Gale Garnett and the Gentle Reign - An Audience with the King of Wands 1969

Say what you like about the 1960s, but it would be no easy task trying to identify another decade of the late twentieth century when music as singular as this would have made its way onto record. On the surface, this is music typical of the era. It's only with repeated listening that its singularity emerges, with influences from all quarters and then some merging into a brew that's both heady and a little unsettling.
Gale Garnett has a resonant, chestnut brown voice that belies her winsome appearance on the cover, and she applies it to a range of material that might have tested the interpretative power of a more accomplished, "correct" singer. That in itself contributes in no small part to the appeal of "Ballad For F. Scott Fitzgerald" where, over an accompaniment of guitar and strings, she hints at the unlikely amalgam of Bobbie Gentry and Julie London.

Such pigeonholing as that might imply has no place here, however, especially when the nuanced "Word Of Advice" makes a political point in something other than the naive counter-cultural norm of the day. The Gentle Reign comes into its own on this one with its mixture of folk and beat group stylings.

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