Well, not necessarily uplifting (though there are moments), but something gentle, occasionally dark, fleetingly creepy and most importantly, worthy of a second listen. Trader Horne’s one and only album, 1970′s Morning Way, is, in fact, worthy of much more than a second listen.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Firstly, this may have been Trader Horne’s lone release, but they were in fact a duo comprising of original Fairport Convention vocalist and one time member of an embryonic King Crimson, Judy Dyble, and Irish folk rock underground ubiquity Jackie McAuley. The conjunction of these musical forces resulted in Morning Way, a pleasingly obscure example of psychedelically informed folk rock.

Trader Horne – who apparently took their moniker from the nickname John Peel had for his nanny (la-di-da) – provide a calming soundtrack, with the typical folk setup of male and female vocals exchanging leads and harmonies. Even so, this is Jackie McAuley’s show, with him writing the lion’s share of the tracks and taking the majority of leads, while Judy Dyble’s English Rose vocal drifts ethereally through the mix like the song of a Siren floating inland from a distant shore.

‘Jenny May’ kicks off proceedings, a jaunty nursery rhyme-style song that hints at darker meaning, putting us in fine fettle for the remainder of the album.

‘Children of Oare’ borrows its recorder driven riff from ”We Three Kings of Orient Are’, and is lyrically typical of the fey subject matter that dances like a pixie maiden in the court of King Arthur throughout much of the album. We’re in the realms of baroque folk, kicking the tyres of progressive music, specifically on the moving call and response of ‘Growing Man’, a true classic of the genre.

‘Down and Out Blues’ is the one exception to this blueprint, a cover of the blues standard ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out’, delivered in a full-on Billie Holiday tempo by Dyble, which, for all its sincerity, remains unremarkable and only serves to detract from the rest of the material Morning Way has to offer.

Gems such as ‘The Mutant’ (surely written under the influence of Cream’s ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’), ‘The Mixed Up Kind’, ‘In My Loneliness’, the eerie title-track with its allusions to death, and the hauntingly memorable ‘Velvet to Atone‘.

Indeed, for all its occasional tweeness and lightness of weight in the grand scheme of things, Morning Way is one of the finest, most beautifully rendered examples of psychedelic folk music. It may lack the teeth of another great of the acid-folk movement, Comus’s First Utterance, but it’s nice to leave behind the real darkness once in a while and peer blinking, but a little more settled, into a lighter shade of despair.

Morning Way, by Trader Horne,  is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Trader Horne – Morning Way

Situated in a wood near to the village of Black Dog, it’s a snapshot of pastoral bliss from a time when bands left, right and centre were decamping to record company-paid, far from the madding crowd retreats, to “get it together in the country”.

Yes, I really like this album cover. I can almost picture myself there too. Enlisted to tickle a triangle, bang a tambourine, or shake a cowbell, which is about the limit of my musical prowess. Outside a cottage. In a wood. In Devon. In 1971.

A few years before I was born, maybe, but one can imagine. Isn’t that what John Lennon said? “Imagine all the people, sharing all the world…” in the exact same year that Twice as Nice & Half the Price was recorded. Mere coincidence? Who knows? All that’s clear is Lennon’s words proved futile, as will any attempt by HFoS to travel back in time and brandish some ineffectual percussion on the sleeve of Heron’s second album.

But did I say how much I liked the sleeve? It doesn’t need my ungainly presence, nor my rhythmical dyslexia spoiling the scene. It’s perfect as it is. It promises so much. Unfortunately the record itself fails to deliver.

Heron’s eponymous 1970 debut – recorded, of all places, in a field (or two) in Berkshire – was a pleasant stroll through some pastoral-folk rock meadows and running at 13 tracks, just about the right length. Twice as Nice & Half the Price however, in being a double album of 24 songs, seems to spread the Heron marmalade (and that metaphor) a little too thinly.

In other words, the prog-folkies with a penchant for recording in the great outdoors, struggle to conserve the interest over the course of this release. Dull, is probably a better way of putting it.

Condensing what they had here into a single entity may have saved it; certainly, cutting out the lacklustre US Soul covers would’ve been a start. But one thinks that overall, the subdued, languorous nature of Twice as Nice… is beyond remedy.

That said, it does have its moments. Their extended arrangement of Bob Dylan’s anti-war song ‘John Brown’ is particularly good, as is the gentle progressive folk of the nine minute ‘Winter Harlequin’, even if, like this review, it does sail close to tedium towards the end.

Two swallows don’t make a summer, and elsewhere things range from passable to pedestrian. Shame really.

