Читать книгу The Mojo Collection - Various Mojo Magazine - Страница 117

Record label: Elektra

Produced: Joe Boyd

Recorded: Sound Techniques Studios, London; December 1967

Released: March 1968

Chart peaks: 5 (UK) 161 (US)

Personnel: Robin Williamson (v, g, gimbri, whistle, pc, pan pipe, p, oud, mandolin, Jews’ harp, chahanai, water harp, hm); Mike Heron (v, s, Hammond organ, g, dulcimer, harpsichord); Dolly Collins (flute, organ, harpsichord); Davis Snell (harp); Licorice McKechnie (v, finger cymbals)

Track listing: Koeeoaddi There; The Minotaur’s Song; Witches Hat; A Very Cellular Song; Mercy I Cry City; Waltz Of The New Moon; The Water Song; There Is A Green Crown; Swift As The Wind; Nightfall

Running time: 49.55

Current CD: Collectors Choice CCM02892 adds The 5,000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion

Further listening: Wee Tam And The Big Huge (1968); The 5,000 Spirits Or The Layers Of The Onion (1967); Liquid Acrobat As Regards The Air (1970)

Further reading: Be Glad: An Incredible String Band Compendium (Adrian Whittaker, 2003); www. incrediblestringband.com (official); www.makingtime.co.uk/beglad/ (fan site)

Download: HMV Digital

Fired by the success of their second album The 5,000 Spirits, Heron and Williamson repaired to a Chelsea studio to construct the album that would seal their reputation forever. With them they brought exotic instruments from a road trip to Morocco and a collection of incandescent tunes requiring, for the most part, a single roll of tape and a touch of embroidery.

‘This was the first time multi-tracking was possible,’ Williamson remembers, ‘though it was still done in a pretty slapdash, anarchic, have-a-go kind of way. The whole album was recorded in a few days. We didn’t even stay for the mixes. The basic tracks were mostly one take, live vocal and guitar, and then the other instruments were put on top. Mercy I Cry City was pretty much live, with me playing two whistles and drums all at the same time. Waltz Of The New Moon had a harp player on it, and we had Dolly Simpson’s flute organ on Water Song, but otherwise it was just us overdubbing the other parts.’ Williamson’s contributions were written in a disused railway carriage in the garden of his friend Mary Stewart’s house near Glasgow. It’s Stewart’s children who appear in the Hangman’s hugely influential cover picture, an image (taken on Christmas Day ’67) that so perfectly captured the album’s mystic appeal and sent kindred spirits scurrying for the hills in search of a rural retreat. There was instant critical acclaim, along with loud endorsements from Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.

‘A very pleasant surprise,’ says Williamson, ‘but I felt it was something special even while we were making it. The whole of London had this fantastic atmosphere at the time, particularly Chelsea. A wonderful feeling of optimism after the 1950s, a tremendous flowering of the notion that the war was actually over and that life and love could be obtained. Hence the name of the album – The Hangman being the death in the war and The Beautiful Daughter being the coming age. Look at that misty gleam in our eyes on the cover: we were standing back and looking in amazement at what was going on!’