folk rewind
Not Forgotten: Cat Stevens – Teaser and the Firecat
Teaser And The Firecat is in many ways the twin of the superb Tea for the Tillerman, which has been one of my favourite albums since my early teens and one that meant so much to me over the years, that I didn’t want my illusions of Cat Stevens shattered by finding out that the …
Not Forgotten: Elliott Smith – XO
Like most people, I became familiar with Elliott Smith following his appearance at the Oscars a few years back. I picked up a single and was impressed enough by it to search out this album. Just considering XO as an isolated release Elliott Smith is my favourite singer-songwriter of the late 90s. I’ve always loved …
Not Forgotten: Comus – First Utterance
I first became aware of Comus back in early 1996, when First Utterance enjoyed its first foray onto CD. Described by a reliable publication as “Freaky Folk Prog”, the largely acoustic music, idiosyncratic vocals and traditional instruments sounded right up my particular strata. Sadly I was a penniless student at the time, so intrigued was …
Not Forgotten – Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks
Blood On The Tracks is that rare thing, an album that deserves every word of praise heaped upon it. At this stage in his career Bob Dylan had done his best to shake off the oh-so cliched ‘voice of a generation’ tag. His mid 60s electric trilogy had been rightly celebrated, but it had made …
Not Forgotten: Lindisfarne – Live
Quick! Name one British folk rock act of the 1970s! Okay, so who actually mentioned Lindisfarne? Precious few I imagine, as they’re now primarily for an arse-clenchingly awful novelty duet. Those that do delve a little further into their career will be rewarded with a clutch of hit singles and a selection of albums of …
Not Forgotten: The Waterboys – This Is the Sea
Following a number of false starts, A Pagan Place had finally established The Waterboys as not only an act of great promise, and had come tantalisingly close to establishing them as one of the key acts of the decade and masters of the sort of epic and emotional Celtic rock that was poised to fill …
Not Forgotten: Jethro Tull – Too Old to Rock ‘n’ Roll : Too Young to Die
Frequently disregarded by their fans as an attempt by bandleader and benign dictator Ian Anderson to simplify the Jethro Tull sound, Too Old to Rock ’n’ Roll: Too Young to Die is in some senses one of their most interesting works. Wedged between the band’s grandiose work of the early 70s, and their late 70s …
Not Forgotten – Marty Robbins – Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs
Prior to hearing Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs, if you’d told me that I’d get into an album of songs about the American wild west, I’d have said that that was about as likely as me winning a beauty contest. These things have a nasty habit of surprising you though, and so it proved when …
Not Forgotten – Bob Dylan – Planet Waves
Over looked, underrated and generally seen as a lesser work due to the fact it wasn’t recorded in the 60s or Blood on the Tracks, Planet Waves is one of those albums that you eventually buy when you see it cheap in a sale. This is a little unfair as it’s actually one of Bob …
Not Forgotten: Elliott Smith – either/or
It was a movie that first brought my attention to Elliott Smith. On watching Good Will Hunting in 1998 I heard some remarkable songs on the soundtrack that I didn’t know. It was Miss Misery playing over the end credits that particularly caught my attention. I loved it so much that I stayed to the …