Did I mention the cover though? That’s quite lovely.

Twice as Nice & Half the Price is available as part of the Heron double CD, Upon Reflection – The Dawn Anthology, procurable from Amazon.co.uk

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Heron – Twice as Nice & Half the Price

How wrong could they be? Dreaming With Alice, released only in Italy in 1972, possesses a certain magic that more than exonerates the cult that has built up around it over the years. As far as obscure acid folk rarities go, this is a stone-cold classic.

In fact, the only fault that can be found in it is the fact it was released in 1972, whereas it sounds as though it were recorded at the tail-end of the 1960s. The fact that music had moved on so much in the intervening years possibly accounts for the fact it could only secure an Italian release. Of course, nearly forty years on, when it was recorded is an irrelevance.

The title track ‘Dreaming With Alice’, a gently haunting lilt, is split into nine verses that punctuate the album. This too may have been a mistake, as the recently re-recorded version by Mark Fry himself and released on Fruits de Mer Records is superior as a single piece, allowing its dreamlike quality to flow over the listener uninterrupted.

‘The Witch’ continues the fascination amongst the psychedelic/acid folk set with all things witchy – other purveyors of witch-influenced lyricism include Donovan, Fairport Convention, and the Incredible String Band – with a spookily ethereal tale of a witch at the window saturated with chiming sitars, giving it that perfect otherworldly feel.

It’s the highlight of an album that’s as melodic as it is mesmeric, darkness and light in equal measures, and one made all the more remarkable by the fact that Mark Fry was still a teenager when it was written and recorded. Maybe it’s this infusion of childlike, fairy-tale innocence, untainted by cynicism, that makes Dreaming with Alice so special.

Dreaming With Alice is reissued by Sunbeam Records with extra tracks and available from Amazon.co.uk

Mark Fry’s website

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Mark Fry – Dreaming With Alice

It was also the album that signposted the path down which Jethro Tull (or the mighty Tull, dependant on personal opinion) were headed, largely doing away with the blues influence of the previous release and drifting, via the road of progressive rock, into more folkish pastures.

The change came about following the departure of Mick Abrahams, who’d left following creative differences between him and Tull’s main man Ian Anderson, over musical direction. When replacement and future Black Sabbath axeman Toni Iommi failed to work out it was left to Martin Barre to take up the mantle, which he did, remaining to this day.

Stand Up retains the blues edge for opening track ‘A New Day Yesterday’, almost as though it’s a peace offering for the fans of This Was, left outside the door to gently ease them into the Tull’s new sound. Not that there’s anything gentle about its electric-blues heavy rhythm.

From then on in Stand Up weaves various elements into the mix as it stands on the harbour wall and bids the blues farewell. Ian Anderson brings the songs down to a more personal level than before (although the previous album was weighed down with instrumentals) and the album is all the better for that. ‘Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square’, ‘Back to the Family’ and ‘Look into the Sun’ are all classic Tull and it’s also here that we first sample what has become a Tull standard over the years, the instrumental, jazzified flute arrangement of J.S. Bach’s ‘Bourée’.

But it’s track 8 that provides the highlight of Stand Up; the gradually intensifying lament of ‘We Used to Know’. It’s said that this song inspired the Eagles’ infinitely better known ‘Hotel California’ and it’s true, the chord progression at the start of both songs is as good as identical (I’ve no idea what that means either. They just sound the bloody same and that’s that). Second to ‘Heavy Horses’, ‘They Used to Know’ is possibly the best song Jethro Tull ever did. With so many to choose from that’s a bold statement to make.

‘We Used to Know’ is followed by ‘Reasons for Waiting’, another princely track from the Tull’s enviable oeuvre and the pacy, uptempo ‘For a Thousand Mothers’ – sounding like the rhythm section chasing each other around a percussion factory – leads us out nicely.

With 4 bonus tracks on the 2001 reissue, including the chart bothering ‘Living in the Past’, Stand Up is in strong contention for the title of best Tull album. It’s certainly the moment in history when Jethro Tull suggest they’d one day be worthy of the moniker, the mighty Tull.

Stand Up is reissued by Chrysalis and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Jethro Tull – Stand Up

Jefferson Airplane weren’t afraid to play with politics. They were the self-appointed spokespersons of a generation, riding the revolutionary wave of the time and profiting handsomely from it. 1969′s Volunteers is the result of all this fragmented rhetoric, packaged neatly onto a slab of vinyl and sold back to “the kids” for a nice little earner.

