Mandy Morton & Spriguns - After The Storm (Complete Recordings)

Mandy Morton & Spriguns
After the Storm - Complete Recordings
(Grapefruit/Cherry Red)
8/10
By Paul Davies

From their beginnings at The Anchor pub folk club in Cambridge, to end their days successfully touring Scandinavia - where Renaissance sang about the Northern Lights, Mandy Morton played gigs beneath them - this excellent six-CD plus one DVD box charts the musical trek of Mandy Morton from Spriguns Of Tolgus to The Mandy Morton Band.

Coming into her own as a songwriter and singer when Sandy Denny, Maddy Prior, Annie Haslam, June Tabor and others were charting their starry musical course, Morton’s profile was raised when Decca signed Spriguns for what they hoped would be an ongoing commercial folk renaissance. Following a couple of traditionally based folk albums of the Cecil Sharp variety as Spriguns Of Tolgus getting them more noticed, shortening their name to Spriguns on Revel Weird And Wild, containing Hasberry Howard, Lord Lovell and Piscie Song, set the folk-rock tone for what was to come. Follow up release, Time Will Pass, consolidated the rock in their folk foundations with Dead Man's Eyes, White Witch, Blackwaterside and Letter to A Lady signalling Mandy and Mike Morton's intentions with a lineup of session players smartly blending. Morton and Co slipped the corporate record label chain just as the times were a-changing in the musical landscape and struck out independently with the enchanting Magic Lady as they morphed into Mandy Morton & Spriguns. This engaging record set up Morton as a solo artist as Sea Of Storms was released under her name with the melodic After The Storm contrasting with the superb sweeping sonic attack on Twisted Sage and the catchy Land Of The Dead; it's an album of finely constructed song arrangements. The final audio disc Valley Of Light finds The Mandy Morton Band reflecting the changing musical trends of the late '70s with synths and edgier compositions melding interestingly well with the folk-rock nature of the tunes. Disc three to disc six contain bonus tracks, some previously unreleased, which alloy nicely to the original albums and there's a final DVD disc of the Mandy Morton Band Live In Cambridge 1979 which will engage the fans.

Overall, this is a comprehensively entertaining and entrancing collection of Mandy Morton and her fellow musical travellers in the prime of their folk-rock journey as recalled with in-depth booklet liner notes by the magic lady herself.