Bonnie Boy 3:45
2 Richie Story 4:18
3 Lovely Joan 2:30
4 Just as the Tide Was A'Flowing 1:39
5 The Unquiet Grave 3:26
6 Black-Eyed Susan 3:36
7 Seven Yellow Gipsies 1:48
8 Over the Hills and Far Away 2:28
9 Greenwood Laddie 1:45
10 Lady Margaret and Sweet William 5:10
11 The Maydens Came 1:59
12 Polly Vaughan 2:49
13 The Barley Straw 3:51
14 Barbara Allen 3:26

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Shirley Collins' music is best heard in the small hours of the day, late evening or early morning, when most of the world is sleeping and your own thoughts aren't quite as loud. Equal parts austerity and warmth, her voice wraps around you like a old quilt on a cold day. And her music is the quilt-work of the British Isles, spun by the hands of laborers destined to anonymity as the "small" people of history but whose melodies and words have outlived most music bound to commercialism. Collins has passed that quilt on to successive generations of folk music lovers with her own indelible stitches. She may not have been the first person to commit these songs to tape but her records are held in high esteem as a reference point by both music nuts and music scholars. The further back you go with music that has fallen into the 'public domain', the more variations on the songs you have, and with Shirley's repertoire we are talking very old indeed. So old that those variations are often subjects of debate, and Shirley wrote some of her own melodies using anonymous pieces of song poetry.

I won't hold up pretenses - I came to Shirley Collins music by way of tracing the influences of my influences when I was thinking of myself as a songwriter. It's a practice I've kept up even though I'm no longer actively writing / composing -- I believe it's called "research" by those music conservatory types of people. For me it meant listening to certain records very deeply and often, paying close attention to writing credits and liner notes. THIS was my (informal) music education, and I would trace genealogies of musicians and writers to arrive at mutual fonts of inspiration. This was in the days before music blogs and the instant-gratification of internet sharing communities (before long after listening to music on wax cylinders, lest any readers think that I am absolutely ancient). The days when you had to literally hunt down music by haunting used record and CD shops, making real-life-flesh-and-blood friends with similar interests, or even visiting a public library or two. For music from my own home continent, North America, that's meant going back to some of the earliest material available thanks to dedicated and largely independent labels interested in divulging it. For English music, my interests started with Fairport Convention and sprouted like a weed to Pentangle, Steeleye Span, Davy Graham, and eventually landing at the foot of the Great Mother of them all, Shirley Collins. And there it more or less stops. I could dig deeper some day, I suppose. (Incidentally I discovered the records of Nick Drake and The Incredible String Band along the course of this musical sojourn, rather than the river flowing in the other direction -- I just had to put that in there to show "I was there before it was HIP!" thanks to the neo-freak-folk phonies or whatever they are calling themselves, if they still exist at all).

Although she has recorded with permutations of a number of people involved in the aforementioned ensembles (particularly her famous "Folk Roots, New Routes" with Graham), my favorite records of Shirley are those she made with her sister Dolly Collins accompanying her, and this is one of them, in spite of her being left off co-billing credit on the front album cover as she did on several others. While Dolly was the family pianist of the household, here she plays the spell-weaving miniature pipe-organ, a variation on a hand-pumped instrument whose timbre falls somewhere between a flute and a harmonium. Alongside Shirley`s multinstrumental prowess on dulcimer, guitar, and banjo, the organ brings the music a reedy, ancient quality encapsulated in that cliché standby of music-writing words, "timeless."

Historians have made quite a bit of noise (noisy in so much as anyone reads history at all) about the relatively recent provenance of our modern notions of romantic love. Shirley knows the intricacies of those arguments without having to have go the circuitous route of a PhD - by meticulously close attention to the truly "popular culture" of her own people. The selections of this record are all love songs, many of them so robust with stark tragedy as to make most radio-friendly `sad` love songs (even those ones you like) sound positively silly. Shirley provides paragraphs on each song on the record in the notes; there is nothing capricious here, everything was chosen with deliberation. I was about to write more of my own reflections on the tracks here when I looked again at the album and read again the liner notes written by Shirley herself for the original back cover of the LP, thankfully reproduced fully by reissue label Fledg'ling Records. Rather than give my own hackneyed plagiarism, I figured it would better serve Shirley's honor by reproducing her own words below. It is obvious that on top of her stunning musicianship she also possesses a penetrating mind and ability to contextualize her work in a very sophisticated way. So, I will leave the rest to her, other than pointing out that a few of my absolute favorites on this particular album are "The Unquiet Grave," "Lady Margaret and Sweet William" from where she took the album's title" and the incomparable "Polly Vaughn." The album also features Robin Williamson from the ISB on one tune, incidentally.

