CHILDREN OF THE SUN

This album's been sitting around here unreviewed for a little while so I'm taking pity on it.

Mike in particular and his sister, Sally to a lesser extent, would go on to do greater things. Not a lot to say about this album. Sally was 22 and Mike was 15. The music was recorded in 1968 and released in 1969. Mike would of course go in a just a few years to make Tubular Bells and Sally didn't do a solo album until 1978's Water Bearer (worth checking out if you're a Mike and/or Sally Oldfield fan).

Song Of The Healer would be reused by Sally on Water Bearer and is probably the proggiest track on the original album. The bonus disc in my CD version has three guitar improvisations, about 15 minutes worth altogether, from Mike, you might hear some formative Tubular Bells bits. The bonus disc wraps up with a couple of tracks by Sally from 1970 that are a little saccharine, but not unpleasant. Also of interest, David Palmer, I think the D.P. of Tull fame is credited with musical arrangements for two violins, viola, cello, and harpsichord for two tracks on the original album.

In the end I find it more interesting as a historical document. The music's not bad but this is one I'd probably have passed on it if I had heard it first.

As you can see in the bio, this work was mainly due to Pentangle's guitarist John Renbourn who decided to produce two skilled teen-agers and gave them the support of Jethro Tull's David Palmer and Pentangle's drummer Terry Cox. The result was an acoustic-guitar based folk album with some (pretentious) experimental moments that can be forgiven because of the youthness of the duo.

The duo was composed by Mike and Sally Oldfield and I have to say that I always thought the B side was the A side and vice versa, as Transatlantic was used to print the disc information on one side only of the vinyl, so I discover now that Balloons, my favourite album's track, is not the opening.

Almost all the songs contain flute arrangements (Ray Warleigh). Without it, the two guitars and Sally's leading and Mike's background vocals would have been too "flat".

The Bach's excert from "Toccata and Fugue in D minor" is remarkable at the end of "Balloons". Some short tracks obtained by "torturing" the guitar's strings could have been avoided but they are very short so it's not a big problem.

I think this album is mainly important as document, but it contains good moments. Don't think to this as a Mike or Sally Oldfield's album. It's an interesting and promising work of two teens and this is haw it has to be intended.

Good but non-essential fits well. For Mike Oldfield's fans, this is one of the few opportunities to hear Mike singing.

While this sole collaboration between older sister and younger brother OLDFIELD under the name of SALLYANGIE is at least of historic value, there is little evidence to suggest that it catapulted their solo careers. In Mike's case, his enthusiasm for "Opus 1" aka "Tubular Bells" motivated him to make the rounds of record company execs a few years later, but, if his participation in "Children of the Sun" had any impact, it appears to have closed more doors than it opened. As for Sally, it was Mike's own success that may have been the single most significant catalyst, though she held off until 1978 before releasing her first record.

With Sally being the elder by 7 years and the principal vocalist, this fledgling disk more closely resembles her later solo work than the more intricate instrumental excursions of Mike. Still, his furiously strummed acoustic guitars portend a virtuoso in the making, while his inevitably child like backing vocals contribute to a naivete of spirit. The flutes of Ray Warleigh and the string arrangements of JETHRO TULL's Dave Palmer play second fiddle to the jangly guitars while further sweetening the mixture. Apart from the female lead vocals, this can stand side by side with other artists of its time like NICK DRAKE, INCREDIBLE STRING BAND and FRESH MAGGOTS. Most tracks are relatively brief and have a not entirely finished air to them,

While none of the pieces have pierced the passage of time to become overlooked classics, the quality is uniformly sound, with "Balloons" and "The Murder of the Children of San Francisco" being favorites. While "Song of the Healer" is the only track to resurface more or less unaltered in Sally's discography (although it does not appear to have been on the original vinyl), "River Song" appears to be cut from the same cloth. Both of these are among the more progressive offerings here.

More recent reissues include bonus tracks, three of which are instrumentals by Mike, little more than expansion of exercises without sister's cooing on top, and 2 songs by Sally, which are more dramatically divergent from the mood of the original release. In fact they are very catchy and slick romantic numbers closer to the works of PETULA CLARK than anything Sally explored at least in the first and best known 5 years of her solo career. I admit I enjoy the contrast after almost an hour of ponderous psychedelia.

As pleasant as this is overall, and as much as I wish I could say that it's worth hearing on its own merits, I must conclude that, considered in the context of its time, this is distinctly average, but it gains a half star for historical credibility rather than sunny precociousness.