A Night In with Solomon’s Seal

What does it sound like?:

I would never claim to be an expert on Pentangle, at least from the point of view of their sound. Sure, I know all about them and always have, largely through a lifetime of reading any and every musical press of the day. But, to my shame, at the time they were active, I was put off by the J word that always figured large in their reviews. And stand up bass, FFS, smacking of an era of which, callow youth as I was, I wished no part. Now, yes, now, of course, I can appreciate how blinkered my ears and opinions then were. Over the more recent, I have tried to remedy this, to the extent of investing in various best ofs and the like, if somehow neither ever getting much around to listen them, at least in any great depth. (Nothing new there; at any one time I can have upward of a 100 discs in my pile for listening to, which is, frankly, ridiculous.)

So, when Bargepole presented me with this opportunity, or challenge, perhaps, I dived in at once. This was, of course, weeks ago, the tendency to procrastinate another constant of my life. Now, with the remastering and repackaging of Solomon’s Seal due out this very week, I had better get my skates on.

Solomon’s Seal was the sixth album, and last, by the original line up, ahead of any later re-union, coming out in September of 1972. Unlike Jonah’s Whale, the title had nothing to do with amphibious mammals, being rather a reference to King Solomon’s crest, on a signet ring, which, with five points, and a handy reference to the band’s own name. For some time, from and including the time of the preceding ‘Reflection’, the individual members had been unhappy with their purpose, each regularly threatening to walk. Yet, possibly against the odds, they were still able to magic together this release, purportedly the favourite of singer, Jacqui McShee. Sadly the critics felt otherwise, with a view that it is the least solid of their output. This won’t have helped the longevity of the band, and, with a tour cut short by the illness of bassist, Danny Thompson, Bert Jansch was the first to jump ship, on New Years day of 1973. I remember reading the headline in Melody Maker.

With the original release running to only 9 songs, Cherry Red, who have overseen the remastering of the original tapes, have also added a welter of additional material, largely culled from radio sessions, together with a full second disc, of recordings dating from that final aborted tour. There is also a copious essay on the band, written by the archivist of the project, the reclusive Belfast polymath, Colin Harper. The set looks great and my DL sounds the same. So let’s see…..

I have to say it starts tremendously, with a sinuous bass pattern from Thompson that immediately both sets the store, and grinds in my foolishness of a half century ago. Moody guitars join, as Jansch starts to sing. His voice is much stronger than I expected it to be, and the interplay between his guitar and John Renbourn’s, one acoustic and one electric, is revelatory. ’Sally Free and Easy’, it’s a song I know from other versions, but never has it sounded so bluesy. With McShee offering a topline banshee wail, and the dependable roll of Terry Cox’s mannered drums, it does the maritime heritage of author, Cyril Tawney, proud. How have I never heard this before?

Second track, ‘Cherry Tree Carol’, is less successful. Or, more likely, just less of appeal to me, given I tend to avoid shrillness in a singer. McShee is less shrill than, say, Cathy LeSurf, but it is a close thing. I am not that keen on Renbourn’s rolling renaissance repetitions. I can tell it is classy, whatever that means, but is one more to admire than enjoy.

Recorder and sitar are neither favourite instruments, but they give some strange appeal to ‘The Snows’, a presentation of ‘The Snows That Melt the Soonest’ that caught me quite out, in the arrangement offered. Cox’s drums are terrific, I see I have noted.

Have Steeleye Span done ‘High Germany”, or is it that this sounds so much like the All Around My Hat hitmakers? That’s unfair, I think it is probably just McShee being here so Maddy Prior adjacent. And Steeleye would never, in any iteration, peel off such exquisite peals of guitar, once you get past what sounds like electric banjo. And more recorder. It’s OK.

People On the Highway is a band composition and sounds it, cobbling together a few country blues cliches, with a ragged harmony vocal. The quality of the playing, and probably the quality of the remix/remastering make it sound better than it actually might be.Thompson is still plunking away, possibly oblivious, just lost in his own reverie. By concentrating on him and Cox alone, it becomes a better track.

