Spanky & Our Gang had been inactive for quite a while before returning to recording with this low-key release, which very much emphasized the folk roots of the upbeat late-'60s pop for which the group was most known. Singers Spanky McFarlane and Nigel Pickering are actually the only members remaining from the outfit's heyday on this CD, on which they're helped out by about half a dozen other singers and instrumentalists. Except for a very brief reprise of "Sunday Will Never Be the Same" at the end, you won't find remakes of the songs most associated with the group, though "Give a Damn" and "And She's Mine" were originally done by
Spanky & Our Gang in the '60s, and McFarlane often sang "California Dreamin'" when she performed as part of a reunited
Mamas & the Papas. Instead, the emphasis is on folk and blues songs that you might well have heard at coffeehouses during the folk revival, like "Stewball," "Sinnerman," and "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor." Folk-rock of a later vintage is paid tribute to on a cover of
Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'," while country gets a nod with
Willie Nelson's "Ain't It Funny How Time Slips Away." While the arrangements are on the sparse side and the ambience warm and friendly, McFarlane and Pickering just don't have the pipes they had on
Spanky & Our Gang's first go-around. The inferiority of these versions to the originals (or the best interpretations of those originals), as well as the dissimilarity of this to the sound with which
Spanky & Our Gang made their biggest mark, means this is unlikely to find an avid audience. ~ Richie Unterberger