An artist who appeared on stage in some of London’s biggest productions of the time, you can sense that plays through in some of her songs (‘For to find the daffodil’). As reviewed at the time the track which kicks out Side 2, ‘If not by fire’, is the stand out track. Unusual in so far as her voice is distorted to accompany the synthesiser type sound. I started with this track and it really does make you sit up.
But I think that despite all her efforts, there are too many tracks on here which are ‘nice’ but fall just short of being memorable. Many benefit from her piano playing which, throughout, is striking and very noticeable but as the sleeve notes tell us she struggled to play her music live as ‘there aren’t many places that play this sort of stuff’. And in an era, in fact any era, where, to build up a loyal following you had to tour, tour and tour, that was perhaps a blocker in her bid for musical stardom.
She certainly did not lack exposure on stage given the stage and TV credits but the notes on the sleeve strongly hint that she would have loved her career to have been more successful through her musical thread.
Sides 3 and 4 are dominated by variations of tracks on the first disc, whether that be demos or alternative takes. Quite a nice insight into how songs mature.
