Karen Dalton - It's So Hard to Tell Who's Going to Love You the Best

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A true hidden gem

I spend quite a lot of time poking about in obscure corners of late 60s/early 70s music. A lot of the stuff I hear deserves to be obscure, to be honest, but occasionally I come across a gem like this which makes the search worthwhile.

This is an album largely of covers, sung superbly and excellently accompanied. Dalton’s voice has much of the cracked, slightly fragile-sounding beauty of Billie Holiday, and she can sing with the same intensity. Really – she can, and I know what a big statement that is. I find this spellbinding to listen to, with stripped back, excellently played accompaniment which is very well produced to give a great, almost torch-singer sound.

This is one of those rare albums which genuinely deserves the tag “hidden gem.” I’m delighted to have discovered it and can recommend it very warmly indeed.

Dick Gaughan - An Introduction to Dick Gaughan

Rating 5/5

Review:
An excellent selection

The “An Introduction to...” series is uniformly excellent and this compilation of some of Dick Gaughan’s finest tracks recorded for Topic is no exception. The sound quality is excellent and it’s a thoughtful, representative selection showing Gaugan’s fine voice and classy guitar work.

If you’re looking for somewhere to start with Dick Gaughan, you can’t go wrong here. Very warmly recommended.

V.A. - Hallelujah; The Songs Of Leonard Cohen

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Some very good stuff here

There is a good deal of truth in the old saying that no-one can sing a Leonard Cohen song the way Leonard Cohen couldn’t, but there are some very good covers here, along with some not-so-good ones.

Really, how you respond to these recordings is a matter of individual taste; another reviewer singles out Barb Jungr’s Everybody Knows for special praise, whereas I really don’t like it. I suspect that’s the way it will be for most of this album – people will just disagree about what they like, if anything. For me, it was better than I expected: I have known and loved Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah for years (while my sister hated it), I was very pleasantly surprised by Rufus Wainwright and Dion’s contributions and liked a lot of the others, but – again surprisingly – hated the great Nina Simone’s version of Suzanne. And so it goes.

Taste here is likely to be so individual that my recommendation may not be much use, but for what it’s worth I think this is an album I like a lot overall and which is well worth having.

Amory Kane - Memories of Time Unwound

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Uninspiring

Sometimes poking about in the dusty corners of late 1960s music unearths a hidden gem. Sadly, most of the time it doesn’t, and this is one of those times. I found Memories of Time Unwound pretty forgettable; there’s nothing actively wrong with it and the musicianship is good – as you’d expect with the excellent Dave Pegg on bass – but the material is nothing special, I’m afraid. There was an awful lot of this kind of stuff around then; most of it just washed over me at the time without leaving much impression and this does the same now.

I don’t want to be too harsh, but this didn’t do anything for me and I can’t really recommend it.

Jimmie Spheeris - Isle Of View & The Original Tap Dancing Kid

Rating: 3/5

Review:
Pleasant but rather ordinary

I’m afraid I can’t quite share the enthusiasm of some reviewers for Jimmie Spheeris’s music. It’s perfectly OK of its type but for me it doesn’t really stand out from the huge wash of dreamy psychy-folky stuff which was around in the late 60s and early 70s.

There are some nice songs here with decent music, good production and rather Moody Blues-y lyrics. I can imagine this being played in student rooms late at night while smoking non-proprietary cigarettes – indeed, I might have done just that myself if I’d come across Jimmie Spheeris during my mid-70s university days. Coming to it now, though, it doesn’t do much for me really; I find it a pleasant haze of rather generic-sounding stuff but not much more.

Plainly, Spheeris has a devoted following and others may get more from his music than me, but personally I can only give this 2-in-1 set a lukewarm recommendation.

Show Of Hands - Arrogance, Ignorance and Greed

Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific album

I have somehow managed to miss out on Show Of Hands in the past, but I am very glad that I have discovered them now. This is a terrific album.

The material is a mixture of traditional and modern, some self-written, and it’s all excellent. From the quiet, haunting ballads via a great cover of Dylan’s Senor to the angry protest of the title track, the musicianship is top-class and it’s a pleasure to listen to throughout. It’s also a pleasure to find genuine, sincere political protest expressed in first-rate songs which are anything but a chore to listen to. Very warmly recommended.

Billie Marten - Feeding Seahorses By Hand

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Classy and enjoyable

I like Feeding Seahorses By Hand. Billie Marten was new to me so it was a bit of a punt, but it’s very rewarding. She has a lovely, husky, slightly broken voice and her material is very decent slightly folky, slightly jazzy stuff. I haven’t yet found anything truly outstanding here, but I can recommend this as a classy, enjoyable album.