This five-CD set constitutes as full an account of the first 40 years of
the Strawbs' history as you're ever likely to see, and also manages to close some essential gaps in the group's early history that Universal Music has otherwise left wide open for decades on CD, as well as some gaps left at the time, in the late '60s, '70s, and beyond, owing to the exigencies of the recording industry. That said, however, this set -- despite its five-hour-plus running time -- also very strategically avoids including much that is familiar or, at least, anything in its familiar version; between the vault discoveries of unused takes of released tracks, and songs that were never issued, plus remixes and early takes of songs that were subsequently heavily redone, this is the largest body of "new"
Strawbs material that anyone except for
Dave Cousins and some bandmembers will ever have encountered. But if one wishes for a "best of" the
Strawbs, one must look to
Halcyon Days: The A&M Years or one of the other compilations from more accessible parts of their history -- not to this set; and if one truly wishes to know the group's music, this box will not quite stand alone, either, although the profusely illustrated booklet does contain the most thorough account yet seen of their history. To do that with their music, one will still have to own the CDs of the original albums. But this set will fill in all of the holes from between (and, in too many cases, from the midst of) those albums, and tell the story of how
Dave Cousins,
Tony Hooper,
Dave Lambert,
Brian Willoughby et al all ended up on this grand musical saga, which got its start -- as most things do -- innocently enough, with a British school boy who heard a live recording of
Flatt & Scruggs and couldn't get over
Earl Scruggs' banjo work.
Starting with 1966-vintage broadcast performances by the Strawberry Hill Boys, as they were then known, Disc One (titled "Eyes Wide Open") goes back to the group's roots, showing off the influences of
Scruggs and, even more so on the cuts represented here (
Bob Dylan et al). These early sides sound as much like the product of one of the Newport Folk Festivals as they do a pair of English schoolboys' escape from the constraint of middle-class conventions. But this material, extending into the history of Sandy Denny & the Strawbs, is of more than mere historical interest -- this is all first-rate mid-'60s folk-cum-folk-rock, and could easily have passed muster on any commercial release of the period coming out of England, and might well have attracted attention to the distinctive nature of
Dave Cousins' and
Sandy Denny's vocals. That all changes with "Oh How She Changed" and "Or Am I Dreaming," the first two cuts after
Denny's exit, from
the Strawbs' self-titled A&M Records debut release. The material off of the latter is comprised of outtakes and remixes, including the salvaging of the conceptual material (complete with spoken word passages) and songs that were dropped by A&M in favor of "The Battle" (which, itself, is represented by a blazing BBC broadcast version). And as a sign of the thoroughness of the picture being painted of this early history, the single "It's Just Love," the unreleased 1969 debut of the trio Fire -- featuring future
Strawbs mainstay
Dave Lambert (who wrote the song, a first-rate proto-power pop effort) -- is included.
