Solo Albums Don't Get More Solo Than This (Dear Companion - Meg Baird)

Name: Frankingsteins

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Product:	Dear Companion - Meg Baird
Date:	25.02.08 (15 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Authentic folk performance.

Disadvantages: Repetitive.

The debut solo release from Philadelphia folk singer Meg Baird is vastly different from her more well-known work in Esper, free of the psychedelic and distorted electronic elements and stripped down to folk in its purest, simplest form of a woman strumming an acoustic guitar. Boasting a mix of "folk classics and traditional songs," people like me who don't have a lot of knowledge on the subject won't be able to discern too much between her original material, covers of comparatively recent works in the genre (such as Fraser & Debolt's 'Waltze of the Tennis Players' and New Riders of the Purple Sage's 'All I Ever Wanted') and those oft-covered, traditional folk pieces such as 'The Cruelty of Barbry Allen' that are over five centuries old.

This is to the album's credit as well as its failing, as the repetitive sound of the guitar plucking in particular can become a little tedious unless you've mentally prepared yourself to enjoy something as simple and primeval as this. Baird's singing fortunately varies between a slight country twang on the title track to a lighter and more ethereal performance on 'River Song,' 'Do What You Gotta Do' and others, and there's even a bonus track that will be to some peoples' taste (but not mine) in which even the guitar is removed, and she reprises her title song a capella. Personally, I find this sort of thing a little embarrassing to listen to.

As a pure folk album this is a worthwhile purchase, but it obviously doesn't offer anything new to the genre, which I suppose is sort of the point. Harking back to the acoustic heyday of the sixties and seventies when everyone was releasing albums like this, it will make a nice trip down memory lane for some or an interesting and ever-so-slightly new take on old favourites for more discerning fans, but for the general consumer it really does depend whether you fancy a little more to your music.

1. Dear Companion
2. River Song
3. The Cruelty of Barbry Allen
4. Do What You Gotta Do
5. Riverhouse in Tinicum
6. Waltze of the Tennis Players
7. Maiden in the Moor Lay
8. Sweet William and Fair Ellen
9. All I Ever Wanted
10. Willie O'Winsbury
11. Bonus track

Summary: Meg Baird's first album (2007).