Rating: 2/5
Review:
Very forgettable
Marc Ellington was a good musician who played with bands
like Fairport and Matthews Southern Comfort.
I tried this album because of that, because Richard Thompson plays on it
and because I was told that it is a lost gem.
It isn't, I'm afraid. It's a
pleasant-sounding, decently played collection of covers and traditional songs,
but it's no more than that and much of it is eminently forgettable.
Just as examples, the opener is Al Stewart's In Brooklyn –
which sounds very like a rather feeble outtake by Stewart himself. Reason To Believe is a truly great song but
Ellington delivers a bland, unexciting version.
And Desolation Row…oh, dear. You
need to be Dylan himself or to bring something extra-special to this song (as
Chris Smither does) to make it work.
Here, it's just a long, long, *long* recitation which sounds as though
it's been sanitised for a Sunday-evening on the Light Programme. It's truly grim.
To be fair, most of the album is listenable, but with every
track I'm aware that there is at least one far, far better version of it. However much I respect Ellington's work with
other bands, I can't recommend this.
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