JOHN RENBOURN

John Renbourn's first official solo album release is naturally of greater historical as opposed to artistic value. It does have many high points such as showcasing, for the one and only time, what an awesome slide guitar player Renbourn was especially on the track "Louisiana Blues" It also showcases Renbourn's Achilles heal which was his limited vocal abilities which was always magnified whenever Renbourn tried to sing American blues songs. His thin nasal voice , while working well on British traditional songs was just sorely out of place on songs like "John Henry", "Candyman", and "Motherless Children".

A couple of oddities almost make this album essential and that's the two instrumental duets that he performed with the future Pentangle partner Bert Jansch. Indeed, while "Blue Bones" is interesting, "Noah and Rabbit' is phenomenal and points the way for the duo's future jazz/blues fusion projects on the album titled Bert And John and the early Pentangle albums like their eponymous debut and it's follow up titled Sweet Child. 3 stars due to the album's up and down characteristics seems about right.