PETER AND THE WOLF

"Peter And The Wolf" comes across as a children's tale, which it is, set to music here by an all-star cast. It's not up to the standards of MOTHER GONG's "Fairy Tales" which also had it's stars but when you see some of the names listed out of the 20 something it's easy to be impressed. Led by the duo of Jack Lancaster who plays wind instruments along with violin and Robin Lumley the keyboardist who some will know from BRAND X. Jack by the way was in BLODWYN PIG at this point. These two guys wrote, arranged and produced this record and man what an undertaking with all of these musicians most involved with their own bands so getting them together must have been a challenge. This is 1975.

How many people saw this album in a record store and decided to buy it solely by who's playing on it? I mean no self respecting prog fan could put this back on the shelf could they? The main drummer is Phil Collins but we get brief appearances from Bill Bruford, Jon Hiseman and Cozy Powell. While Lumley takes care of most of the keyboards we get Keith Tippett playing piano and Brian Eno, Manfred Mann and Gary Brooker adding synths. Guitar? How about Alvin Lee, Gary Moore, Chris Spedding and John Goodsall. Percy Jones takes care of most of the bass duties but BLODWYN PIG member Andy Pyle helps out too. Violins and a lot of vocals and spoken words. And of course narration from Viv Stanshall and it's so well done. Really Julie Tipppetts and Bernie Frost are the only singers as only three tracks have singing although we get a choir on another tune but lots of character speakers here done by many of the musicians here.

The tracks average under 2 minutes as we go from scene to scene so not much time for the instrumentalists to show their skills. But this is about the story and it's well done in my opinion but honestly if I never hear it again so be it. The one track that stood out for me was "Wolf And Duck" at under 4 minutes and the one with Chris Spedding on it along with Eno, Collins and Jones. "Cat In Tree" is pretty good too but again this is more about the story, the lyrics. "Rock And Roll Celebration" is a disappointment, a shot at a single I guess. 3 stars.