Not that there’s anything wrong with musicians voicing their political views – just that it’s hard to stomach a call for an uprising from people living in communal mansions paid for by the record company and travelling to gigs in private helicopters. Nor is there anything wrong with this album, it’s a corker in fact, but it might be even better if the artistes’ convictions were truly sincere. The title track ‘Volunteers’, for instance, paints the band as “… the volunteers of America”, the frontline of the impending revolution who are prepared to take their country back from “The Man” by any means necessary. Yet they didn’t. After all, why fund a revolution when you can take the money and run? It hadn’t done the people they were criticising any harm, and the system they sang about smashing was keeping them in their comfortable mansions and magnificent motors.

But I won’t let the plundering of radical ideals and revolutionary posturing for financial gain prejudice (ahem) what is, after all, an album review. Like I said, it’s a corker, and I find myself agreeing with drummer Spencer Dryden, when he said “Volunteers, I think, is our best album.” It’s certainly the most rounded of the four albums previously mentioned.

Its political manifesto kicks off in fine style with ‘We Can Be Together’, which uses a less urgent variation of the chord progression on ‘Volunteers’ to deliver a similar message of unifying to smash the ruling order. However, lines such as “All your private property is target for your enemy, And your enemy is we…” ring hollow when you realise its actually a pampered rockstar delivering them… There I go again.

The dual vocal partnership of Marty Balin and Grace Slick is at its crackling best throughout, being particularly strong on the title track and the aforementioned ‘We Can Be Together’, but lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen also comes up trumps with his sterling rendition of the traditional folk/gospel ballad, ‘Good Shepherd’. The phoenix of peace and love rises from the flames of the impending apocalypse on the gentle ‘Wooden Ships’ (also recorded by Crosby, Stills and Nash), imagining distant shores away from all the war and hatred in which to start afresh. A concept that the band’s resident firebrand songwriter would turn into an entire album with 1970′s Blows Against the Empire by Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship.

Also worthy of note is the light-hearted, country-rock biography of the group ‘A Song for all Seasons’, written in a splendidly self-deprecating style by drummer, Dryden. Paul Kantner’s decision to include the instrumental ‘Meadowlands’, a Red Army song, as a “snub to the establishment”, brings us back to the point of radicalising for the sake of credibility, but leads nicely into the album’s closer ‘Volunteers‘. Claimed by Balin not to originally have been a political song, but inspired by getting woken one morning by a “Volunteers of America” truck, in the hands of Paul Kantner ‘Volunteers’ becomes an exhilarating car-bomb blast of agit-rock and  a worthy closing salvo from the classic Jefferson Airplane line-up.

Following the release of Volunteers, Jefferson Airplane played the Altamont free concert, (dis)organised by the Rolling Stones and documented in the excellent film, Gimme Shelter. The resulting chaos, violence and murder dragged the 60s kicking and screaming into the new decade and as an indirect result of the newfound disillusionment Altamont spawned, they never recorded in this celebrated incarnation again. Following a further two mediocre albums, neither of which could capture the essence of what had come before (however sincere or insincere it happened to be), the remainder of the band drifted apart and retired the name, some going on to form the even more out-there Jefferson Starship.

This release is the 2004 BMG remaster, featuring five live bonus tracks recorded at the Fillmore East in 1969. The sound is a little muddy throughout despite it claiming the original master tapes have been used. I must add there is a 2007 RCA remaster also available, featuring different bonus tracks and, one hopes, a clearer sound. That, and the rich-kid revolutionary posturing aside, Volunteers is a fizzling fusewire of an album, and a fitting showcase for a band at the top of their game, just prior to it all going wrong.

Volunteers is released on the RCA Victor label and available from Amazon.co.uk

Related Post:

5 Songs to Spark a Revolution

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Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers

Fairfield Parlour had already released two albums as psychedelic-folk rockers, Kaleidoscope (not to be confused with the American psychedelic folk-rock ?!?!? band of the same name), and it was under this new name, in 1970, that they put out From Home to Home.

Eschewing the overt fairy-tale whimsy that had earmarked Kaleidoscope’s two albums, Tangerine Dream and Faintly Blowing, From Home to Home is an altogether more mature offering that favours the folkiness, with psychedelic elements, that was always at the root of their music.

There is also a sad, mournful feel to much of this album, rendered perfectly by Peter Daltrey’s airily haunting vocals. The opener ‘Aries‘, with its bittersweet memories and sense of regret, sets the tone for what follows, reaching its zenith with the majestic ‘Emily’. With a sentiment reminiscent of The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Emily’ manages to evoke sadness in a way that the more famous song falls short.

