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Over 260 Reviews from the discs themselves...
"...Float Away..."
By the time Dave Cousins' first solo album hit UK record emporiums in September 1972 (it had no US equivalent) - the band he was an instrumental part of (STRAWBS) had already released four studio LPs and one live - the last of which "Grave New World" had made their biggest splash to date - hitting a very respectable No. 11 position on the UK album charts after its February 1972 release with over 100,000 units shifted.
The four previous slabs of Folk-Rock/Prog-Rock entertainment from our London heroes - "Strawbs" (May 1969), "Dragonfly" (February 1970), "Just A Collection Of ANTIQUES and CURIOS" (a live set issued Nov 1970) and "From The Witchwood" (November 1971) had all built up a loyal fan following and garnished relatively healthy units for their parent company - A&M Records.
So it’s a bit odd that this genuine little gem from late 1972 seemed to slither away into obscurity like a wounded dog – especially given some of the serious heavy-hitter Prog Rock names gracing its innards – Rick Wakeman of Yes, Jon Hiseman of Colosseum and Miller Anderson of The Keef Hartley Band, Dog Soldier and Hemlock [later also with Savoy Brown]. It even had arranger heroes like TOM NEWMAN (working on his downtime at night on a little project for Mike Oldfield called "Tubular Bells"), ROBERT KIRBY who had sorted for great artists like Nick Drake, Audience, John Cale, Vashti Bunyan, Andy Roberts and Sandy Denny to name but a few, and his fellow Guitarist mucker from the Strawbs – DAVE LAMBERT.
Yet when I worked for Reckless Records as a Rarities buyer and all-round original records brainy-type in its busy Berwick Street shop for nearly 20 years of microgroove servitude - "Two Weeks Last Summer" was always a shocker when it turned up in the collection of some poor husband under the wife's 'they go or I go' kosh. This was an album you rarely ever saw – a sure indication that it achieved Zippity doo-dah in sales first time round.
So what a blast in late November 2019 to see Cherry Red's 'Esoteric Recordings' finally give DC’s Folk-Rock nugget the sonic upgrade it’s always deserved, five very cool and usable Bonus Tracks and a wee bit of a tasty digipak presentation into the bargain. Let's mark our festive calendars with the Pye Recording Studio details...
UK released Friday, 29 November 2019 - "Two Weeks Last Summer" by DAVE COUSINS (of The Strawbs) on Esoteric Recordings ECLEC 2701 (Barcode 5013929480186) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster with Five Bonus Tracks that plays out as follows (55:58 minutes):
1. Two Weeks Last Summer [Side 1]
2. October To May
3. Blue Angel (a) Divided (b) Half Worlds Apart (c) At Rest
4. That's The Way It Ends (including "The World")
5. The Actor [Side 2]
6. When You Were A Child
7. Ways And Means
8. We'll Meet Again Sometime
9. Going Home
Tracks 1 to 9 are his debut solo album "Two Weeks Last Summer" - released September 1972 in the UK on A&M Records AMLS 68118 (no US equivalent, but was released in Canada on A&M SP-9008). Produced by DAVE COUSINS and TOM ALLOM - it didn't chart. All songs written by DC except "See How They Run" by DC and Dave Lambert
BONUS TRACKS:
10. The Actor (Alternate Mix)
11. Ways And Means (Alternate Take)
12. I've Been My Own Worst Friend
13. See How They Run (1972 Demo with Dave Lambert)
14. The Rip Off Blues (1972 demo)
Band featured:
DAVE COUSINS [of Strawbs] - Lead Vocals, Guitar and Piano
MILLER ANDERSON [of The Keef Hartley Band, Hemlock, Dog Soldier and Savoy Brown] - Lead Guitar on Tracks 3, 5, 7 and 8
DAVE LAMBERT [of Strawbs] - Guitar on Track 5, Guitar and Harmony Vocals on Track 7
ROGER GLOVER [of Deep Purple] - Bass on Tracks 1, 3, 5 and 7
RICK WAKEMAN [of Yes] - Piano & Organ on Track 3 and Piano on Track 7
JON HISEMAN [of Colosseum] - Drums on Tracks 3, 5 and 7
TOM ALLOM – Producer, Audio Engineer, Organ and Backing Vocals on Track 1
TOM NEWMAN – Backing Vocals on Track 1
ROBERT KIRBY – Arranger on Track 4
THE KIDLINGTON KOSSACKS – Dave Cousins, Tom Newman and Dave Lambert as a ‘Russian Male Voice Choir’ on Track 2
As you can see from the photos I've provided, the inner CD label and gatefold card digipak match the artwork and the 12-page Dave Cousins liner notes (dated September 2019) give a superb recollection of musicians and their contributions. For instance the outtake "The Rip Off Blues" turns out to be about management fees while "Going Home" was an unused Strawbs song that became the one and only 45 from the album ("Going Home" b/w "Ways And Means", September 1972 UK 7" single on A&M Records AMS 7032). You get a Pye Recording Studios tape box and all the relevant (even expanded) album credits. But the big news is a new 2019 Remaster by Audio Engineer PASCHAL BYRNE from original tapes and it sounds stonking. I recall Witchwood Media put out a CD variant in 2004 but I've never had it so can't comment on the Audio - but what we do have here rocks - the usual kind of quality product we've come to expect from Esoteric. And more important to me is that I can sequence out some of the tracks I really hate or can't listen to anymore ("The Actor") and replace them with alternates/outtakes from the five bonus tracks - that for me - makes up the perfect album. To the music...
