Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Bright Morning Stars [Live]
2. Worlds They Rise and Fall [Live]
3. Spirit Beautiful [Live]
4. Willow Pattern [Live]
5. Turquoise Blue [Live]
6. Whistle Tune [Live]
7. Darling Belle [Live]
8. You've Been a Friend to Me [Live]
9. I Know That Man [Live]
10. Old Buccaneer [Live]
11. Black Jack David [Live]
12. Circle Is Unbroken [#]
13. Fine Fingered Hands [#]
14. Everything's Fine Right Now [#]
15. Raga Puti [#]
16. Empty Pocket Blues [#]

Disc 2:

1. All Writ Down [#]
2. Dust Be Diamonds [#]
3. Theta [#]
4. Beautiful Stranger [#]
5. Won't You Come See Me [#]
6. Oh Did I Love a Dream [#]
7. Secret Temple [#]
8. Rends-Moi Demain
9. Dreams of No Return
10. Jane
11. Dear Old Battlefield
12. Log Cabin Home in the Sky [Live]
13. 1968 [Live]
14. Hangman's Medley
15. Ring Dance [#]
16. Long Long Road [#]
17. Living in the Shadows [#]

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84558 in Music
• Released on: 2007-06-05
• Number of discs: 2

Album Description
Two CD set from the British Folk band headed by Mike Heron and Robin Williamson. This double disc collection contains 33 rare BBC Radio recordings taped by the band between 1969 and 1974, including 13 previously unreleased songs. Compiled by the band members, this package includes a 24 page booklet with rare photos, liner notes and BBC sessionography. Hux. 2007

Customer Reviews

a very welcome, but not perfect compilation
As a true ISB & Robin fan I simply cannot resist the temptation of buying practically all ISB stuff that hits the market, and this cd of BBC recordings seemed like a wonderful addition. And it is, really. The packaging is well taken care of with an insightful essay regarding the sessions, lyrics of a couple of songs and perhaps best of all a "sessionography" of BBC sessions. While the performances are fine, the sound quality is not as uniformly excellent, due to the fact that some of the tracks, mostly due to lost tapes, have been recorded off-air. But this will not daunt the true fan.

In fact, it's mostly these tracks that make this collection interesting. Some Robin songs especially have by their absence from any release gained an almost mythical status, like "Fine fingered hands". Absolutely wonderful to hear these songs!

On the downside, from my point of view, is that I already did have most of the recordings. The tracks 1 - 12 featured on cd1 have been released as "Live in concert", while a lot of songs on cd2 have been released as "On air". This leaves some 13 songs that were previously unreleased. In the booklet we find a little story by Mike Heron that accompanied the already mentioned "Live in concert" so, unfortunately, it's not exactly a story fresh from his pen. I cannot tell from the liner notes or the sessionography which songs survived on tape or as an off-air recording. But it seems to me that some strange choices have been made, certainly in the knowledge that a lot of songs have already been released. An example: the "Live in concert" songs are in the same order (absolutely fine in itself of course), but looking at the session list some songs are still omitted. Why? I would have liked a better understanding of the choices made by the compilers, for now I am left with an uneasy feeling that this is not the perfect and final release. I'm all for the release of complete sessions unless there are very good reasons not to do this. Another example: the songs are not presented in a chronological order. This would have made perfect sense.

In all, this is a fine and long-awaited release and easily worth 5 stars when it comes to content. But it loses a star for its seemingly odd and arbitrary choice and order of the songs. I suspect (and hope) that this is not the final word on the matter.

bbc performances
Lots of good songs not found on studio albums and some interesting renditions of familiar songs. Mostly good clear recordings.