What does it sound like?:
This, the latest in the series of Elektra reissues from Man In The Moon Records, is quite a strange album in that from the title you’d expect a concept album built around the legend of Amelia Earhart, but it only accounts for a couple of songs herein.
Plainsong were a band born with great expectations. It was formed by Ian* Matthews (guitar, vocals) and Andy Roberts (guitar, vocals) with the lesser known Dave Richards (keyboards) and Bob Ronga (bass). The album artwork doesn’t actually credit them.
I say there were great expectations. A guy I knew at school (who was a fan of all things Fairport) thought they could be the new Beatles (perhaps I exaggerate a bit there). But they were pretty good but didn’t stick around to live up to the early promise.
It’s a real mixed bag. Opening track For The Second Time is gorgeous and heart-breaking. It’s a Matthews’ song and utterly poignant. Every-time I hear him sing “For the second time in year I was broken” I feel my throat tighten. Maybe that’s because I can directly relate to it, but that aside it’s a really beautiful and moving song.
The mood is immediately shattered by the next song Yo-Yo Man. It’s an upbeat country song, and in its own way perfectly fine. You could argue it is a fine example of the band’s versatility, but I find the contrast with the opening song jarring.
So what of Amelia Earhart, who is the heroine of the piece, you ask.
There’s a trilogy of songs here: Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight and The True Story Of Amelia Earhart’s Last Night linked by I’ll Fly Away (the same song that appears on the O, Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack performed by Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch).
What the two songs about Earhart do is present competing narratives; the first is the story about her taking off from New Guinea, with Captain Frederick Noonan, as part of her attempt to circumnavigate the globe flying West to East and disappearing without trace. It’s the story I knew. The second suggests they landed somewhere and were captured, imprisoned and presumably died at the hands of the Japanese, the two pilots being spotted as prisoners by a stevedore in Saipan.
Last flight… was written by a songwriter named David McEnery who put it out in the late 1930s. It’s a strange song, because you’d expect it to be a lament but it’s a jaunty number that you could almost expect to be performed at a square dance:
“Happy landings Amelia Earhart
Farewell first lady of the air”
The linking song I’ll Fly Away is a simple arrangement of mandolin, handclaps and voices but while it is much the same interpretation as the Krauss/Welch version it sounds really strange to hear male voices singing it. Once I got over the disconsternation of this it works really well.
The True Story… initially seems too wordy but it really worked some magic on me because after a few listens I came to really like it. Its feel is much sadder, recognising that it is about two people who died, and a complete contrast to Last flight… musically as well in the narrative.
Even The Guiding Light follows Earhart and is really intriguing. It appears to be a farewell to Fairport Convention, but one tinged with bitterness and regret.
“I went up on the ledge
And didn’t find a soul around…”
For those unfamiliar with Fairport Meet On The Ledge has become their anthem and closes the Cropredy Festival each year.
The chorus goes:
Meet on the ledge, we’re gonna meet on the ledge
When my time is up I’m gonna see all my friends
On the original version Matthews shared the vocals with Sandy Denny. Here he sings:
“Now we’re falling over all these chiefs
And running out of braves”
and later in the song:
“Send me home with a country song
And leave it ringing round”.
Yet while this suggests that the parting was less than sweet sorrow, time has healed the wounds and they’ve played together in various groups and Matthews has appeared at Cropredy. But clearly the country direction that Matthews followed with Southern Comfort and later on with this record shows he was very much at odds with the direction Fairport went in.
The song is the rockiest on the album and finishes with an excellent guitar solo, I assume played by Andy Roberts.
It’s followed by another gorgeous Matthews composition Side Roads. Another melancholic song but again simply beautiful. Possibly addressed to the same lover that For The Second Time is about, it again features some lovely guitar from Andy Roberts and is probably my favourite song on the album.
The album ends with a song by Jerry Yester and Judy Henske titled Raider. This is taken from one of the notable reissues of 2016, their album Farewell Aldebaran. It got high praise in the reissue thread elsewhere on this site. This is a driving, menacing version completely at odds with the original. An excellent album closer.
Earlier in the album there’s another Matthews’ composition Call The Tune which could also be a Fairport farewell, but less obviously. Again it demonstrates Matthews’ songwriting capability with a strong melody and literate lyrics.
The remaining two songs are Diesel On My Tail and Louise.
Diesel could be a Merle Haggard song (though it is credited to someone just given as J Fagan). It seems to me to be the inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s first film Duel. It was the title track for a Bluegrass album by a couple of guys called Jim and Jesse, released in 1967. It’s about a guy in a car being chased by a diesel truck:
“While I’m trembling a’shaking he’s blowin’ on the horn
So close I could steal his licence plate”
The Plainsong version is less bluegrass and more a straight country rock version.