As you play the opening title track "Two Weeks Last Summer" with its trippy tinkling bells, treated guitars and hazy-lazy blissed out Summer vibe (Roger Glover of Deep Purple fame plays a Fretless Bass through a Wah Wah pedal the new liner notes inform us), it's like you stumbled on the best album The Incredible String Band forgot to make. "Two Weeks Last Summer" is fantastic stuff and many Folk-Rockers will know that on hearing it, none other than Sandy Denny brought it to her new band Fotheringay (having just left Fairport Convention) who covered it for the aborted second album on Island Records that never made its way into the public domain. It would take decades before a truly gorgeous version of it turned up on "Fotheringay 2" with Sandy on Lead Vocals - completed for that project in 2008. Well here's the original in all its 'tinklie' glory.
That's maybe even trumped by the 2:57 minutes of "October To May" that follows, crediting Dave Cousins with The Kidlington Kossacks as the only musicians on the rear sleeve. But his new liner notes of 2019 now tell us that it was the trio of himself, Dave Lambert and Tom Newman who made us the beautiful harmonising 'Russian' male voices (a perfect song follow after the Side 1 opener). You're then hit with the album's big piece - the near ten-minutes of a three-part "Blue Angel". Our DC is standing on the sidelines trying to make out that he wasn't there (in the lyrics) while Miller Anderson's electric lead guitar is given full reign. Colosseum's Jon Hiseman and Purple's Roger Glover bring up the rhythm rear with 'drummer and bassist of the year' aplomb. But its ex Strawbs keyboardist Rick Wakeman's accomplished piano and the half-time pace of the fantastic final section that lift the long piece up into the album's only real moment of Proggy Heaven. A near perfect A-side goes out with the lovely and very English ballad of "That's The Way It Ends including 'The World'" – arranger Robert Kirby giving it that sad but pretty madrigal-feel as the woodwind instruments Morris-float around your speakers.
The horrible Donovan warbling vocals and cod Rock and Roll riffing guitar of "The Actor" (Side 2's opener) has Cousins unwisely sounding like a dejected Peter Gabriel working on a sub-standard Nursery Cryme outtake. Even though it pares down some of the excesses, not even the DC-preferred 'Alternate Mix' in the Bonus Tracks of the awful "Actor" does it for me. I replaced it immediately with the quiet Acoustic prettiness of the LP outtake "I've Been My Own Worst Friend" (the third of the five bonuses) where our hero has no more dreams to weave – a heartbreak divorce ballad that feels like an open wound its so damn stark (in my mind, it would have opened Side 2 with a much more honest statement). With only Cousins on Piano/Vocals accompanied by Miller Anderson on Slide Guitar – they both deftly fill up the "...haven't seen you in a long time" song "We'll Meet Again Sometime" with a musical longing that makes you think of childhood and innocence lost – a very Cat Stevens piano-ballad moment on an album you wouldn't associate such a thing with.
More phased-vocals for the excellent 'river flowing' Progtastic feel to "Ways And Means" - Miller giving it some clever guitar fils while Rick Wakeman plays classy and complimentary on those grand piano keys. We sleeketh home wee timorous beasty with the lovely acoustic vibe of "We'll Meet Again Sometime" - fabulous acoustic slide from Miller while Cousins puts in his best vocal on the album. "...We'll meet again sometime...though the road is very steep and hard to climb..." - the song almost feels like a great long-lost Folk gem that John Martyn wrote circa "Solid Air" and along with the bopping rocker "Going Home" brings a very good LP to a satisfactory end. For sure the audio to the two 'demo' tracks is hardly audiophile but for Strawbs fans, the harmonising vocals of Cousins and Lambert will be enough to induce flutterings of long-ago warmth while the 30% fee lyrics in "Rip Off Blues" shows DC's seldom seen angry and acidic side.