I bloody love Willie O’Winsbury, me, and was hoping this would be a version amongst the best. Sadly, it isn’t, largely courtesy that bloody recorder. (Could that not have been mixed out, Colin?) The tune is obviously sublime, McShee gives her best vocal of the record, and the undercurrent of other instruments, notably again Thompson, is stellar. Pity how such an open goal was so missed.

‘No Love Is Sorrow’ had me going, starting with more of that bass, before dissipating into cod-madrigal, with the hipster hats in the band unable to tilt into a sufficiently jaunty direction, however much they try. I mean Jansch, Thompson and Cox, should that not be obvious. I guess it is what you’d call inoffensive.

‘Jump Baby Jump’, another group composition, like the song ahead it, is just plain dull, if with nice guitar. (Yes, nice…..)

‘Lady Of Carlisle’ closes the album proper, with the electric banjo working much more to my satisfaction, the blues honk of harmonica and licks of bluesy electric contrasting well against the lilting cadence of trad.arr. Having said, without those and the sneaky touches of wah-wah, together with Cox’s increasingly polyrhythmic percussion, it too might become a bit exhausting, as some of these long drawn out broadsheet ballads can. (As in, was it really less than 5 minutes long?)

So that’s the actual album and I liked it, most of it, certainly in the same sort of proportions as many I own. And, if this is the band at their worst, I really now must pull up my socks and get the rest of them under my belt and listened to. Thompson can do no bad, and his recent passing has instilled some greater poignancy of reception. Cox is, similarly, top notch and I think Jansch is probably my favoured guitarist of the two. McShee performs a function and performs it well enough, if not outstandingly. I guess that leaves only Renbourn, and, rightly or wrongly, I deem him the scapegoat for anything that failed to pass my idiosyncratic muster.

But what about the rest of it, screams Bargey. OK then, I did give them a listen, but my innate prejudice against the padding of and in box sets comes to the fore, when presented with such an array of live cuts and outtakes.

The rest of the first disc is largely drawn from a Sounds of the 70’s radio show, recorded in the June prior to the album release. With 5 of the songs getting an airing, none add and all detract, in my view but that’s me. What is good, however, is another radio session, from 1973, featuring McShee and Renbourn alone, with ‘Fair Flower of Northumberland’. Previously unreleased, I am uncertain of the provenance, other than it is superb, having me revisit my Renbourn prejudice and re-evaluate McShee’s larynx.It is short and wonderful.

More meaningfully, there is a the Renbourn version of ‘Willie O’Winsbury’, from his solo set of 1971, ‘Faro Annie’, seen to be the template of the later band arrangement. Again I find his playing and singing to be better than I have allowed myself to previously appreciate. Plus, with fiddle, from Sue Draheim, instead of that wretched recorder, it is everything I had hoped the band version might be. Oh, and there is finally an odd 12 minute soundtrack pice, from a documentary where Pentangle played the background music. The music is great, but it depends on your individual tolerance for having a fella talk about oil and petrochemicals over the top of them.

Disc 2 is, bar 2 final oddities, all from the final tour, from Guildford and st Alban’s respectively. With only a couple of the songs from Solomon’s Seal present, this is more a document of what the quintet had at their then availability to play, a sort of greatest hits. Can I admit to finding this heavy going, with even the songs I know, often from other artists, failing to grab me?

To make sure not an iota of available time is lost, the two residual oddities are the title track and another excerpt from ‘Christian the Lion’, a 1972 film of some sort. Let’s just say it is one for completists.

Thanks for the opportunity, @bargepole. I’ll be keeping the downloaded tracks relating to the original, Renbourne’s Willie and the otherwise unattached to anything Fair Flower of Northumberland. The rest I will allow others to enjoy better than I did.

What does it all *mean*?

They were really quite a band, weren’t they.

Goes well with…

Anything else featuring Danny Thompson.

Release Date:

I thought later this week, but it may actually already be out?!

Might suit people who like…

Box sets and/or Pentangle. I cannot claim to have the lugs to appreciate the no doubt immense sonic improvements gifted to the original mixes. Having said that, at under £15, it is cheaper in this set than most the second hand single disc versions on Discogs. Hell, I’m sure it wouldn’t be the first time additional discs get left in the box.

1