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Now here’s a great English neo-folk artist lost to time. Shelagh McDonald, born in Edinburgh, was a gorgeous Scottish folk singer destined for stardom. Her style was uniquely urbane, mixing Joni Mitchell sonics with Nick Drake-like singing and atmosphere. Some of the upper echelon of English folk-rock luminaries like members from Fotheringay, Fairport Convention, Mighty…
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C.O.B. (Clive Palmer far right) Seems appropriate today, on the Day of the Dead, to post something from Clive Palmer’s C.O.B. band. This is another English neo-folk group which was continuing the show of strength this new genre had. Their hymnal sound was heavily indebted to the polyglot of influences early Judeo-Christian music had absorbed…
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Shirley Collins and Ashley Hutchings – No Roses photo session. Continuing on the quest to detail England’s neo-folk sound, I have to go back to the story of one of the artists who started it all. Shirley Collins, by the time of this recording was thought of as bit stubborn traditionalist, one more prone to…
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Comus Let’s ruminate a bit over October. Isn’t there something strangely dark and alluring about this month? In nature, we look forward to trees changing their colors and the heat from summer subsiding to cool our muggy air. We look forward to these things, knowing full well that they’re signals of something shortly arriving: for…
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Tír na nÓg – Sonny and Leo Before throwing you head first into the dark masterpiece of tomorrow’s album of the month, how about something far gentler? Yet in its own way, quite heavy. Out of Ireland, comes the Dubliner duo Tír na nÓg. Taking their name appropriately enough from the Otherworldly (Land of Eternal Youth),…
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Trees – 1971 Now this kicks off the new English folk decade with a bang. When you first hear the opening track of Trees’ On the Shore you’ll notice something extremely different, folk music that’s rocks in wild ways you’ve probably never heard within the same style. Its the sound of a band fully absorbing…
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Trees – 1970 When you hear Trees’ neo-traditional “Fool” you’re hearing the sound of folk-rock mutating from within. The song itself means to describe the rise and fall of the historical Luddites, in uncertain terms, whose protest against industrial machines threatening the way of life and known existence of the then common textile artisans. In…
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Third Eye Band – 1970 There was once a time when a band like the Third Ear Band, which sounded beyond rock and folk into some other realm of dance music, would open for the likes of Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. There was a time when such a band could play at the…
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Heron – 1970 There’s a sound you faintly hear as you play the opening track from Heron’s 1970 self-titled debut, its the faint sound of a rolling river and bird song. As the gorgeous romantic pastoral folk song unfolds, and ends to the sound of distant bird song, you start to realize the exact reason…
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Mr. Fox Here’s but a small taste of what’s coming during Hallowe’en. I hinted at before that by the end of the ‘60s a few groups like Forest, Steeleye Span, and even Fairport Convention were touching a bit on the dark side of folklore and hidden traditionals. By turn of the decade, groups like the…
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