« Back to Top Level | Trees

Traditional - Trees - The Garden of Jane Delawney (1970)

Track listing:
  1. Nothing Special 4:30
  2. The Great Silkie 5:13
  3. The Garden of Jane Delawney 4:06
  4. Lady Margaret 7:14
  5. Glasgerion 5:17
  6. She Moved Thro' the Fair 8:10
  7. Road 4:35
  8. Epitaph 3:24
  9. Snail's Lament 4:43
  10. She Moved Thro' the Fair [Bonus] 5:28
  11. Pretty Polly [Bonus] 4:54
  12. Black Widow [Bonus] 3:24
  13. Little Black Cloud Suite [Bonus] 1:39

Notes

Size: 118 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: ChrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Japan 24-Bit Remaster

Debut album by the Trees, easily in the top three UK folk rock bands of the 70's, if not all time. Dating from 1970 the album blends trippy, twin lead guitar, West Coast acid rock with lilting English folk. The delicate female vocals of Celia Humphries and a haunting production weave a dark magical Celtic spell over misty musical moorlands. Captivating, beautiful and timeless.

The Garden of Jane Delawney is the debut album of British folk rock band Trees. Whilst nearly every song on the album appears to be a traditional folk song, this is actually only the case for about half of them, the others having been penned for the album by front-man Bias Boshell. The title track is a particular good example of his apparent talent for writing songs that sounded like they had existed for hundreds of years as folk songs.

In 1970, this British quintet released a couple of albums that made no bones about aping the approach of Fairport Convention (then at their peak). A mixture of traditional folk songs and originals, extended electric-guitar heavy arrangements, and a female singer who took many of the lead vocals — it worked for Fairport. It didn't work as well for the Trees, for several reasons. First of all, Celia Humphris was no Sandy Denny, nor a Jacqui McShee (Pentangle), Maddy Prior (Steeleye Span), or even Judy Dyble (who sang with Fairport before being replaced by Denny). The Trees' original material (usually penned by Tobias Boshell) was more often than not pedestrian. And their arrangements, prone to plodding lengthy instrumental passages, were often way, way too long. The group broke up after two similar albums for British CBS, although they continued to play for a while in the early '70s with some personnel changes. Boshell, in an unlikely turn of events, joined Kiki Dee's Band, and wrote her biggest hit, "I've Got the Music in Me."

01. Nothing Special
02. Great Silkie
03. Garden of Jane Delawney
04. Lady Margaret
05. Glasgerion
06. She Moves Through the Fair
07. Road
08. Epitaph
09. Snail's Lament

Bonus:
10. She Moved Thro' The Fair (demo/bonus track)
11. Pretty Polly (bonus track)
12. Black Widow (bonus track)
13. Little Black Cloud (suite/bonus track)