{"id":41672,"date":"2009-09-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/north-country-maid\/"},"modified":"2009-09-04T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T00:00:00","slug":"north-country-maid","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/north-country-maid\/","title":{"rendered":"North Country Maid"},"content":{"rendered":"

The year 1965 was a big one for Marianne Faithfull. She had risen from virtual obscurity to become the new darling of the British pop scene. She was living with Mick Jagger at the time, and the pair remained a permanent fixture on the social scene throughout the rest of the decade.\u00a0 Most importantly, she was enjoying success as Britain\u2019s premier female folk singer, which was only cemented by the release of her third LP, North Country Maid<\/i>. <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Her previous record (Come My Way<\/i>) introduced Marianne as an ethereal folk performer, and although the pressure was on to produce a pop record, Faithfull would have none of it and turned out her second traditional folk album instead.\u00a0 This time around, she dug deeper into the British songbooks and came out with an enchanting mix of blues and folk songs hailing from every part of the British Isles. It was produced by Mike Leander, who would become one of Marianne\u2019s most influential collaborators throughout her career.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

One of the most notable changes from her previous records is her voice. Already it\u2019s a little deeper and far exceeds her twenty years and little experience in maturity alone. It\u2019s also the first time her phrasing would sound this unique, as she had obviously employed a working technique she would continue to use right up to the present day. Like its predecessor, North Country Maid <\/i>is an acoustic affair, but it\u2019s also clearly a much more emotionally driven record and the arrangements reflect the more introspective lyrical content beautifully.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The disc opens with one of Marianne\u2019s finest moments to date, a cover of Scottish bluesman Bert Jansch\u2019s \u201cGreen Are Your Eyes.\u201d The easy groove is the perfect foil for Faithfull\u2019s delivery of the lonesome lyric, and it also features a wonderful harmonica solo. \u201cScarborough Fair\u201d from The Singing Island <\/i>follows, and Marianne makes it sound more eerie than it should. It\u2019s a great traditional song, best remembered for Simon & Garfunkel\u2019s pop version, but Faithfull\u2019s reading offers a wonderful alternative just the same.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cCockleshells\u201d is a slight departure here in that Mick Taylor wrote and arranged it (he arranged several tracks here), and Marianne uses her wonderful higher register for the first time. Tom Paxton\u2019s \u201cThe Last Thing On My Mind\u201d follows, and it most closely resembles Faithfull\u2019s pop ditties from her eponymous debut. \u201cThe First Time Ever I Saw Your Face\u201d is easily the most beautiful melody on the album, and once again Faithfull\u2019s feeling for a dramatic delivery suits the lyric perfectly.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cSally Free And Easy\u201d was written in the guise of English blues and tells the story of a young Maltese girl who \u201ctook a sailor\u2019s lovin\u2019, for a nursery game.\u201d It\u2019s accompanied by an up-tempo, percussive arrangement. Donovan wrote \u201cSunny Goodge Street\u201d especially for Marianne and she repaid the favor with a stunning reading of the psychedelic lyric; it\u2019s a memorable moment.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cHow Should I Your True Love Know\u201d is the first of Ophelia\u2019s \u201ccrazy\u201d songs in Act IV, Scene 5 of Hamlet from Songs From Shakespeare\u2019s Plays <\/i>by Tom Kines. It\u2019s an odd inclusion on a folk album, but strangely enough it works a treat. \u201cShe Moved Through The Fair\u201d has its roots in Irish folk and appears here in an enchanting arrangement, complete with a sitar intro. The title-track was originally called \u201cQuodling\u2019s Delight,\u201d being that it appeared in Queen Elizabeth\u2019s Virginal Book<\/i>. It\u2019s another of Marianne\u2019s great interpretations and adds some genuine heart to the record.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

Along with Mick Taylor, Jon Mark arranged and played on most of the album\u2019s tracks. He too contributed a song himself with \u201cLullaby,\u201d which is stunning in its simplicity with Marianne offering a beautiful dreamy reading of the tender lyric. The album closes rightly with a more traditional folk song in \u201cWild Mountain Thyme,\u201d an ode to the green hills of the English countryside. The track is enhanced again by a quivering sitar and Faithfull\u2019s deep, pure tones.\u00a0 <\/o:p><\/p>\n

North Country Maid <\/i>is a more in-depth study of traditional folk than Come My Way<\/i>, <\/i>and it\u2019s just as good because of it. It\u2019s great to hear the progression of her craft, and the rewarding thing is that Faithfull refused to play it safe and just replicate a classic in Come My Way<\/i>; rather, she dug deeper for a more rounded study of folk. Again Marianne rose to the challenge and used more of her considerable range to greatly enhance the emotive lyrics on most of the tracks. Two classic albums and the world was her oyster, but things wouldn\u2019t be so bright for much longer, and her work (or lack of it) was about to reflect that.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":30039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8317],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41672","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-marianne-faithfull","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41672"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}