PAUL BRETT

Shedding the band project SAGE after three releases, guitar wizard PAUL BRETT went solo until his hiatus in 1981, producing 3 vocal oriented albums followed by 5 instrumentals. This is the very first and best of those that feature his gruff voice that seemed older than his years until, well, until he attained those years the only way one can. It has at times gone by the name of "Sight and Speculation".

While not quite as fiery and impactful as that first PAUL BRETT SAGE album in 1970, this is still an engaging blend of mostly acoustic mostly folk rock, admittedly without many of the prog aspects of the SAGE work. Beginning with the plucky instrumental "The Ant", its other virtues are best experienced through the tongue in cheek "Mr Custer"; the morose TOM RAPP like "Handful of Rain" with flute by Rob Young; the latin accented "Spanish Main" with Mike Piggot's violin and more flutes; and the more lively "Motherless Child on a Merry Go Round". As before, Brett knows how to choose and extract the best of his accompanists, which has tended to elevate those collaborative albums above those where he reigns alone.

Perhaps not the most exciting of releases, this is still a mostly sunny slice of 1970s folk with rock and pop aspects from a perennially underappreciated artist.