Pentangle – Light Flight

Pentangle

Listen/Download – Pentangle –
Light Flight

Greetings all.

The record I bring to you today is one of those things I have loved for decades but only put my hands on in vinyl form very recently.

I probably knew of the Pentangle for close to 40 years, but only started to investigate their music in the mid-80s when I first got into Nick Drake, and then on into UK folk rock of the 60s and 70s.

I made the direct conection of the Pentangle via one of their two amazing guitarists, the brilliant Bert Jansch, and first hear ‘Light Flight’ on a UK folk rock comp sometime in the late 80s.

The tune stood out because it was at once wholly of its time and also unmoored to the sound of 1969.

Pentangle formed in 1967, when Jansch and John Renbourn were already established on the folk scene as performers and recording artists.

They joined up with vocalist Jaqui McShee, bassis Danny Thompson (who would go on to record with Nick Drake) and drummer Terry Cox.

They were – like Fairport Convention – at least as Jefferson Airplane-y as they were mystical British Isles folk, with Pentangle also bringing in an element of jazz to their sound.

‘Light Flight’ originally appeared on the group’s 1969 LP “Basket of Light’ and was also used as the theme to a BBC TV drama called ‘Take Three Girls’.

It is a fascinating piece of music, as it is simultaneously jazzy (thanks in large part to Terry Cox’s drumming), dancing around the periphery of psychedelia and almost entirely acoustic which associates it with the folk scene without really being ‘folk’ music at all.

There is a waltz-time at the heart of the piece, with Thompson’s bass and the guitars of Jansch and Renbourn dancing around each other.

McShee’s vocal is hypnotic, especially when she is double-tracked duetting with herself.

It is a very groovy, and very unusual 45.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

________________________________________________

If you dig what we do here or over at Funky16Corners, please consider clicking on the Patreon link and throwing something into the yearly operating budget! Do it and we’ll send you some groovy Funky16Corners Radio Network (and related) stickers!

_______________________________________________

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Advertisements

The Strawbs – Or Am I Dreaming

The Strawbs, circa 1969

Listen/Download – The Strawbs – Or Am I Dreaming

Greetings all.

As I mentioned a while back, quite by the luck of the draw, I ended up with the very groovy Strawbs 45 you see before you when I recently purchased a larger lot of records.

My previous knowledge of the band was limited to their connection with Sandy Denny (who was a member of the group before her tenure with Fairport Convention).

Much more popular in the UK than the US (they had a big hit in the UK in 1973 with ‘Part of the Union’), the Strawbs morphed from an acoustic folk group (in their earliest days) through popsike, folk rock and prog.

Today’s selection ‘Or Am I Dreaming’ was their first 45, recorded in 1968 and released in 1969.

At the time, they were signed to the Scandinavian label Sonet, and their single (but not their LP) was picked up by A&M in the US.

There’s a story on their website that recalls how they had been unable to secure a deal in the UK (with their 45s being picked up for distribution by the Pye label) and when they walked into the record company offices there they were assumed to have come from the West Coast of the US.

‘Or Am I Dreaming’ doesn’t bring to mind California, but rather prime, late-period UK popsike in the Moody Blues vein.

Produced by Gus Dudgeon and arranged by Tony Visconti, ‘Or Am I Dreaming’ starts out with acoustic guitar, bass and flute and the voice of Dave Cousins (who wrote the song) but soon the arrangement becomes more dense, with electric bass, percussion and strings. The best part of the record comes at 1:09 where the tempo picks up and rocks a bit.

While it isn’t blatantly psychedelic, it certainly is of the time, and I wouldn’t hesitate to drop it into a UK psyche mix.

I mean, dig these lyrics:

The fragile gentle butterfly with multi-coloured wings
Settles on the toadstools in the midst of fairy rings
Midsummer sounds of tinkle bells as sweet Titania sings.

If that doesn’t carry you away, I don’t know what to say.

So dig it, and I’ll see you next week.

Peace

Larry

 

 

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

The Incredible String Band – No Sleep Blues

The ISB – Mike Heron and Robin Williamson

Listen/Download – Incredible String Band – No Sleep Blues

Greetings all.

Welcome back to the ongoing series of poptacular musical excursions otherwise known as Iron Leg.

