Another Monday

Album Review

Renbourn's second album was very much in character with many of the records he would release throughout the rest of his career, the only difference being that his approach here was perhaps somewhat more tentative. The guitar playing is not tentative; it's excellent folk-blues, virtuosic but full of heart and imagination, and open to other influences from jazz and world music, though not as much so as he would be in many subsequent efforts. The vocals (when he takes them; some tracks are instrumental) are more perfunctory, but they don't detract from the performances. His inclination toward early music is evident on "Ladye Nothinge's Toye Puffe" and "One for William," the latter of which also features oboe. More typically, though, he drifted into the blues idiom, two of the standouts being his interpretation of the oft-covered "I Know My Babe" (more frequently titled "I Know You Rider" when recorded by other artists) and his bottleneck playing on "Nobody's Fault but Mine." For Pentangle fans, the album is especially interesting for the recording debut of Jacqui McShee as accompanying vocalist on three numbers, although her singing is far more subordinate and less assertive than it would be in Pentangle. The album's biggest flaw, actually, is its short running time of a mere 28 minutes, with seven of the 12 pieces clocking in under the two-minute barrier. The 2002 CD reissue on Castle/Sanctuary adds lengthy historical liner notes by Colin Harper.