After doing the rounds of the folk-club circuit in the early 60's with their banjo-based bluegrass tunes, The Strawberry Hill Boys shortened their name to the Strawbs and decamped to Denmark to record an album of their songs with future Fairport Convention stalwart Sandy Denny. That deal fell through and the album wasn't issued until many years later on a budget label, but word got around and in 1968 they were signed to Herb Albert's A&M label for a one off single in 'Oh How She Changed'/'Or Am I Dreaming'. That record did well enough for the label to offer the band the chance to record an album, so they headed off to the studio, with Nicky Hopkins, John Paul Jones, and the Ted Heath Orchestra in tow, to record their grandoise concept masterpiece. The finishing touch would be short snippets of spoken word between the tracks, but no sooner had they come up with that than Simon & Garfunkel beat them to it with 'Bookends', so the idea was abandoned. When the completed album was finished they proudly presented it to the record label, only to have it firmly rejected by a company who expected more of the psychedelic pop of the single rather than these ambitious pieces, complete with orchestra and a quintet of Middle Eastern musicians they'd met in a restaurant. They had to junk half of the songs and return to the studio to record replacement material which was more in keeping with what the label wanted, and the resultant 'Strawbs' album was released to some acclaim in 1969. Dave Cousins still thought that the rejected songs had some merit, but the band were tied to their A&M contract and so could do nothing with them, but when sessions for their second album produced some left-over material, Cousins decided to compile both sets of songs into a publisher's demo album, to be hawked around other record companies to see if anyone wanted to cover their songs. Just 100 copies were pressed, and it was distributed in a plain white sleeve with 'Strawberry Music Sampler No' 1' stamped on it. Most of the copies have since been lost, and at one point in the 90's only two copies were known to exist, but most of the songs have since leaked onto the net or been included in archive collections. Using a pretty good guess at the likely track listing of the rejected album, I've pieced it back together, including both sides of the single and a couple of early versions of tracks from the released debut album, together with some of the unheard songs from the 'Strawberry Music Sampler'. I agree with Cousins, in that these songs deserve to be heard, although you could understand the record company's trepidation about releasing them from an unknown band, but it's great to hear them at last, even the oddly appealing 'Sweetling', with Ted Heath's Orchestra swinging in the background. 
Track listing
01 Or Am I Dreaming02 Nothing Else Will Do03 Poor Jimmy Wilson04 Oh How She Changed05 Just The Same In Every Way06 All I Need Is You07 I've Been My Own Worst Friend08 And You Need Me09 Pieces of 79 And 1510 Stay Awhile With Me11 Whichever Way The Wind Blows12 Indian Summer13 How Everyone But Sam Was A Hypocrite14 The Falling Leaves15 Sweetling
I originally made a cover based on the Japanese picture sleeve of the 'Thirty Days' single, but I had second thoughts and made this one instead, although I've left the old one in the download in case you prefer it.
Strawbs were one of the best progressive folk-rock bands of the 70's, and included a number of great songwriters in their ranks, such as Dave Lambert, Dave Cousins, and Richard Hudson and John Ford, later to have considerable chart success as Hudson Ford. They started out in 1964 as a bluegrass band called The Strawberry Hill Boys, but by 1967 they'd moved into folk, and their first foray into a recording studio was in Denmark, where they recorded some folk songs with Sandy Denny, later of Fairport Convention, for an album that was never issued at the time. Following 1970's 'Dragonfly' album they recruited Rick Wakeman as their keyboard player, and were more of a folk-rock band, but when Dave Lambert joined in 1972 their music took on a harder rock sound. They had a couple of massive hits with 'Lay Down' and 'Part Of The Union', although the latter was not really representative of their music. Throughout their career they released numerous singles, and some of them had exclusive b-sides, which I've collected together here, along with a cracking live track, and some other out-takes which surfaced when their original albums were remastered and reisued.
Track listing
01 Keep The Devil Outside (b-side of withdrawn 'Witchwood' single 1971)02 We'll Meet Again Sometime (b-side of withdrawn 'Witchwood' single 1971)03 Forever (single 1971)04 Backside (b-side of 'Lay Down')05 Changes Arranges (b-side of 'Grace Darling')06 Why > (b-side of 'Hero And Heroine')07 And Wherefore (b-side of 'Shine On Silver Sun')08 Will Ye Go (b-side of 'Part Of The Union')09 Where Is This Dream Of Your Youth (Live) (Previously unreleased) 10 Still Small Voice (Previously unreleased)11 It's Good To See The Sun (Previously unreleased)12 You Won't See The Light (Previously unreleased)
'Backside' is a David Bowie parody, and was credited to Ciggy Barlust And The Whales From Venus, and 'Will Ye Go' is their take on the traditional 'Wild Mountain Thyme'. 'Why And Wherefore' was a live favourite, and was made up of two parts, usually with an instrumental bridge in the middle. The studio recording was split in two, to be put on the b-sides of a couple of the band's singles, so I've split it into separate tracks, but there's no gap between them and so it will play as one long piece.