While trolling through the archive of previously digimatized, yet not quite blogged music, I happened upon one of my favorite slices of UK freak folk.

The Incredible String Band was one of those groups that I knew of (pretty much just the name) for many years before I actually heard them, an event that occurred when I picked up an expensive (but wholly excellent), imported, multi-cd comp of psychedelic music during the early days of compact discs.

The track in question was their 1968 single ‘Painting Box’, by which I was seriously underwhelmed. Here, finally was the Incredible String Band, and I was perceiving strings, but a decided lack of incredibleness.

That said, years later, during the depths of my UK folk/folk rock mania, with Nick Drake, and Fairport Convention and Bert Jansch etcetera etcetera, I found a Rykodisc reissue of the album that included that track, ‘The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion and decided to explore further.

Released in July of 1967, it was their second album, and their first since the departure of Clive Palmer. Truth be told, by the time this album came out, the group with the grandiose name was basically the duo of Mike Heron and Robin Williamson, augmented by Williamson’s girlfriend Licorice (yes, Licorice) and bassist Danny Thompson.

When I first had the CD, I dug it heavily because despite the surface folksiness, the music was in fact the work of a couple of twisted hippies and the sounds they made owed as much to then contemporary England as it did to Morris Dancers and the like.

What I also noticed was that the music on the album had a slightly schizophrenic bent, with two distinct musical personalities fighting for prominence within. A look at the writing credits revealed that the stuff I was really digging was credited to Robin Williamson, and those I dug not so much to Mike Heron.

The tune I bring you today is my favorite Williamson-penned track, ‘No Sleep Blues’.

While there are certainly elements present of what might be termed ‘old time folk’, i.e. traditionalist hootenanny plucking, it was overpowered by a certain longhairs on caravan in Morocco vibe, otherwise known as a hashish haze,or at the very least the residual effects thereof.

I can well imagine the English equivalent of Pete Seeger tearing his (or her) hair our at the roots when hearing stuff like this, but I also see the more cosmopolitan contingent of the freak scene shying away from it as well (until they all morphed into hippies a few years on).

Heron and Williamson went on to a long career as the ISB, and individually as well.

I hope you dig the track, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Marian Segal and Silver Jade – Amongst Anemones / Fly On Strangewings

Next on BBC4, the ‘Mystical Squad’ in which a
librarian, a witch and an LSD chemist join forces to solve crimes.

Listen/Download -Marian Segal and Silver Jade – Amongst Anemones

Listen/Download -Marian Segal and Silver Jade – Fly On Strangewings

Greetings all.

I have something very interesting for you all this week, so go trundle off to the Hippie division of the Hammer Films costume archive and hurry back.

I was out digging at one of the Asbury Lanes garage sales last year and I happened upon the album you see before you, took one look at the cover and pulled it from the box, placing securely in the keeper pile.

I mean, how could any sane record fiend (contradictory terms, but bear with me) see that group listed at Marian Segal and Silver Jade with the title ‘Fly On Strangewings’ and not buy it immediately?

I’ve been a UK folk rock fan for a long time (big ups to the Fairports and the Drakes and every witchwhatwho) and though I’d never heard of this particular group, it was immediately obvious to me that they were part of the very same bag (the DJM label clueing me in to the fact that they were English, their name and look clueing me in to everything else).

When I got the album home and slipped it under the needle, my suspicions were confirmed, and then some.

What I’ve been able to find out is that Marian Segal (vox, guitar) got her start in a duet with Dave Waite (stringed instruments), joining Rod Edwards* (keys, vox) in the studio in 1970 as Jade (their much longer name on this album due to some trans-Atlantic confusion with an American ‘Jade’).

They were supported by a veritable who’s who of UK psyche-into-prog musicians, including John Wetton, Pete Sears, Clem Cattini, Pete York and Mick Waller, and the album they created is not only wondrous and magical, but also some of the best Fairport Convention not actually recorded by Fairport Convention sounds ever committed to tape.

I should stop here and pull back a bit, because to suggest that Jade/Silver Jade were merely some kind of Fairport rip-off would be both unfair and incorrect.

