The Time Has Come/Green vinyl

Description

The Time Has Come is an absolute masterclass in words and guitar twisting in and out of each other - the poetry goes beyond mere observation into a deeply personal and profound tradition. A timeless document of hauntingly gentle tunes. My favourite record ever. Ryley Walker. “I never wrote songs, regularly, because I never considered myself to be a songwriter. I never really considered myself to be a ballad singer, that’s the most important thing for me. Stories… the ancientness of situations and the human condition. And obviously it has changed so much down through the centuries that these songs have been sung, but it still retains that essence of something universal… to humanity, and I always wanted to touch that. I think I wanted to understand people; I think I wanted to understand myself. It’s a way of finding truth. I felt like I belonged to this music.” Anne Briggs // Featuring some of her earliest original compositions, ‘The Time Has Come’ was a break with tradition in more ways than one for Anne Briggs. While previous recordings showcased the unaccompanied melodies of her voice, this album – originally released by CBS in 1971 – brings in additional instrumentation in the form of guitar and bouzouki. The result is that her voice is not overwhelmed, but exacerbated – the plucked strings providing the perfect foil for her crystalline inflection. ‘The Time Has Come’ is a mix of Anne’s own songs and a few notable covers (Lal Waterson, Steve Ashley, Stan Ellison, Henry McCulloch). All are delivered with the quietly assured elegance of Anne’s playing, with sounds ranging from the light ‘Clea Caught A Rabbit’ to the terrible beauty of ‘Wishing Well’ – each song characterising either bouzouki or guitar style. To say Anne was an accomplished picker is doing her a disservice – the intricacies of her finger-picking rival – and more often eclipse – a number of her contemporaries.