I've an e-Book I'm unceremoniously proud of called "OVERLOOKED ALBUMS 1955 to 1979" (over 400 entries) and come the latest update baby, Dave Cousins' criminally frozen-out "Two Weeks Last Summer" is in with a bullet. Can it get any better than that peopleoids of Great Britain – I doubt it I says to myself.
The four previous slabs of Folk-Rock/Prog-Rock entertainment from our London heroes - "Strawbs" (May 1969), "Dragonfly" (February 1970), "Just A Collection Of ANTIQUES and CURIOS" (a live set issued Nov 1970) and "From The Witchwood" (November 1971) had all built up a loyal fan following and garnished relatively healthy units for their parent company - A&M Records.
So it’s a bit odd that this genuine little gem from late 1972 seemed to slither away into obscurity like a wounded dog – especially given some of the serious heavy-hitter Prog Rock names gracing its innards – Rick Wakeman of Yes, Jon Hiseman of Colosseum and Miller Anderson of The Keef Hartley Band, Dog Soldier and Hemlock [later also with Savoy Brown]. It even had arranger heroes like TOM NEWMAN (working on his downtime at night on a little project for Mike Oldfield called "Tubular Bells"), ROBERT KIRBY who had sorted for great artists like Nick Drake, Audience, John Cale, Vashti Bunyan, Andy Roberts and Sandy Denny to name but a few, and his fellow Guitarist mucker from the Strawbs – DAVE LAMBERT.
Yet when I worked for Reckless Records as a Rarities buyer and all-round original records brainy-type in its busy Berwick Street shop for nearly 20 years of microgroove servitude - "Two Weeks Last Summer" was always a shocker when it turned up in the collection of some poor husband under the wife's 'they go or I go' kosh. This was an album you rarely ever saw – a sure indication that it achieved Zippity doo-dah in sales first time round.
So what a blast in late November 2019 to see Cherry Red's 'Esoteric Recordings' finally give DC’s Folk-Rock nugget the sonic upgrade it’s always deserved, five very cool and usable Bonus Tracks and a wee bit of a tasty digipak presentation into the bargain. Let's mark our festive calendars with the Pye Recording Studio details...
UK released Friday, 29 November 2019 - "Two Weeks Last Summer" by DAVE COUSINS (of The Strawbs) on Esoteric Recordings ECLEC 2701 (Barcode 5013929480186) is an 'Expanded Edition' CD Reissue and Remaster with Five Bonus Tracks that plays out as follows (55:58 minutes):
1. Two Weeks Last Summer [Side 1]
2. October To May
3. Blue Angel (a) Divided (b) Half Worlds Apart (c) At Rest
4. That's The Way It Ends (including "The World")
5. The Actor [Side 2]
6. When You Were A Child
7. Ways And Means
8. We'll Meet Again Sometime
9. Going Home
Tracks 1 to 9 are his debut solo album "Two Weeks Last Summer" - released September 1972 in the UK on A&M Records AMLS 68118 (no US equivalent, but was released in Canada on A&M SP-9008). Produced by DAVE COUSINS and TOM ALLOM - it didn't chart. All songs written by DC except "See How They Run" by DC and Dave Lambert
BONUS TRACKS:
10. The Actor (Alternate Mix)
11. Ways And Means (Alternate Take)
12. I've Been My Own Worst Friend
13. See How They Run (1972 Demo with Dave Lambert)
14. The Rip Off Blues (1972 demo)
Band featured:
DAVE COUSINS [of Strawbs] - Lead Vocals, Guitar and Piano
MILLER ANDERSON [of The Keef Hartley Band, Hemlock, Dog Soldier and Savoy Brown] - Lead Guitar on Tracks 3, 5, 7 and 8
DAVE LAMBERT [of Strawbs] - Guitar on Track 5, Guitar and Harmony Vocals on Track 7
ROGER GLOVER [of Deep Purple] - Bass on Tracks 1, 3, 5 and 7
RICK WAKEMAN [of Yes] - Piano & Organ on Track 3 and Piano on Track 7
JON HISEMAN [of Colosseum] - Drums on Tracks 3, 5 and 7
TOM ALLOM – Producer, Audio Engineer, Organ and Backing Vocals on Track 1
TOM NEWMAN – Backing Vocals on Track 1
ROBERT KIRBY – Arranger on Track 4
THE KIDLINGTON KOSSACKS – Dave Cousins, Tom Newman and Dave Lambert as a ‘Russian Male Voice Choir’ on Track 2
As you can see from the photos I've provided, the inner CD label and gatefold card digipak match the artwork and the 12-page Dave Cousins liner notes (dated September 2019) give a superb recollection of musicians and their contributions. For instance the outtake "The Rip Off Blues" turns out to be about management fees while "Going Home" was an unused Strawbs song that became the one and only 45 from the album ("Going Home" b/w "Ways And Means", September 1972 UK 7" single on A&M Records AMS 7032). You get a Pye Recording Studios tape box and all the relevant (even expanded) album credits. But the big news is a new 2019 Remaster by Audio Engineer PASCHAL BYRNE from original tapes and it sounds stonking. I recall Witchwood Media put out a CD variant in 2004 but I've never had it so can't comment on the Audio - but what we do have here rocks - the usual kind of quality product we've come to expect from Esoteric. And more important to me is that I can sequence out some of the tracks I really hate or can't listen to anymore ("The Actor") and replace them with alternates/outtakes from the five bonus tracks - that for me - makes up the perfect album. To the music...
