Very Best Of Sandy Nelson, The - Sandy Nelson

Advantages: Glorious music, sounds like nothing else in the world.
Disadvantages: Too much narrating; not long enough.

..., and sounds like nothing else, and it would be nice if some of the up and coming guitar bands plagiarised this sort of guitar music, rather than going for Radiohead and Jeff Buckley every time. This track is very hard to describe, but it’s easy to find on Napster, and I highly recommend that you download it and hear it for yourself. It’ll probably convert you and make you go out and buy this album. Rock played as if it were jazz. The final track, “Cargo Culte”, has the same theme as opener “Melody”, but is shorter, and features a beautiful choir part at the end. The album has very little in the way of singing, and almost all the vocal parts are narrating the story, which is, as the title says, the story of a girl called Melody Nelson. I have neglected to mention this before, as it may put a lot of people... Read review

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Advantages: Willie's sweet voice and stinging guitar
Disadvantages: It's not twice as long

...The music: clean, uncluttered introspective. The songs: conveying the stark, sere, loneness of the singer. It's been called "blue collar blues" and I'd call it that, too, more than I'd call it country music. Only three of the songs are new, written in the 1990s, the rest are refashioned from the 1960s, and the 30 years in between scarcely matter. The songs were chosen and pieced together to tell the story of obssessive love or convey the concept of domestic abuse, whichever way you want to see it. And they do succeed in working together. They succeed in taking hold of your heart and grabbing onto it hard. Somehow, in Willie Nelson's mature voice, the older songs take on a new edge and freshness. Emmy Lou Harris's background voice deepens the poignancy and works sweetly with Willie's. Hers is the ghostly voice of the victim and... Read review

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Advantages: The voice of an Angel ; Title track being one of the best folk rock songs
Disadvantages: Some weak tracks ; Not on the same par as Fairport Convention or Fotheringay

...was short lived, she produced some very fine material and the three albums she did with them including 'Unhalfbricking' and of course 'Liege and Leif' were phenomenal. Before the release of Liege and Leif she left to form her own band 'Fotheringay'. After one album Sandy Denny decided to embark on a bold voyage of discovery as a solo artist. 'North star grassman and the ravens' was astonishingly superb as a debut performance as far as Sandy's voice input was concerned. Although she went on to produce a fine backlog of solo albums I feel as if she worked much better within the confound of The Fairport Convention, who had a number of fine talents to co-work with Sandy's. North star grassman and the ravens was a stunning accomplishment what with her stunning, angelic alto voice. The title track remains the best out of the bunch for me although... Read review

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