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in 320 kbs em pe tree

in FLAC LAWLESS AUDIO

not sure if there is a password on this one, honestly, but check the comments here

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Townes Van Zandt - For The Sake Of The Song (1968)

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Townes Van Zandt
For The Sake Of The Song
1968 Poppy Records (PYS-40.001)

Reissued 1993 on Tomato Records (598.1091.29)

1 For The Sake Of The Song 4:45
2 Tecumseh Valley 2:40
3 Many A Fine Lady 3:52
4 Quick Silver Daydreams Of Maria 3:41
5 Waitin' Around To Die 2:22
6 I'll Be Here In The Morning 2:42
7 Sad Cinderella 4:40
8 The Velvet Voices 3:12
9 Talkin' Karate Blues 3:01
10 All Your Young Servants 3:04
11 Sixteen Summers, Fifteen Falls 2:36

Produced by Jack Clement and Jim Malloy


It's a new year. I am short of words. Barely hanging on here really. Where did everybody go?
The liner notes to this reissue are beautiful. Most or all of them were written by Mickey Newberry.

Majestic.


in 320 kbs em pee three

in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO


special thanks to digby
password in comments

*note: the track titles for numbers 9 & 10 are reversed, sorry about that but that is how they apppeared via the all-knowing cddbase

Sorry it's been so long since Flabbergasted Folk had anything new to say. I promise it won't be so long until my next letter, and that I'll write more.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Tim Buckley - The Peel Sessions (1993) 320kbs


Tim Buckley
The Peel Sessions
Strange Fruit records, 1993





1 Morning Glory
2 Coming Home to You (Happy Time)
3 Sing a Song for You
4 Hallucinations/Troubadour
5 Once I Was


Review by Richie Unterberger

Recorded in April 1968 for the BBC, these five songs -- a short album, or long EP's, worth -- show Buckley at his most melodic and intimate. As on his posthumously issued 1968 concert recording Dream Letter, the instrumentation is sparser than on his Elektra albums. On these sessions, he was backed only by longtime guitarist Lee Underwood and Carter Collins on percussion. This set features songs from his second and third albums, as well as a couple of cuts that didn't make it onto record in the '60s. Highlighted by a ten-minute medley of "Hallucinations" and "Troubadour," it's a worthwhile addition to the Buckley canon.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Richard and Linda Thompson - In Concert, November 1975 (2007) VBR

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I wrote this little piece sometime in March and then sort of forgot about it. Here it is, with the music as well... here



The whirling dervish of Richard and Linda Thompson



Listening to anything by Richard and Linda Thompson is an experience that must strike you at the right time – the right time of the day or the week, the right time in your life – or you just might miss everything that made them so great. A winter’s night, the first snowfall, sitting by a blazing fire in a bar by an old train station. Only there are no trains tonight. Tonight, you can hear a pin drop. Voices on stage entwined together like the lovers they belong to, meshing and mixing with concertina and a rhythm section so tuned in you could almost forget they are there until they remind you. It’s that kind of performance, in a small space that feels like home, home enough to close your eyes and simply listen. You can hear so many moments in this performance where the audience is hanging on every last note, literally, holding back their applause, barely breathing, until they are sure the spell is really over. Eyes closed, but not asleep. I used to wonder about Richard and Linda’s conversion to Islam and the influence of Sufism they claimed had changed everything for them. To my ears, at first, I could only hear the sadness in these songs, a deep and terrible longing, and wondered how it was any surprise to anyone that their relationship dissolved in the early 80s. Where was the joyful dance of Rumi in these tunes? Sure, they also played upbeat tunes, and their love for American music – old country and rock and roll mostly – really comes out on those early records, making it even more obvious why Richard had to leave Fairport to keep his creative muse alive. But, one day after a particularly long night awake with myself, I think I finally understood.

