This record combines everything I dislike about the current trad fad: incompetent musicianship, a thumping rhythm which cannot even hold the beat, and some of the most awful unjazzlike vocals imaginable.
The only person who emerges with any credit from the holocaust is leader Charlesworth, who plays a pleasant clarinet in the Bilk tradition and who has written a nice tune in “Babo”. The rest get nowhere.
The slow tunes, such as “Wrap Your Troubles,” are so full of mistakes that I am surprised the record was issued, and the faster ones just race headlong to their doom.
Miss Lynn’s vocals have neither rhyme nor rhythm, and I would suggest she takes a good course of jazz listening before again entering a recording studio.
The album title is perhaps more apt than the organisers of this session realised.
Discography
On Treasure Island; Sonny Boy; Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gives To Me; Brown Skin Girl; Babo; One Sweet Letter From You (16 min) – Wrap Your Troubles In Dreams; Yes Indeed; Lonesome Road; Bourbon St. Shuffle; Black Friday; Just Once For All Time (17 min)
Dick Charlesworth (clt); Bob Masters (tpt); Dave Keir (tbn); Bill Dixon (bjo); Jack McHare (bs); Viv Carter (d).
(H.M.V. CLP 1495 12inLP 35s. 3d.)
