Rating: 3/5
Review:
Jacqui McShee - but definitely not Pentangle
This is a perfectly competent album. Jacqui McShee sings very beautifully and
expressively, the material is great stuff and her band are good musicians – but
Pentangle it ain't.
Part of the problem for me is that I love Pentangle's work –
and by that I mean the work of Jacqui McShee, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Danny
Thompson and Terry Cox together. They
were all quite exceptional musicians and together they produced something
really special. Among their truly
exceptional work were their versions of many of the pieces on this album; Once
I Had A Sweetheart, House Carpenter, I've Got A Feeling, Cruel Sister and
others were absorbed into my musical bones in my teenage years and the versions
here, while perfectly acceptable, aren't a patch, I'm afraid.
I don’t think this is just an old fogey's prejudice
(although it may be, I suppose). There's
nothing here to mach the brilliance of Jansch and Renbourn's guitar work, the
wonderful fluidity of Thompson's bass or the subtle expressiveness of Cox's
percussion. In places I think McShee
sounds better than she did back then, but the whole isn't much more than a very
competent but slightly ordinary set. I'm
glad to have heard Jacqui sing so well, but I doubt that this will get many
outings in my player and I can only give it a lukewarm recommendation.
No comments:
Post a Comment