John Renbourn - To Glastonbury (1973)

John Renbourn studied classical guitar at school and it was during this period that he was introduced to early forms of music, and in the 1950s, along with many others, he was greatly influenced by the musical craze of skiffle, which eventually led him to explore the work of artists such as Lead Belly, Josh White and Big Bill Broonzy. In the 1960's, the impact of Davey Graham was being felt, and in 1961 Renbourn toured the South West with Mac MacLeod and then repeated the tour in 1963. On returning from the South West, Renbourn and MacLeod recorded a demo tape together, and although the British folk revival was underway, most folk clubs were biased towards traditional, unaccompanied folk songs, and guitar players were not always welcome. However, the Roundhouse in London had a more tolerant attitude and Renbourn joined blues and gospel singer Dorris Henderson, playing backing guitar and recording two albums with her. Around 1963, Renbourn teamed up with guitarist Bert Jansch who had moved to London from Edinburgh, and together they developed an intricate duet style that became known as folk baroque. Renbourn released several albums on the Transatlantic label during the 1960's, with 'Sir John Alot' having a mixture of jazz/blues/folk playing alongside a more classical/early music style. At around this time, Renbourn also started playing and recording with Jacqui McShee who sang traditional English folk songs, and with American fiddler Sue Draheim. Together with Bert Jansch, bassist Danny Thompson and drummer Terry Cox, they went on to form the beloved folk group Pentangle, recording a number of well-received albums with them before they disbanded in 1973. Shortly after the breakup he recorded a full album's worth of songs for a solo project, but abandoned the set, instead releasing an entirely different collection of songs as 'The Hermit' later that year. The abandoned songs, previously available only via underground tape-trading networks, surfaced several years later as 'The Lost Sessions', but this is also now hard to find, and so here are those nine songs, exploring a slightly poppier direction then is generally associated with him.

Track listing

01 Just Like Me
02 Sleepy John
03 Riverboat 
04 Green Willow
05 Seven Sleepers
06 To Glastonbury
07 Floating Stone
08 O Death
09 The Young Man's Song