Trees - Tom Of Bedlam (1973)

Trees was a British folk rock band who formed in 1969, with the original line-up comprising Bias Boshell on bass and keyboards, Barry Clarke on guitar, David Costa on acoustic guitar, Unwin Brown on drums and singer Celia Humphris. David Costa was the son of British singer and radio presenter Sam Costa, and while reading Fine Arts at the University of East Anglia he met Barry Clarke through a mutual girlfriend, who had suggested that as they were both guitar players, that they should connect. Bias Boshell and Unwin Brown had both attended Bedales School in Petersfield, Hampshire, and within a short time all four were sharing their diverse musical experiences, exploring their different tastes and bringing together what they each enjoyed in common with each other. Lacking a singer, Costa suggested they audition the sister of an acquaintance of his, and introduced Celia Humphris into the mix, who had just left Arts Educational where she had studied dance, drama and singing. The five of them began rehearsing in the early spring of 1969, and played their first gigs and recorded early demo tracks throughout June and July of the same year. In 1969 the band signed to CBS, and released two studio albums in relatively quick succession, with 'The Garden Of Jane Delawney' coming out in 1970, and 'On The Shore' in 1971. Like their folk contemporaries, Trees was often compared with Fairport Convention, but they were regarded as delivering folk with a more psychedelic edge, and the group's material was divided between adaptations of traditional songs and original compositions. The original band disbanded in 1971 after recording the two albums, and a second incarnation formed in 1972, featuring Celia Humphris, Barry Clarke, Barry Lyons, Alun Eden, and violinist Chuck Fleming, but this line-up never released an official studio album, although recordings can be found on bootleg releases. Following the demise of the original lineup, Bias Boshell went on to work as a keyboard player and songwriter with The Kiki Dee Band, writing her hit song 'I've Got the Music In Me', before joining Barclay James Harvest and subsequently The Moody Blues, while Barry Clarke went on to join the Vigrass and Osborne band. David Costa became art director and designer for many notable artists such as Elton John, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, and Celia Humphris continued with Trees' second lineup, and subsequently went on to become a sought-after voice-over artist, providing the pre-recorded announcements for the Northern Line on the London Underground.

In 1973 the band had a couple of concerts recorded, possibly for the BBC, and an album was released in 1989 containing all the songs they played. The sound quality was fairly poor, but none of the songs had featured on their two albums, apart from the closer 'Polly On The Shore', and so it was definitely worth hearing. Some years later, an enterprising bootlegger took a tape of this live album and removed all the applause between the songs, releasing this edited version as purported demos for an unreleased third album by the band. Having heard both versions, the 'demos' one is much better quality, but the beginnings of some of the songs have been cut to remove the audience, and they are faded sharply at the end for the same reason. I've done quite a bit of work to this album, replacing the cut intros and smoothing the fades, fixing volume drop-outs, as well as boosting the bass on a couple of songs, so it now sounds more like the third album demos that it was pretending to be. In a way it was, as all the songs were previously unheard material, and if the band had been offered a new recording contract then these would probably have been the songs they would have recorded, possibly even under the title that I've given it. I've added one song from a BBC radio session from 1970 which they had not previously recorded, making a fine epitaph for a fondly remembered band, who were at the fore-front of the folk-rock movement, but who seem to have been unfairly over-looked when the history was written. 

Track listing

01 Prince Of Heathens 
02 Tom Of Bedlam
03 Cry Of Morning 
04 Burgen Polka
05 Friar Tuck Gets His
06 The Innocent Hare
07 Forest Fire
08 Van Dieman's Land