Louise is a song I know sung by Bonnie Raitt, and the arrangement here is the same as hers, though tougher sounding with the male vocals.
Lastly I’d like to mention the cover art. At first glance it’s somewhat unprepossessing, but then I started noticing some of the details, the letter ing, the borders and it’s a fine art-deco pastiche, with a design echoing the Japanese Rising Sun flag and is all in all is rather excellent. It’s credited to Seabrook/Graves/Aslett – names that mean nothing to me.
So what we have is a mixed bag. The strange thing is that the strongest songs are the Ian Matthews compositions, but only five of the eleven are his. The sad aspect is that the band didn’t last. No doubt at the time they felt (may have been pressured into) getting the album out and getting on the road. In 1972 the turnover of album releases was at a far higher rate than today.
A gap of two years between releases was almost unheard of.
* The songwriting credits use this spelling, though his website and many other places use the form Iain.
What does it all *mean*?
There is so much promise on show here. It’s not a brilliant album, but I’d like to think had Plainsong gotten into their stride by the time of a third or fourth album they would have produced something wonderful. Have no doubt though, it was a very good debut with moments of pure excellence. A lot of bands settle for far less.
Goes well with…
Let’s not be prescriptive. If you like good music, irrespective of genre, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here.
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
This was Americana before the term was invented. It’s British country.
Obviously if you like early Fairport, you’ll like this.
Good review, must dig this out again.
Saw Iain Matthews last year, still in excellent voice.
Superb review, lovely read. Not my thing but I’m glad you posted.
You might be pleasantly surprised @tiggerlion I`ll take measures to see if this is true.
Carl, that was a wonderful review of a wonderful album. I had it originally in the `70`s but like Amelia Earhart it disappeared IYPTP. I saw Iain Mathews with his band in the early `00`s, I think that`s when it was because I bought The Plainsong album `Pangolins` which was released in `92`, at the gig. I also reunited myself with `In Search Of Amelia Earhart`, although on the lesser medium of CD (only kidding siver disc lovers, I love CDs also). I.M. were doing `In Search Of Amelia Errhart` in full along with I.M.`s repertoire of songs from former bands. I remember playing ISOAE on heavy rotation in the weeks after the gig, in fact I have it playing now.
Thanks Carl.
Plainsong and all Iain Matthews LPs are largely defined by having a few absolute belters, his voice being heartbroken honey, some plodders and some absolute tosh. As such I have tended to stick to his early best of stuff or to cherry pick. Looking into the inventory, it looks as if ISoAE hit more killer than filler, as I see I have only discarded track 7. Must give it a spin.
Plainsong the brand, irrespective of Iain Matthews retiring at least twice both from solo music and the band, limp on, with him, as last years tribute to the songs of Richard Farina showed. Lovely voice, songs as described in my putdown at the top. Pity.
The Richard Farina album was released in 2015, but it`s very early in `17 so you`re forgiven @retropath2. The reason I checked was because I was certain I had the album for much longer. It`s not as, well shall I say it`s better than you imply though I remember being a bit disappointed when I first played, it grew on me.
`Heartbroken honey`, where`d you get that from. A perfect discription of I.M.`s voice.
TM me, mate, TM me!
Great review Carl. I bought this (on vinly) when it first came out, later replaced it on CD and am still very fond of it. “I’ll fly away” and “Louise” have been in my gtr/vcl repertoire ever since. I sometimes attend a pickin’ session with a bluegrass band in Bury whose regular set includes “Last flight”
Rather a curates egg of an album !
Plus Andy Roberts was a founding member and musical director really of the fabulous and now rarely discussed Liverpool Scene
And still plays duo and trio (with Anna Robinson on bass & vocals) gigs with Hank Wangford as “Brad Breath”.
Great review Carl of, to my ears at least, a classic album. There is actually a 2 cd version out there that has 9 radio session bonuses on first disc and a whopping 22 extra tracks on second disc.
Loved this album on first release on vinyl and got the deluxe 2 cd edition a couple of years back and excellent. I heard Louise and I’ll fly away by Plainsong before the Raitt/Krauss versions so for me will always remain the definitive versions.
As @ hubert rawlinson said Iain is still in very fine voice – I caught him about 2 years ago and he did a live version of Peter Gabriels Mercy Street that was superb. Very amiable guy too. If you look out for his solo stuff may I suggest either Valley Hi or Some Days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you. He does a definitive version of I don’t want to talk about it.
Or better still the 3cd compilation Collected which was very reasonably priced with the Tax Dodgers when I bought it.
F%@k off! @stevet, you`ve just cost me £11 for that Collected CD & £15 for that 2 CD ISOAE.
