Plainsong - Now We Are 3 (1972)

Plainsong was a short-lived folk-rock outfit with country-rock leanings that briefly provided a pretty close British equivalent to the likes of Crosby, Stills & Nash. Singer-songwriter Iain Matthews had been the frontman with Fairport Convention during their early West Coast-influenced period, and had subsequently enjoyed moderate success as a solo artist and with his pioneering British country-rock outfit Matthews Southern Comfort. His main collaborator in Plainsong was guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Andy Roberts, former musical kingpin of the loose collective of folk musicians and performance poets known as the Liverpool Scene. Rounding out the new band were bassist/pianist David Richards and Californian acoustic guitarist Bob Ronga, with percussion being provided on an ad-hoc basis by Iain’s former Fairport colleague Dave Mattacks or fellow folk-rock stalwart Timi Donald. 
Prior to their formation in early 1972 Roberts had become infatuated with the alternative version of the Amelia Earhart story propounded in Fred Goerner’s book 'The Search For Amelia Earhart', which suggested that she had been on a clandestine aerial spying mission for the US government on the Japanese at Saipan in 1937, and had perished at their hands, the whole affair then being hushed up to avoid an early war. Matthews became interested in the topic, but unable to stretch the concept to a whole album, they decided to record a short suite based on the story, and make it the centrepiece of their Elektra debut, which also took it's title from Goerner’s book. Despite it's mixture of self-penned songs and covers, and having the Earheart suite in the middle, it was a beautifully coherent folk-country-rock album with glorious vocals and superbly understated, largely acoustic accompaniment, with the occasional fiery Telecaster tail-twist. The whole record had a wistful, summery feel absolutely redolent of 1972, and it remains one of my favourite ever albums. Despite that, it failed to trouble the Top 100 album charts, and when Ronga left, the remaining members recorded a follow-up, provisionally titled 'Now We Are 3', which moved further towards country-rock, but this was shelved when the band split abruptly due to ferocious antipathy between Matthews and Richards, and Iain’s long-aspired determination to move to California. It has appeared as part of the deluxe re-issue of the debut album, but here it is for anyone who missed it, with some new cover art thrown in.

Track listing

01 Old Man At The Mill
02 Urban Cowboy
03 The Fault 
04 Swinging Doors 
05 Keep On Sailing 
06 Miss The Mississippi 
07 Home 
08 First Girl I Loved 
09 Save Your Sorrows 
10 Nobody Eats At Linebaugh's Any More
11 The Goodnight Lovin Trail 
12 All Around My Grandmothers Floor 
13 That's All It Could Amount To