Disc One leaves us off where
Rick Wakeman, John Ford, and Richard Hudson come into the picture, and includes the achingly lyrical "Where Am I"/"I'll Show You Where to Sleep," the previously unissued encore from the group's Queen Elizabeth Hall concert (released commercially as Just a Collection of Antiques and Curios). By the end of the disc, between a
Rick Wakeman live solo showcase and the high-wattage BBC version of "Sheep" (which marked
Wakeman's last performance with the group), the group has evolved into something far different from even the band represented on the first two A&M albums. Disc Two ("Changing Places") opens with the
Strawbs plunging head-first into progressive rock on "Tomorrow," a BBC track that also heralds
Blue Weaver's arrival in the band as
Wakeman's replacement. The last vestige of their folk sound can be heard in
Tony Hooper's acoustic rhythm guitar, which was to disappear within a matter of months, replaced by
Lambert's electric guitar. The BBC recordings of
Hooper's last work with the group, which comprise this portion of the disc, are uniformly superior to the official A&M recordings of the same songs; it's now possible to see what the band lost with
Hooper's departure in sharp relief and vivid detail, and listening to the material, you may find yourself re-assessing this entire phase of the band's history in a more positive light. That said, "Going Home," the previously unissued track on which
Lambert made his debut with the band, is most impressive as a piece of hard rock & roll from this group -- studio demos of Hudson and Ford's "Part of the Union" and
Lambert's "The Winter and the Summer" stand in for
Bursting at the Seams, and there is even an outtake demo of "The Actor" from
Dave Cousins' contemporaneous solo album Two Weeks Last Summer, superior to its officially released counterpart in terms of playing and interpretation. Similarly,
Hero and Heroine is represented by studio and home demos, and other outtake versions of its key songs, the best of which -- amid this treasure-trove of delights -- include
Cousins' acoustic guitar-accompanied demos of "Out in the Cold" and "Round and Round." A similarly alluring
Cousins demo of "Lemon Pie" is the jewel of the
Ghosts outtakes that close out this disc, but not without some diversions into the band's full electric glory on "The Four Queens" and "Absent Friend (How I Need You)" (the latter from the BBC) and one odd digression, into the French version of "Grace Darling" (recorded for the French Canadian market). Even stranger than the latter is
Cousins' "Whichever Way the Wind Blows," an apparent attempt by the group founder to test the waters for a solo career as a folk-pop artist). It just might be the most bizarre recorded artifact associated by the band to surface yet.
Disc Three ("Inside Out") opens with a mix of home demos by
Cousins and outtakes from Deep Cuts, of which the highlight, hands down, has to be the group's version of "Blue Angel," a song that
Cousins had previously used on his first solo album. The material is consistently engaging and, indeed, fascinating, with the unissued songs and unreleased takes uniformly more fascinating than a lot of what they did get out during this period -- the uniform quality is also quite an achievement since, by the tenth track here,
Cousins and bassist Charles Cronk are the only two musicians who are aboard all of the way through. The middle of the third disc coincides with the group's effective retirement and revival, as well as various odd configurations of the group -- the
Dave Lambert years in the spotlight, the offshoot group Lambert Cronk (on "Touch the Earth," and incarnation of the group as "Juan Martin & the Strawbs" (with Cronk as vocalist) on "Armada." There's one
Dave Cousins/
Brian Willoughby performance, and then we're treated to the
Rick Wakeman-instigated television performance that brought the band back together in 1983, on "The Hangman and the Papist." The disc closes out with various live gigs, rehearsals, and demos featuring
Cousins and the band.
And that leads us to Disc Four ("Further Down the Road"), and a brace of previously unissued demos, outtakes, and live performances by the revived
Strawbs, as well offshoots such as
Dave Cousins' collaborations with
Rick Wakeman. The most startling track here, amid all of the superb singing and guitar work, is keyboardist
Don Airey's "Extravaganza Based on a Theme of Strawbs," a progressive rock showcase that seems to emulate
Wakeman's early style, built on the thematic material of various
Strawbs songs from across the decades (though it also falls back on
Elgar material a little too often).
All of which brings us to the bonus disc, titled "Tastebuds" -- near as one can tell, this platter is comprised of good tracks that just couldn't be slotted easily, for thematic or musical reasons, into the flow of the other four discs. Included are the banjo-driven "The Happiest Boy in Town" and the Eastern-flavored live recording "Draught Raga," dating from 1971, plus various
Dave Cousins solo cuts from the mid-'70s, and even one solo cut by
Blue Weaver from 1987, plus recordings by the latter-day configurations of
the Strawbs. They're all worth hearing. The set is packaged in a handsome slipcase, which lists the tracks on the four primary CDs on the outside, and the bonus disc is meant to slip inside the accompanying booklet. Apart from the French version of "Grace Darling" mastered from a 45, the sound here ranges from very good to excellent throughout, and there's not a single note of apology or explanation needed for the presence of any of the 89 songs featured in this set. It may be pricey, and it isn't complete in terms of musical history, but it is one of the most comprehensive collections of rarities and triumphant musical moments one is ever likely to see of this band's work. ~ Bruce Eder