The thing is, when you listen to this record, it is IMMEDIATELY apparent, and inescapable to make the assumption that Ms. Segal and the famed Ms. Denny were sharing a set of vocal cords.

The similarity is positively uncanny, and so someone not completely tuned in to a nuanced take on the Fairport sound might be forgiven for mistakenly assuming that what they were hearing was the firm of Denny, Thompson, Matthews, Hutchings, Lamble and Nicol.

While Marian Segal and Silver Jade certainly draw from the same mixture of US West Coast freak sounds and British Isles leprechaun/faerie juice, I would say that Jade has a touch more classic UK psyche in their soup as well as (thanks to the later date, a touch of the prog).

Case in point, ‘Amongst Anemones’, which sounds like they got some Fairfield Parlour in their peanut butter.

‘Fly On Strangewings’ is a touch more modern, sounding exactly like an lost Fairport Track, and I mean that in the most positive way possible.

It’s with a song like this that it is possible to see why Jade/Silver Jade didn’t go further, that being sometimes too much of a good thing (i.e. the Fairport sound) is for the listening/buying public quite actually too much, and those that came later often fall by the wayside, in this case unfairly.

The album as a whole is quite good. When I was digi-ma-tizing, I ended up recording the whole thing and giving it repeated listens.

Fortunately, Ms Segal has a very nice website with exhaustive information on her musical history, before and after Jade/Silver Jade. Of particular interest is a gig history of the group that has them appearing on UK TV alongside Matthews Southern Comfort, as well as the fact that they did a mini-tour of the US with extended stops in New York (Bitter End), Chicago (Gate of Horn, and apparently local TV) and Los Angeles (the Troubadour).

You can also purchase reissues of various and sundry Marian Segal-related material, including this very album.

I hope you dig the sounds, and I’ll see you all next week.

Peace

Larry

 

*Edwards had been part of UK psyche-ers Edwards Hand

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some soul.

Iron Leg Digital Trip #4 – Timothy Leary’s Dead

Listen/Download 31MB Mixed MP3 – MP3

Download 31MB ZIP File-

Playlist

Harumi – Talk About It (Verve)
Fox – Butterfly (Crewe)
Johnny Rivers – Hey Joe (Imperial)
Sweet Thursday – Molly (Great Western Gramophone)
JK & Co. – Break of Dawn/Fly (White Whale)
West – The Dolphins (Epic)
Orpheus – Lesley’s World (MGM)
Bit-a-Sweet – If I Needed Someone (ABC)
Strawberry Alarm Clock – Pretty Song From Psych Out (Uni)

