Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band

Once again this weekend, the advantages of the iTunes store became apparent to me.  I was able to pick up No Roses by Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band.  This album was listed as a four star album in both the red and blue versions of the Rolling Stone Record Guide.  It is also listed as being out of print in both of these reference books, as of 1978 and 1983 respectively.  Yet, there is was on the iTunes store as digital downloads.  After sampling a few thirty second clips of songs on the album, I took the plunge.

What I found was an album featuring much of the sound that made the first several Fairport Convention albums so appealing.  This is perhaps not so surprising in that Richard Thompson, Ashley Hutchings and Simon Nicol appear among the twenty-four other musician from the English folk-rock scene of the late-1960s and early-1970s.

If there is a flaw in this album, it is that Shirley Collins voice does not mesh as well with the electric backing tracks as, say, Sandy Denny's voice drives the classic Fairport Convention albums.  Collins, who in her youth travelled with Alan Lomax collecting folk song information in the southern states of the United States, was an expert in English folk music.  She also was instrumental in combining folk and jazz mediums prior to No Roses, so she definitely had the music experience for such a recording.  And yet her fine voice does not alway appear comfortable in such company.

All in all, though, this is a worthy recording and one I recommend to 1960s and 1970s folk-rock fans.

On a scale of 1 to 10, No Roses ranks an 7/10 

The VC movie and music rating system works like this (ranking from worst to best):

1: I wouldn't be caught dead with this album!!! 

2: You have this album (there must be some good reason, right)!?!

3: Why do you have this album?

4: Mediocre, but not bad album.

5: Average album.

6: Good album.

7: Excellent album.

8: Why don't you have this album?

9: You don't have this album (there must be some good reason, right)!?!

10: I wouldn't be caught dead without this album!!!