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Andy Roberts - Home Grown (1970)

Track listing:
  1. Home Grown 2:53
  2. Just for the Record 3:52
  3. Applecross 6:51
  4. The Praties Are Dug 0:22
  5. John the Revelator 2:05
  6. Autumn to May 2:37
  7. Moths and Lizards in Detroit 5:07
  8. Creepy John 3:39
  9. Jello 3:15
  10. Gig Song 1:49
  11. Queen of the Moonlight World 4:46
  12. Where the Sould of Man Never Dies 2:56
  13. The One Armed Boatman and the Giant Squid 6:00
  14. Boris At the Organ 1:42
  15. Lonely in the Crowd 2:32

Notes

Size: 106 MB
Bitrate: 256
mp3
Ripped by: chrisGoesRock
Artwork Included
Source: Japan 24-Bit Remaster

The album, on which Andy Roberts was backed on some tracks by Mighty Baby, had been recorded under a production deal with folk-rock svengali Sandy Roberton. Initially, Sandy's productions appeared under license to RCA, but somewhere between 1970-71 his allegiance switched to B&C/Pegasus. Consequently, in June 1971, Andy found himself in a slightly embarrassing position of talking it up all over again:

'For some reason I don't fully understand B&C have decided to re-release Home Grown,' he explained to Sounds. 'At least, I couldn't have understood it at all if they'd just re-released the album as it was, but we've remixed some and re-recorded some of it, and changed some of the tracks which didn't quite work the first time. So in effect this is an almost different album. It's certainly better than the original one and bears more relation to me as I am now - but it's still 18 months old, vintage Roberts. To confuse the issue still further, there's an album going to be released in the States which will also be called Home Grown because apparently they like the title, but that one will only have three tracks from the original album, and four or five totally new ones which haven't been released here yet…'

In between the two UK Home Grown releases, Andy - who had fingers in all sorts of overlapping artistic pies at that time (recording and performing with The Scaffold, Grimms, and Ian Matthews - with whom he would form Plainsong in 1972) - has endured a brief, ill-fated experience as a member of a band called Everyone. The band's van had crashed with one fatality and financial ruin, although an eponymous album - half of it written and fronted by Roberts - subsequently trickled out, to little fanfare, on Charisma. Having briefly considered quitting music altogether, his interest was revived by working on what would be released later in 1971, on Pegasus, as Nina and the Dreamtree - like Home Grown, a work with an atmosphere all its own though much more luxuriantly produced and yet still, today, an under-appreciated classic.

01. Home Grown (Roberts)
02. Just for the Record (Roberts)
03. Applecross (Roberts)
04. The Praties are Dug (Trad Arr-Roberts)
05. John the Revelator (Trad Arr - Roberts)
06. Autumn to May (Yarrow, Stookey)
07. Moths and Lizards in Detroit (Roberts)
08. Creepy John (Koerner)
09. Jello (Darlington)
10. Gig Song (Roberts)
11. Queen of the Moonlight World (Roberts)
12. Where the Soul of Man Never Dies
(Trad Arr - Roberts)
13. The One-Armed Boatman
and the Giant Squid (Roberts)
14. Boris at the Organ (Roberts)