Greetings all.
I wasn’t sure if I was going to drop this edition of the Iron Leg Digital Trip before New Years Eve, but since I had it ready to go (and another fresh – very cool – mix waiting in the on deck circle) I figured the time was right.
I hope everyone is having an excellent holiday season – no matter what holiday you celebrate – and is ready for more hijinks in 2008.
As I mentioned with the previous mix, this podcast was assembled as a companion piece of sorts, with a slightly dreamier aesthetic.
As is always the case, I dug deep into the crates and let the spirit move me, attempting to group some songs together that may not be stylistically consistent but all manage to complement each other, creating not a psychedelic monolith but rather an audio journey of sorts in where the scenery changes from place to place but it all manages to be quite groovy.
Things get started with a shorter cut from the 1967 debut of the mysterious Harumi. From what I’ve been able to gather Harumi was indeed Japanese, but recorded his album in New York City (with the guidance of Tom Wilson). The sounds therein are a mixture of mid-60’s psyche pop, trippy free-form excursions and world music. ‘Talk About It’ is one of the more “conventional” tracks on the album with a real Carnaby Street feel that wouldn’t have been out of place on one of the many Rubble comps. I’ll be posting one of the long tracks from this album very soon.
Speaking of Rubble, it was on one of those volumes that I first encountered ‘Butterfly’ by the Fox. I can’t tell you much about the group, other than the fact that their LP, which was released in the US on the Crewe label is both excellent – with lots of psyche pop – and fairly easy to come by (or at least it was in the 80’s when I owned no less that three copies before finally scoring the one I own now, with the cover still intact). ‘Butterfly’ is perhaps the perfect example of late-60’s UK hippy pastorale, complete with profound lyrics and a bit of a sunrise at Stonehenge vibe to it. I love it.
I’ve always dug the sounds of pop hitmaker Johnny Rivers, which is why I grabbed his 1967 ‘Realization’ LP when I was in Maine earlier this year. Good thing I did too, because in addition to my fave Rivers 45 ‘Summer Rain’, the record also included a fairly psyched-out take on that old saw ‘Hey Joe’. Rivers takes it at a slow, Hendrixian pace, and manages to work in some sound effects and a few new lyrics along the way.
I first heard ‘Sweet Thursday’ many years ago via someone I used to work with (I can’t remember exactly who…). The band, a kind of second rung supergroup that featured both Johnny Mark and Nicky Hopkins had an interesting sound, mixing bits of folk and pop in with their 1969 UK blues to great effect. The finest cut on the album – at least to my ears – is ‘Molly’ that sounds like an outtake from a Procol Harum session. Even if the track doesn’t blow you away, it’s worth picking up the album for the picture of the band on the cover with their rock star coats to stave off the chill of a London night with Big Ben shining in the background.
J.K. & Company’s ‘Suddenly One Summer’ LP is a great example of an album I picked up because it looked trippy, and ended up not only being excellent, but worth a couple of bucks as well (always a nice by-product). Jay Kaye was apparently a 15 year old whiz kid when he recorded his only LP for White Whale in 1968. The album is filled with folky soundscapes and strange little sonic interludes. ‘Break of Dawn/Fly’ is actually one of each. If you can find your own copy (when I got mine it had a letter in it from the label’s promo director to a distributor, on White Whale stationery) good on you. If not, you can always pick up the recent reissue.
Another Maine score was the 1968 debut album by the group West. The band, which recorded two LPs for Epic featured ex-We Five member Michael Stewart. Though the LP featured some fairly unremarkable folk rock (albeit with nice vocals), one of the standouts was this cover of Fred Neil’s ‘The Dolphins’.
We take a brief detour into a bit of pretty soft rock with ‘Lesley’s World’ by Orpheus. Promoted as part of MGM’s ill-advised ‘Bosstown Sound’ construct (see also Ultimate Spinach and Phluph)– in which all the bands hailed from Boston but had little or no stylistic connection – Orpheus created three albums for MGM and one for Bell between 1967 and 1971, all featuring a soft-rock/harmony vibe that sounds a lot more California than Boston. ‘Lesley’s World’ has some fantastic chord changes and am vibe that wouldn’t be out of place on a late-60’s Astrud Gilberto LP.
One of the first groups I featured here at Iron Leg was New York’s own ‘Bit A Sweet’. Though their MGM 45 is my favorite, they went on to record a full length LP for ABC. Their trippy cover of the Beatles’ ‘If I Needed Someone’ is pretty cool, and believe it or not comes complete with a drum break.
I remember the first time I ever saw the exploito classic ‘Psych Out’ and really dug the pretty song by the Strawberry Alarm Clock. I never caught the title, but always wished I could find a copy. Flash forward a bunch of years and I’m digging through a box of 45s at a record show and what do I find but a Uni 45 by the Strawberry Alarm Clock entitled – I shit you not – ‘Pretty Song From Psych Out’. WTF?!?!? It was like a punch line to a lame joke, but thankfully it was also a very, VERY groovy tune, which I bring to you now. As hard as it may be to believe, the co-writer of this song Ed King went on to play with Lynyrd Skynyrd following his years with the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
So, when the New Years Eve festivities are winding down, and it’s just you and a couple of good friends and you drag out your “special occasion” bong (i.e. “the good china” for heads), fire up this mix and let it flow in over the lobes and wrap itself around your brain. You will not be sorry.
Happy New Year, and…

Peace
Larry

PS Head over to Funky16Corners for the 2007 Year In Review Podcast!

