Trees emerged at the time Fairport Convention were at the height of their success, and its fair to say they resembled them in many ways. They mostly followed the Fairport formula - rock-styled arrangements of traditional English folk material, led by a female lead singer. Their sound had a bit more of a psychedelic edge though, with many long jam-based arrangements, as shown by their 1970 debut The Garden Of Jane Delawney. The band consisted of lead singer Celia Humphris, guitarists Barry Clarke and David Costa, bassist Bias Boshell and drummer Unwin Brown.Though much of the album sounds like adaptations of traditional English material, its worth noting that only four of the nine songs actually are. The rest were written by Boshell, who clearly had a kack for writing songs that could be passed off as traditional folk songs. Boshell was the leader of the band, and as well as being the bassist and songwriter, he sang and played guitar and piano.
The actual traditional songs include a great version of "She Moved Thro' The Fair", though Fairport had actually already done this one in an almost identical arrangement the previous year.
Despite its strengths, the album was not a commercial success, though its reputation has grown over time.
|> On The Shore (1970)
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