SANDY DENNY AND THE STRAWBS: ALL OUR OWN WORK

Interesting historical album. A meeting of two prog folk icons. Oddly enough, this album was made before either Sandy Denny or Dave Cousins had any big exposure. In fact, it was recorded before Strawbs debut, but only released in 1973 at the heigh of success of both artists. I was always very curious about this work since I was a fan of Strawbs and Fairport Convention. However, All Our Own Work bears little resemblance of the sound those artists were making in the 70´s.

I bought a copy of this CD in the early 90´s. My (american label) Hannibal copy has some liner notes saying it has extra tracks, though it does not mention which are they. The track sequence is totally different from the original LP and the cover is also not a reprodution of the LP artwork, but a new, ugly one Two of the vynil cuts were missing too (Wild Strawberries and Sweetling) while including three more for the CD (Poor Jimmy Wilson, Two Weeks Last Summer, I´ve Been My Own Worst Friend). Judging by the quality of the recording, only Poor Jimmy Wilson seems to derive from another session (probably a Cousin´s solo demo).

I was surprised of how powerful already was Denny´s voice by the time she did this sessions. The music was just the 60´s average melodic folk done with only simple acoustic instrumentation (guitars and double bass, with drums provided by a session musician and strings added on some tracks). The vocal harmonies are surprisingly good and startling: sometimes reminding me of groups like Peter Paul & Mary or, as in the case of On My Way, The Mamas And Papas. There is even one raga influenced track (Tell Me What You See In Me), complete with sitar and tabla.

In the end I found this CD to be very pleasant and well perfomed but definitly non essential. Quite nice, ok, but It is also quite derivative. Although no track here is bad- or even weak - Cousins was obviously still finding his way into becoming one of the best and most inventive folk songwriters of his generation. And Sandy Denny did a much better performance within the format of an electric prog band like Fairport Convention.

3 stars.