Two from Fairport Convention…

Fairport Covention circa 1968

(top l-r) Iain Matthews, Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson,

(bottom l-r) Simon Nicol, Martin Lamble, Sandy Denny

Listen – Meet On the Ledge – MP3

Listen – Tale in Hard Time – MP3

Greetings all.
I hope that everyone is well and that you all had a chance to dig the Walker Brothers tune in the previous post.
I’ve been on quite the reading jag over the last few months (I’m in kind of perpetual reading jag, but having two little kids, and two blogs doesn’t always leave me conscious enough to read). In addition to the Phil Spector bio I mentioned in the previous post, I just finished Joe Boyd’s memoir ‘White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960’s’.
If the name doesn’t ring any bells, get to Googling, because Boyd was kind of the Zelig of high quality music, starting out as a tour manager for blues, folk and jazz artists, co-founder of the UFO club in London, producer of Pink Floyd’s first 45s, and producer of the leading lights of late 60’s UK folk rock, including John Martyn, Nick Drake and today’s artists, Fairport Convention.
Boyd is an excellent writer, and though I picked up his book due largely to my longtime love for Drake and Fairport, I came away with an interest in exploring artists that I’d never heard of before, especially the interracial South African jazz group the Blue Notes. I started listening to Fairport Convention in the mid-80’s thanks to an ex-coworker, who over the years turned me on to a wealth of great music, books and films. This cat made me tapes (remember those???) of Richard Thompson’s solo albums, and I moved on from there working my way backwards when I realized that Thompson and Fairport were contemporaries of Nick Drake, who I was already a huge fan of.
Oddly enough, many years before, my father – via a coworker who had spent time in the UK in the mid-60’s – brought one of Sandy Denny’s solo LPs into the house. It was years before I made the Fairport connection, but the seeds were certainly there.
The first Fairport LP I bought was the US (A&M) issue of the UK LP ‘What We Did On Our Holidays’, which had a different cover here, and was retitled simply ‘Fairport Convention’ (not the same as their UK debut with vocalist Judy Dyble, also called ‘Fairport Convention’) . Initially, the record didn’t make much of an impression on me, probably because I went into it expecting something much more rustic, filled with Morris dancing and balladry, when what I got was much closer to Jefferson Airplane and the Band working out of a London bedsit.
Some years later, when I had explored the Thompson-era Fairport discography in its entirety, and was able to place them in the context of late-60’s English rock, ‘What We Did On Our Holiday’s’ became a favorite album of mine.
This had a lot to do with the presence of the two songs I’m posting today, ‘Meet On the Ledge’ and ‘Tale In Hard Time’ (both written by Thompson).
I first heard – and was blown away by – ‘Meet on the Ledge’ via Thompson’s mid-80’s live album ‘Across a Crowded Room’, where he performed a solo acoustic version of the tune. His performance was intense, but hearing it done by a full band, with Iain Matthews taking the lead vocal was something else.
Both songs feature somewhat dark lyrics, especially ‘Ledge’ (see below) which is an extraordinarily pessimistic confrontation of the 60’s hippie vibe, but any darkness is masked by the glimmering harmonies of Matthews and Denny, as well as Thompson’s brilliant guitar playing. In the end it’s an extremely powerful song that also manages to sound like it was written as an anthem for stadium full of people who’ve just been confronted with the cold, hard truth about life.
‘Tale in Hard Time’ isn’t quite as dire (nor is it a lullaby) but it’s shimmering harmonies, along with Thompson’s monumental guitar solo makes it one of the great lost treasures of folk rock.
Both recordings are very powerful, and if you haven’t already, they ought to serve as motivation to seek out those first four Fairport albums (their first UK album, Fairport Convention, What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking and the seminal Liege and Lief).
Peace
Larry

Meet On the Ledge

We used to say
That come the day
We’d all be making songs
Or finding better words
These ideas never lasted long

The way is up
Along the road
The air is growing thin
Too many friends who tried
Were blown off this mountain with the wind

Meet on the ledge
We’re gonna meet on the ledge
When my time is up I’m gonna see all my friends
Meet on the ledge
We’re gonna meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes round again

Yet now I see
I’m all alone
But that’s the only way to be
You’ll have your chance again
Then you can do the work for me

Meet on the ledge
We’re gonna meet on the ledge
When my time is up I’m gonna see all my friends
Meet on the ledge
We’re gonna meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes round again

Meet on the ledge
We’re gonna meet on the ledge
When my time is up I’m gonna see all my friends
Meet on the ledge
We’re gonna meet on the ledge
If you really mean it, it all comes round again