Various Artists - Brias & Ivy [1970]
Probably one of my favourite folk albums, published by a school. Normally most of the folk albums from a school I hear are in Japan but this is a American one. Which is amazing! it makes finding information about it way easier.
This album was made by Briarcliff High School which is based in New York City. It's a very rare collector item. Most copies usually come with a generic cover, A small amount of them actually do have a proper cover. There is scans of it online but there very low quality...
Brias & Ivy - Cover
Despite it being made in a school, the music is better than I thought. the producing of, Gordon Lee & Peter Glazer are very good. Gordon Lee actually has worked on other music and played in multiple bands. Which is surprising. You don't normally see producers who work on stuff like this credited much. is a American jazz pianist. Sadly Pater Glazer isn't credited anything other than this album on discogs.
Gordon Lee
Each track is from a different student in the school. There is some really good vocals in this album, really powerful and emotional stuff.
The combination of amateur innocence and skilful producing makes for a great album. It might be a corny opinion to have but i think the lack of skill doesn't really matter in music like this. To me it's all about the passion you feel from the artists. And i feel a lot of passion from this record. Peter Glaze and Gordon Lee's track, "To Get By" is a brilliant example of that. It probably has my favourite production on the album. The vocals sound emotional and personal. I also love the jazzy piano in this track, it has a really good solo that you hear halfway through the track, that I just love. I wonder if Gordon Lee recorded it. That would make sense since he is a pianist.
"I met you in the morning" By Annie Nininger Reminds me of the works of Karen Brook with her soft quiet vocals and even her guitar playing is similar to Karen Brooks playing. I do think Annie Nininger's playing is slightly more cleaner than Karen Brooks but the simplistic playing is still very similar.
Even though it's not my favourite track heck i didn't even enjoy a lot of the parts in it. The finally track is a massive 15 minute monolith. And i respect a lot of what it tries to do. The track has a prog rock sound too it. It starts off with a flute and a bass. Next you hear a chord organy synth not really sure what it is but you do tend to hear it a lot in 1970/1980s folk music. Later on you hear these muddy vocals not really sure what there saying but apparently it's from a book called, "The World of Christopher Robin" by A.A.Milne Specifically the poem in the book, "The Engineer" Its a very short poem. It's about a young child who doesn't care about the rain's because they have a train that they customized. The train works in weird ways it jerks because the break was made with a string type thing. The wheels also don't work because it was made with a break. Obviously the kid used the wrong parts... 4 minutes in and I started to actually really like it the intro felt a bit long and unnecessary but once it picks up it's pretty enjoyable. Not really sure how much of A. A Milne work they used but apparently a guy named, "Steve Worthy" also wrote some stuff for it.
High recommend checking this album out. The full thing is available on archive.org so you might as well give it a listen.