I am not the first to point out when the silences and spaces between the notes is what’s important. The two of them danced together with their voices, with the interplay between Linda’s voice and Richard’s understated playing. And only Richard Thompson could take a five-minute guitar solo and still come off as humble, self-effacing even. There are no heroics here, from anyone.

As nice and even wonderful as the records Richard and Linda made together were (I am partial to ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ and ‘Pour Down Like Silver’ myself), I can’t help thinking that THIS is how these songs were meant to be heard, at least the songs in this particular set list. We don’t get the acoustic majesty along the lines of “Beat the Retreat”, for example, that were always transcendent minutes for me on those records. But these electric numbers, with the sparse and tight backing of Fairport friends Dave Mattacks and Dave Pegg, with John Fitzpatrick on accordion and concertina, they just, well, BREATH better than the studio versions. On “Now Be Thankful,” Linda sings the definitive version of the song Richard had been trying to get right for some time. It has appeared on the Fairport’s “Full House” album, and – as we now know from the outtakes – had been attempted with Sandy Denny before she quit the band. Neither of those versions come anywhere close to this one, although the all-male harmonies on Full House are also stirring and very well executed. Richard’s voice has been criticized as being rather restricted in range. Rubbish. It’s what he does what the range he has, a sense of spot-on economy of phrasing that is of a piece with his guitar playing. Again, those magisterial solos on the long, dirge-like pieces (Night Comes In, For Shame of Doing Wrong, Calvary Cross) have confirmed me in my often-held belief that Thompson is the greatest electric guitarist to ever come out of England. His style has strong roots both in the acoustic folk traditions of his mother country and also a reverence for styles coming from across the ocean. When he stretches out, it´s with modal variations on the chord changes, using his whole instrument and rarely playing single-note runs up or down the neck. In a rock setting, even when more of a roots setting like this one, it is very rare for an ensemble with a single guitarist to be able to let that guitarist stretch out like that without feeling a gap in the center somewhere where the rhythm should be, which is why so many of the ‘power trios’ relied on instrumental pyrotechnics to overcome that handicap. But the way Richard plays makes the rock distinction between “rhythm” and “lead” guitars seem utterly beside the point, the plaything of adolescents. Like the best of the English guitarist like Ralph McTell or Bert Jansch, or the best American fingerpickers like Mississippi John Hurt or Fred McDowell, who are a one-man-bands without ever showing off, just graceful. It’s why you can bring someone who finds most guitar solos tedious and self-indulgent to see Richard play, even to this day, and they will walk away astounded at the man’s mastery – and not just of “his instrument”, but of his own musicality. The reason I have often felt he is perhaps the best electric guitarist out there (I’m moving beyond the UK now..), is because he always, ALWAYS, plays to the song. It’s not just that he knows when to hold back and let a stunning voice like Linda’s command the stage – it’s also that what he is doing in those moments is still so nuanced and complex, even when minimal or understated. That’s what has always made him a “musician’s musician” with a cult following, rather than an Eric Clapton who can wow football stadiums with his wankery and blues clichés.

The recording is remarkably warm and fresh sounding, not sure why it took so long for this to be released as an official album since there was obviously care taken in the recording of it.


1. I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight (3:15)
2. Hard Luck Stories (3:51)
3. Night Comes In (10:48)
4. Morris Medley: Old Woman Tossed Up in a Blanket / Shepherd's Hey / Bean Setting / Shooting (5:20)
5. A Heart Needs a Home (4:20)
6. Why Don't You Love Me? (2:40)
7. Now Be Thankful (2:57)
8. Jet Plane in a Rocking Chair (2:56)
9. Streets of Paradise (4:27)
10. For Shame of Doing Wrong (8:16)
11. Calvary Cross (14:01)
12. Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Song) (4:13)
13. Things You Gave Me (2:33)
14. It'll Be Me (4:51)
15. Together Again (3:23)

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Richie P. Havens - 1983 (1969) VOB

