THE BOOK OF TALIESYN

In Mk I terms this is the most irregular one. Weak is a strong word for it and I believe that irregular is more adequate. Production is awful and even the remastered version couldn't do too much for the first and last track e.g. This time the Beatles cover didn't work so well and, with Kentucky woman (another cover, this time from Neil Diamond!) and the frist track, they can be considered fillers. But another cover, from Ike and Tina Turner (!) sounds as good as the original, and very harder, Ritchie showing flashes of the things to come. This track was played alive in those times, and I have a bootleg that shows that Blackmore and Lord were building brick by brick their heavy dialogue that would dominate the early 70's shows.

Wring that neck aka Hard Road is a good number, full of time for live contortionisms. You can hear it in its full orgiac live form in the BBC's In Concert recorded in 70-72 with the Mk II.

And now, the best pieve for Taliesyn. I don't believe that Deep Purple belongs to this site. Their sound in the Mk I era wasn't proto-prog to my ears but typical jamming rock from the late sixties with a little more quality than the average hard group. However pieces like April (from the last - and best - Mk I album) and Anthem could be seen as proto-prog music thanks to their efforts in mixing classical instruments and moods to rock passages. Anthem is beautiful and really fits well with Evans' voice. It's a shame that I didn't find any bootleg with this song played alive.

Finally a brief comment about the musicians. Although the first album is stronger than this in the material I believe we can hear the group playin' tighter in pieces more complicated than the ones on Shades of...(like the above mentionated Anthem). Lord's proeminence is more clear here as well. Rod Evans was a good singer but we can easily see that he lacks that something that put the things on fire. I believe that the real Evans only show what he could do in the first Captain Beyond album. And there he showed that his was a giant singing, without barriers or limits to its expression. Unfortunately he never did the same on Purple.

A 3 star album in general. In progginess, 2. So 2.5 stars.

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