As you play the opening title track "Two Weeks Last Summer" with its trippy tinkling bells, treated guitars and hazy-lazy blissed out Summer vibe (Roger Glover of Deep Purple fame plays a Fretless Bass through a Wah Wah pedal the new liner notes inform us), it's like you stumbled on the best album The Incredible String Band forgot to make. "Two Weeks Last Summer" is fantastic stuff and many Folk-Rockers will know that on hearing it, none other than Sandy Denny brought it to her new band Fotheringay (having just left Fairport Convention) who covered it for the aborted second album on Island Records that never made its way into the public domain. It would take decades before a truly gorgeous version of it turned up on "Fotheringay 2" with Sandy on Lead Vocals - completed for that project in 2008. Well here's the original in all its 'tinklie' glory.
That's maybe even trumped by the 2:57 minutes of "October To May" that follows, crediting Dave Cousins with The Kidlington Kossacks as the only musicians on the rear sleeve. But his new liner notes of 2019 now tell us that it was the trio of himself, Dave Lambert and Tom Newman who made us the beautiful harmonising 'Russian' male voices (a perfect song follow after the Side 1 opener). You're then hit with the album's big piece - the near ten-minutes of a three-part "Blue Angel". Our DC is standing on the sidelines trying to make out that he wasn't there (in the lyrics) while Miller Anderson's electric lead guitar is given full reign. Colosseum's Jon Hiseman and Purple's Roger Glover bring up the rhythm rear with 'drummer and bassist of the year' aplomb. But its ex Strawbs keyboardist Rick Wakeman's accomplished piano and the half-time pace of the fantastic final section that lift the long piece up into the album's only real moment of Proggy Heaven. A near perfect A-side goes out with the lovely and very English ballad of "That's The Way It Ends including 'The World'" – arranger Robert Kirby giving it that sad but pretty madrigal-feel as the woodwind instruments Morris-float around your speakers.
The horrible Donovan warbling vocals and cod Rock and Roll riffing guitar of "The Actor" (Side 2's opener) has Cousins unwisely sounding like a dejected Peter Gabriel working on a sub-standard Nursery Cryme outtake. Even though it pares down some of the excesses, not even the DC-preferred 'Alternate Mix' in the Bonus Tracks of the awful "Actor" does it for me. I replaced it immediately with the quiet Acoustic prettiness of the LP outtake "I've Been My Own Worst Friend" (the third of the five bonuses) where our hero has no more dreams to weave – a heartbreak divorce ballad that feels like an open wound its so damn stark (in my mind, it would have opened Side 2 with a much more honest statement). With only Cousins on Piano/Vocals accompanied by Miller Anderson on Slide Guitar – they both deftly fill up the "...haven't seen you in a long time" song "We'll Meet Again Sometime" with a musical longing that makes you think of childhood and innocence lost – a very Cat Stevens piano-ballad moment on an album you wouldn't associate such a thing with.
More phased-vocals for the excellent 'river flowing' Progtastic feel to "Ways And Means" - Miller giving it some clever guitar fils while Rick Wakeman plays classy and complimentary on those grand piano keys. We sleeketh home wee timorous beasty with the lovely acoustic vibe of "We'll Meet Again Sometime" - fabulous acoustic slide from Miller while Cousins puts in his best vocal on the album. "...We'll meet again sometime...though the road is very steep and hard to climb..." - the song almost feels like a great long-lost Folk gem that John Martyn wrote circa "Solid Air" and along with the bopping rocker "Going Home" brings a very good LP to a satisfactory end. For sure the audio to the two 'demo' tracks is hardly audiophile but for Strawbs fans, the harmonising vocals of Cousins and Lambert will be enough to induce flutterings of long-ago warmth while the 30% fee lyrics in "Rip Off Blues" shows DC's seldom seen angry and acidic side.
I've an e-Book I'm unceremoniously proud of called "OVERLOOKED ALBUMS 1955 to 1979" (over 400 entries) and come the latest update baby, Dave Cousins' criminally frozen-out "Two Weeks Last Summer" is in with a bullet. Can it get any better than that peopleoids of Great Britain – I doubt it I says to myself.
One to check out and well done to all involved...
