CD-Charts Position 61
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Bert Jansch

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Bert Jansch

Release Date February 26, 2008
Dylan is revered. Robert Johnson, Skip James are re-discovered. But, this album by Bert Jansch is a milesone in folk blues. Vastly underated, his lyrics have am impact today and his guitar technique as displayed on this CD leave his songwriter acoustic contemporaries standing. He has produced many things since but this is his seminal work, as fresh now as it was when it left a crack in the ground. Listen.

CD-Charts Position 62
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Grave New World

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Strawbs

Release Date July 06, 1998
The Strawbs entered a golden period with one of my favourite all time albums that showed they could mix stark realism and powerful melodic music with whimsy. In parts this is one of the bleakest albums I have ever heard. Then there are some deliciously lighter moments.

Vocally Dave Cousins had found his niche. Songs like Benedictus and New World are stark and desolate and Queen of Dreams played havoc on my ears when I first listened to it on headphones and was the track I always played to testt out new stereos or speakers. Amongst all the angst and even bitterness Tony Hooper manages to conjure up a piece of vaudeville with Ah Me, Ah My.

This was a band capable of writing stunning material that held the listener enthralled ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 63
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The Definitive Collection

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Eliza Carthy

Release Date October 06, 2003
1) She's part of folk royalty (if you didn't know) - her dad is Martin Carthy, her mum is Norma Waterson (both legends in their own right), her aunt and uncle are Lal and Mike Waterson and Oliver Knight is her cousin!
2) She can't half play the fiddle.
3) She has one of the most beautiful voices you'll ever hear, and she can really sing, I mean, really. I saw her live and the first song she did accapella... gobsmacking. And she's from Yorkshire! What more do you want?!
4)Her versatilty. Some of her songs are thigh-slappingly folktastic but then you get songs like Stumbling On, which is more or less jazz, or Billy Boy, which starts of sounding almost like dub reggae, goes folky and then has a Santana-ish guitar solo. And it's not just genre ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 64
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Light Flight - The Anthology

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Pentangle

Release Date February 26, 2008
I saw Bert Jansch live last year and thought I really ought to check Pentangle out. This is a great compilation for someone new to the band. Unlike Fairport who were a bit "west coast pop" in a folky way, Pentangle were a very "jazzy" folk band. You can hear it in the arrangements and the guitar solos. Jacqui McShee also has a lovely voice.

CD-Charts Position 65
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Black Water

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Kris Drever

Release Date October 23, 2006
We saw Kris at the Orkney Festival this year, and bought the album on spec: glad I did. A fine set of songs and tunes, with just the right mix of new and trad. Go buy it now !

CD-Charts Position 66
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The Best Of British Folk

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Various Artists

Release Date February 26, 2008
This album should be retitled:60's British Folk. Rather than meeting expectations, this album presents the listener with sounds that often bridged the gap between folk and rock. Because I am quite elitist with music,I felt that anything electric or synthesised was out of place within authentic folk. Due to such a presence, I have had to come up with a new way of appreciating this album. Without the bounds of classification this is very good! hamish imlach- very good. Saw both pentangle and bert jansch in colchester UK last month- spoilt, arent i?

CD-Charts Position 67
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For Love and Laughter

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Solas

Release Date September 01, 2008
This album should be retitled:60's British Folk. Rather than meeting expectations, this album presents the listener with sounds that often bridged the gap between folk and rock. Because I am quite elitist with music,I felt that anything electric or synthesised was out of place within authentic folk. Due to such a presence, I have had to come up with a new way of appreciating this album. Without the bounds of classification this is very good! hamish imlach- very good. Saw both pentangle and bert jansch in colchester UK last month- spoilt, arent i?

CD-Charts Position 68
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Made To Love Magic

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Nick Drake

Release Date May 24, 2004
Indispensible really for anyone who owns the trilogy of Drake albums released in his lifetime. Features some great tracks that presumably Nick would have been happy to release - Rider on the Wheel (one slight vocal fluff), Time of No Reply, Black Eyed Dog, Magic and his final recording Tow the Line - the only one not available before in some form. They feature his great guitar playing, distinctive voice and enigmatic poetic lyrics and on the whimsical Magic , the gorgeous but, perhaps, excessive orchestration, more subtly done on Way to Blue. Black Eyed Dog is extremely moving in the context, the darkest of blues. Other tracks are weaker songs eg Joey, Mayfair or the painfully strained Hanging on a Star, or alternative versions - Three Hours, Thoughts of Mary Jane ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 69
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The Long Black Veil

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Chieftains

Release Date January 23, 1995
This is a terrific CD, with its wild meld of celtic, pop, folk, and country strains. The Chieftains, accompanied by such music greats as Sting, Mick Jagger, Sinead O'Connor, The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Tom Jones, Van Morrison, among others...who would have thought such an assemblage would result in such a cohesive recording of such wildly divergent music? Of particular note are Sting's mournful rendition of "Mo Ghile Mear" and Sinead O'Connor's stylization of "The Foggy Dew" and "He Moved Through The Fair". Mick Jagger also does justice to "A Long Black Veil". This CD is simply a great recording overall!

CD-Charts Position 70
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From The Witchwood

CD-Charts > Music > English Folk
by: Strawbs

Release Date July 06, 1998
This was something of a transitional period for the Strawbs and represented their first studio album.

The feel is of a band not really together and struggling with its identity, unsure whether to tread the boards of pure folk music or to turn into a folk-rock band, which they thankfully went on to do very successfully.

Today the band perhaps value the songs from this album slightly more - as many are included in their current set. Dave Cousins is as dramatic as ever on Glimpse of Heaven and The Hangman and the Papist. It was a pre-cursor of better things to come and should be viewed and listened to as such. If you do that there is plenty of merit here.