It’s not all downbeat though, with ‘The Glorious House of Arthur’ making a return to the fairy-tale atmosphere of previous Kaleidoscope ventures and treading the same ground of Arthurian legend as Donovan’s ‘Guinevere’ from his 1966 album, Sunshine Superman. This playfulness continues with the whimsical ‘Monkey’, featuring the somewhat random line “… And there is also a monkey,” at the end of each verse.

The Repertoire Records digipack reissue is another triumph, with great packaging (including the eerily, low-key cover) and a host of bonus tracks, though the inclusion of a 1976 re-release of the single ‘Bordeaux Rose’ in its alternate, horribly over-produced version, is for the completist only.

Kaleidoscope were never afraid to explore darker territories, as evident on ‘(Further Reflections) In the Room of Percussion’, and the Fairfield Parlour transformation and From Home to Home seem to be a natural progression of this. This one comes heartily recommended.

From Home to Home is reissued by Repertoire Records and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Fairfield Parlour – From Home to Home

Revolution was, after all, big business.

So in honour of some of these Che charlatons who turned tail and fled as soon as the going got tough, Head Full of Snow brings you 5 songs with which to spark a revolution (or not).

The Rolling Stones -- Street Fighting Man

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRqtKLskPQs

An absolute stormer of a track and one that was written at a time when the anti-Vietnam war protests had spread as far afield as London, sparking riots and encouraging Mick Jagger himself to take to the streets and… stand on the sidelines taking photos of the ensuing chaos. Jagger was perhaps the biggest pretender to the revolutionary throne, toying with the imagery during the era of Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed, but soon getting bored and leaving it all behind to concentrate on becoming the mucky little devil we all know today. ‘Street Fighting Man’ appears on 1968′s Beggars Banquet.

The Pink Fairies -- Right On, Fight On

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TU517Qb1Ok

In contrast to Jagger and his cronies, The Pink Fairies (nee The Deviants) at least made some attempt at revolutionary zeal. As part of the Ladbroke Grove underground scene, along with with the likes of The Edgar Broughton Band and Hawkwind, they would play free concerts and benefits for various good causes, sometimes even turning up uninvited and playing, just to further their anarchist agenda of ‘free music for the people’. ‘Right On, Fight On’ comes from their 1972 album What a Bunch of Sweeties and sounds like the precursor to social upheaval, the morning prior to the revolution, so to speak.

Jefferson Airplane -- Volunteers

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SboRijhWFDU

Jefferson Airplane were quick to place themselves behind every single right-on movement going during the lates 60s -- Grace Slick famously blacking up for a performance of ‘Lather’ on the Smothers Brothers show, in support of the Black Panther Party. However, when it came to leading from the front they were a little less forthcoming, content to encourage uprising from the stage before buggering off in their chauffeur-driven Cadillacs. Their commitment was spelt out as little more than youthful rebellion when, once revolutionary fervour had died down, songwriter and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner said, “We were all punks in high school and we were always rebelling against authority.” The culmination of all this political bravado and revolutionary-chic comes with ‘Volunteers’ from the album of the same name, a sonic call to arms for revolutionaries the world over.

Thunderclap Newman -- Something in the Air

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9oxyqLWoEI

It’s pretty safe to say that Thunderclap Newman were never going to be the band that kickstarted the revolution. Not unless sedition and social equality were to be brought about by a man who looked like a chartered accountant and a schoolboy. Nevertheless, Pete Townshend’s proteges had a crack of the whip in 1969 with this post-psychedelia standard that’s been used to advertise everything from British Airways to mobile phones… Hand out the arms and ammo, indeed.

Joan Baez -- Joe Hill

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5po2p8V-SRs

Quiet revolutions are often the most effective, shunning the drawn-out battles in favour of change that happens overnight. The Russian revolution has gone down in history as a spectacular event culminating in the storming of the Winter Palace, whereas in reality there was little, if at all any, bloodshed. The real Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant trade union activist, executed by firing squad on trumped up charges in the United States. His name has since gone on to reach almost mythological proportions within the labour movement, largely thanks to a number of folk songs highlighting his plight. This particular one was written in 1936 and is here performed by Joan Baez -- who was at least prepared to go to jail for her beliefs, as she did for her anti-war activism. It doesn’t need the cannons firing and guns blazing to invoke passion. ‘Joe Hill’ settles for the quieter revolution.

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5 Songs with which to Spark a Revolution

From the 1970 album From Home to Home, which will be reviewed later this week, take a little time out on the weekend to appreciate this somewhat mournful, wee beauty.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDhoJkRGxA

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Fairfield Parlour -- Aries