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1 Stop Pulling and Pushing Me Havens 1:48
2 For Haven's Sake Havens 7:01
3 Strawberry Fields Forever Lennon, McCartney 3:37
4 What More Can I Say John? Havens 4:38
5 I Pity the Poor Immigrant Dylan 3:09
6 Lady Madonna Lennon, McCartney 1:57
7 Priests Cohen 5:15
8 Indian Rope Man Havens, Price, Roth 3:02
9 Cautiously Hayden 4:00
10 Just Above My Hobby Horse's Head Havens, Roth 2:58
11 She's Leaving Home Lennon, McCartney 4:05
12 Putting out the Vibration, And Hoping It Comes Home Havens, Roth 2:53
13 The Parable of Ramon [live] Havens, Roth 7:56
14 With a Little Help from My Friends [live] Lennon, McCartney 5:19
15 Wear Your Love Like Heaven [live] Leitch 4:55
16 Run, Shaker Life [live] Havens 4:04
17 Do You Feel Good? [live] Havens 4:52
18 Handsome Johnny [*] Gossett, Havens 3:54
19 No Opportunity Necessary, No Experience Needed Havens 2:58


ALBUM 1
ALBUM 2 with artwork


This is one of my favorite records from Richie Havens, could have been THE favorite except for some inconsistency. I don't always agree with R.Unterburger's reviews but he has a few good points in this one. It is indeed a rare double-album that really needs to be a double-album. However this is also Havens most adventurous and risky records in a lot of ways. Released right around the time of his historical (and accidental) opening of the Woodstock festival, it's a psychedelic folk and funky folk rock thing through and through. Its true, as Mr.U says below, that there are too many Beatles' covers. I am particularly un-fond of Lady Madonna, a song I don't like that much to begin with, and Havens version makes me cringe somewhat. But I am getting ahead of myself somewhat. The record opens with the brief, incomplete-sounding (in a nice GBV kind of way) Stop Pushing and Pulling, then opens out to 'For Heavens Sake,' which is just plain gorgeously moody in a way that only Richie P. Havens seems capable of. He still captures this feeling in his performances, of which I've been lucky enough to catch two. Sad and sometimes bitter, but never cold. Then comes his version of Strawberry Fields Forever, which floored me the first time I heard it, and still does. I used to play it on my radio show often. It's so damn good, it makes up for the other extraneous Beatles tunes on the record. (She's Leaving Home, at the beginning of the second record, is also very very good.) There is a lot to love here -- his take on Cohen's 'Priests,' 'Cautiously' which opens with some trippy analog synth (if anyone knows what keyboard this is, please leave a comment) that changes once more with electric Rhodes and weepy steal guitar, Indian Rope Man with its clavinet. To my ears, the production on this record still sounds fresh and original. Richie will always have his soul in 1969, even though 1983 has come and gone, and I love him for it. His political sensibilities, and his big heart, have always guaranteed a certain eternal quality and relevance to his musical vision, no matter how its exterior may sound 'dated' to some. No shortest of vibe on this record, so give it a try!

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Review by Richie Unterberger

Havens' third Verve album was an ambitious double LP, using about a couple dozen backing musicians in various combinations on instruments ranging from conga and sitar to steel guitar and organ. Though recorded for the most part in the studio, it also included several live recordings from a July 1968 concert. As with many double albums, it perhaps could have used some pruning, although in general it was a worthy expansion of his sound as captured on record. Divided almost equally between originals and covers, the music has the moving and melancholy vibe, yet also somewhat rambling feel, typical of Havens' prime. Certainly his "What More Can I Say John?" is a subtle and admirable anti-Vietnam war song, while his interpretations of Leonard Cohen's "Priests" and Maurey Hayden's (aka Lotus Weinstock's) "Cautiously" are unusual cover choices that are imaginatively done. An Indian influence makes itself heard occasionally, as on "Just Above My Hobby Horse's Head" and "Putting Out the Vibration, and Hoping It Comes Home"; "Indian Rope Man," with Jeremy Steig on flute, is one of his better compositions. However, there's an over reliance on Beatles covers (there are four here). And the live stuff on side four, with its cutesy five-minute version of "With a Little Help From My Friends" (in which Havens wordlessly scats the lyrics), seems like an afterthought to push the set to double-LP length.
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