THE BRITISH FOLK UNDERGROUND 1969-1975

Description

Compiled by Bob Stanley to document the acid folk scene, Gather In The Mushrooms was first released in 2004 on Sanctuary, on CD only. Its success was such that a sequel, titled Early Morning Hush, appeared two years later. This new edition of Gather In The Mushrooms brings together the cream of the two long-deleted compilations, with a few additions - C.O.B., Roy Harper, Fotheringay - that were not available on Sanctuary at the time. Although non-traditional, these songs possess their own authenticity, an autumnal atmosphere and a naivety that influenced the neo-folk boom of the 2000s (Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Alasdair Roberts, Tuung and others), but impossible to reproduce. For many of these late-60s groups, folk music and the hippie world around them were a way of life, a way of escaping the Vietnam War, the Angry Brigade and the three-day week of the early 70s. Anne Briggs lived in a caravan in Suffolk, Shelagh McDonald under a tent, Vashti Bunyan refused electricity; they were not part-time workers. Listening to Gather In The Mushrooms, one is transported to a time when no one used the term “postmodern.” If it may not have resonated with committed political folkies, more than five decades later this music strongly evokes old England - not necessarily that of poachers and peddlers, but that of long-haired youths in tie-dye T-shirts, bikers and hippies, playing acoustic guitar in white stone cottages. Groups like Midwinter and Oberon recorded primitive folk albums privately; today, they sound as distant and mystical as Alan Lomax’s field recordings. The sincerity and folk knowledge of a group like Forest lose all relevance as soon as one hears a piece as strange and evocative as “Graveyard.” Homemade, warm, hot as soup or chilling as frost, this is music of innocence and rare beauty.