Alfie Shepherd – The Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows. Now what does that bring to mind? David Jason? Peter Sallis? Cosgrove Hall Productions? If you failed to grow up in Britain during the early eighties then there’s every chance you’re now scratching your head, wondering what blend of Rastafarian Old Holborn I’ve been toking on.
I failed to grow up, but I was there in the early eighties. Alfie Shepherd wasn’t, but it didn’t stop him writing a concept album based on Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s novel, The Wind in the Willows. Ah, the innocent aspirations of the psychedelic age, when nobody would bat an eyelid if such a record were released.
Except it didn’t get released; not in 1969, as intended, anyway. You see, young Alfred wrote the piece for Angel Pavement, the psych-pop band with whom he played lead guitar. He recorded the whole thing in a home studio as a set of demos to play to the rest of the band. However, due to various unavoidable circumstances, what was meant to be, wasn’t to be, and the band split in 1970 leaving Alfie alone with his demos and his memories.
Until 2008 that is, when the good people at psychedelic archive and reassembly label, Wooden Hill/Tenth Planet, took it upon themselves to collect together the Wind in the Willows songs, along with a handful of others recorded around the same time, and unleash them upon those in the know (I may be being presumptuous, but I doubt the public at large have heard of the Wooden Hill label).
If fey whimsy delivered at an unusually high pitch is not your bag, look away now, but not before I advise you not to buy this album. Right. Have they gone? If there’s any stragglers still here, failing to heed my warning, then let it be known that I did try and tell thee.
So, if you can stomach such untoward daintiness, or even actively participate in it, then Alfie Shepherd’s psychedelic pop project could well be right up your woodland path.
It’s a shame that The Wind in the Willows was never fully realised, as despite its agreeability, there’s no getting past the fact that this is a just a collection of demos. A proper recording studio, some orchestral overdubs and a bloke on drums could’ve done wonders with the material on offer here. Not that it would’ve sold a bean, but who needs money when you have a little bit of peace and a little bit of love to tide you over?
It’s all inoffensively pleasant stuff that picks out events from its source material and adapts them to pretty much the same wispy template throughout, one exception being the bluesy ‘Bargin’.
The ten bonus tracks, all except ‘The Swallow’s Song’, are unconnected to The Wind in the Willows but remain in a similar vein, although a little more lyrically downbeat in places, such as on ‘Sandy’s Song’ and ‘Sad Statue’.
At the end of the day, if your thing is ultra-rare, toytown psychedelic pop that won’t frighten the horses then Alfie Shepherd’s The Wind in the Willows is well worth a listen. If you can get beyond the lo-fi demo quality (which in all honesty, isn’t that bad), and the untoward feyness then give it a go.
Wind in the Willows take me home.
Alfie Shepherd’s The Wind in the Willows is issued on Wooden Hill and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk
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