Terrific review Carl – I’m a huge fan of Andy Roberts but less knowledgeable on Plainsong (though I do have a nicely packaged 2 or 3 CD set of their ‘original’ recordings – the LP plus various BBC bits, outtakes etc, the title of which I can’t bring to mind).
Although Plainsong may have made only one LP at the time they appeared every month practically on BBC radio shows, plus Andy Roberts managed no less than three solo albums in 1971 alone (!), mostly fantastic in my view.
Here’s one of the Plainsong outtakes, written by Andy, that later appeared on one of his solo albums (Urban cowboy, I think).
This song also appears on the bonus disc of Amelia Earhart which apparently is their second album that was shelved at the time plus other outtakes.
Good review, thanks. Someone should start a thread about musicians who changed names mid-career.
Good idea, JC. I’ll leave it to you – but have three from me:
1. Davy Graham / Davey Graham (it seemed to change randomly on his releases)
2. Graham Bond / Grahame Bond (used on one release)
3. Big Pete Deuchar / Big Pete Duker (changed around 1965, after his two Fontana singles and before his Columbia singles; he used the phoneticised version for his subsequent career in cycling and book writing)
Andy Roberts changed his name to Brad Breath when he joined Hank Wangford & the Lost Cowboys. Although probably not by Deed Poll, now I come to think about it
The Deed Poll – wasn’t that a Dirty Harry film?
Born Iain McDonald.
Called himself Ian McDonald with Fairport
Then he was Ian Matthews for Matthews Southern Comfort and his solo albums
.
in 1989, he reverted to the original spelling of his first name and became Iain Mathews.
Elsewhere, there was Jim/Roger McGuinn
On What We Did On Our Holidays he is credited as Ian M. Matthews.
Picking nits here. But I see that Carl picked quicker than I.
He was Ian McDonald on Fairport’s eponymous first album. On “What We Did On Our Holidays” he was Ian M. Matthews. By the time of “Unhalfbricking” he’d left but was listed as a guest (as Ian Matthews) on “Percy’s Song”. Possibly this was a leftover track from the “…Holidays” sessions.
Jim McGuinn changed to Roger because his guru told him it was better. Or something like that.
Keith Richard/Richards.
The tale I’ve heard of the McGuinn thing was that his guru told him to choose a name beginning with an R.
McGuinn went back to the guru and told him he’s chosen ‘Rocket”.
The guru, who obviously had some modicum of sense, thought this was a bad idea and suggested Roger would be a better choice.
The story I heard was that McGuinn was told by his guru to pick a name that was important to him. He chose “Roger” because he was something of a radio ham at the time
(cue Tony Hancock gags – eg : “Mayday? What’s he talking about? That was three weeks ago. It’s nearly June”).
A related name changer was Melanie Harrold, who put her first works out as Joanne Carlin, which wasn’t her name, Melanie Harrold was. She later assumed the name Irma Cetas for her work with Hank Wangford. Or Dr Sam Hutt as he is also known.
I’ll say no more than Dr. Hutt was my wife’s gynaecologist.
I worked with a woman who had known Dr Hutt socially for many years but had declined his offer to be her gynaecologist.
Jaime Robbie Robertson ——> Robbie Robertson
Jethro Tull keyboard man John Evans started out as John Evan because they thought the John Evan Band sounded better. When he went to London to study pharmacy he reverted to John Evans. Then, when he joined Tull on a permanent basis he became John Evan again.
Mrs duco01 told me an interesting fact about Francis Rossi out of Status Quo.
For some of the early Status Quo albums, including Dog of Two Head, he went under the name of Mike Rossi.
Hmmm. Interesting. I didn’t know that.
Good call. According to a 1996 interview in the Independent:
His own name, Francis, incidentally, was deemed “too poncey by Status Quo’s original manager, “so I had to change it to Mike, a real man’s name, apparently”.
I believe his real name is Ian McDonald, but he changed it to avoid confusion with the guy in King Crimson.
I think Amelia Earhart is a lovely album. Is this a vinly reissue? I have two versions on CD.
This is a review of the CD.
I’m not aware that Man In The Moon are releasing on vinyl, but I could be wrong.
The original masters, if they haven’t been destroyed and have been stored properly, are probably in good nick as the demand couldn’t have been that great.
There is a vinyl reissue at Amazon.
Nice review, Carl.
I seem to recall that Ronnie Lane did a version of “Amelia Earhart’s Last Flight” on the “Anymore for Anymore” album. That was pretty good. Mind you, I’m a sucker for all the stuff on the first few Ronnie Lane albums.
Excellent review Carl, and some good writing….well bowled Sir.