Anne Briggs’ first album collected largely unaccompanied traditional songs, but this, her second LP, features her debut ventures into the realm of songwriting, the title track being her first ever composition. An astoundingly accomplished piece of music, ‘The Time Has Come’ (later covered by Pentangle) gives a taster not only of Briggs’ writing skills but also manages to place that effortless, timeless vocal of hers within a very personal framework.
Singing self-penned material was a fairly unusual practice (in the folk community at least) back when Briggs first started writing alongside her then-partner Bert Jansch, in the ‘60s, so to hear such a remarkable folk voice bringing new music to life must have had quite some impact. Then there’s the guitar playing: Briggs has said herself that Bert Jansch’s fingerpicking was a revelation to her – a liberation from the Woody Guthrie-style chord strumming the folk scene was so used to. This album features Briggs’ own considerable picking skills, with the complexity of the guitar arrangements making for a perfect counterbalance to her uncommonly even voice. Utterly beautiful, breathtakingly pure British folk.
Welcome to the Canteen is the first live album by English rock band Traffic. It was recorded live at Fairfield Halls, Croydon and the Oz Benefit Concert, London, July 1971 and released in September of that year. It was recorded during Dave Mason's third stint with the band, which lasted only six performances.
The track list includes one song each from the first three Traffic albums; two songs from Mason's first solo album, Alone Together; and "Gimme Some Lovin'" from Steve Winwood's former band, the Spencer Davis Group. (Winwood's organ and Mason's rhythm guitar are conspicuously out of sync for part of "Gimme Some Lovin'".)
In the band's native United Kingdom, the album was a surprise flop, the first in a series of albums by the group that would fail to make an appearance in the charts. In the USA, however, it was a solid success, hitting number 26 in the charts and yielding the single "Gimme Some Lovin' (live)", which reached number 68 in the Billboard Hot 100.
Although regarded as a Traffic album, it was originally released without the name "Traffic" anywhere on it; credited instead to the seven individual musicians. Nonetheless the Traffic logo appeared on the cover (on the back, in this case) as on all of their albums. Most later issues retain the original front cover with its individual crediting, but credit the album to Traffic on the spine.
In 1970, Traffic toured in support of their comeback album John Barleycorn Must Die, with a quartet line-up of Steve Winwood, Chris Wood, Jim Capaldi, and Ric Grech. In November, the group played a series of concerts at the Fillmore East, and recordings from these concerts were compiled into a live album consisting of "Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring", "Glad", "Pearly Queen", "40,000 Headmen", "Dear Mr. Fantasy", and "Can't Find My Way Home".This album was set for release in early 1971 but cancelled for unknown reasons, though Side A eventually appeared as bonus tracks on the 1999 reissue of John Barleycorn Must Die.
By the time of their next tour, Traffic had expanded with the additions of Dave Mason, Jim Gordon, and Reebop Kwaku Baah. The band only played six dates, two of which – their opening performance at Fairfield Hall, Croydon and a London benefit for Oz – were recorded and mixed to become Welcome to the Canteen. Mason was keen to take this version of Traffic to the United States, but Winwood was only interested in doing these six dates. Mason said, "It's Stevie's band, so it's up to him."
Welcome to the Canteenwould be the last album Traffic would release under the band's North American distribution contract withUnited Artists Records their next albumThe Low Spark of High Heeled Boyswould be issued byIsland Records, who released Traffic's records in the U.K. and who (in late 1971) had recently established operations in North America.
Legendary first Modern Jazz Album by the Swiss Metronome Quintet, recorded 1965 and 1967 in Zurich, with saxophonist Bruno Spoerri, pianist Martin Hugelshofer and vibraphonist Ueli Staub. Lost LP including Spoerri's unique jazz arrangements based on motifs of the music for "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny" by Kurt Weill, together with some own tunes played in an exceptional style by one of the few European high-class ensembles of the era.
Taste :
The Metronome Quintet – Ach Bedenken Sie, Herr Jakob Schmidt
Movie producers and sync rights specialists take note! There is nothing
quite as evocative of mid-1960s London clubland than the hip Hammond of
Dave Davani. They call it mod jazz, but I think the more appropriate
term here is 'jazz beat', exemplified here by the fabulous lead cut Top
Of The Pops, the original theme to the BBC show we all know and hate,
and a guaranteed floor-filler at any modernist event you might hear it.
Dave himself preferred the tag the sound of swinging soul", during his
1960s heyday as one of Britain's premier jazz organists."
