Customer Reviews

Fire & Fleet & Candlelight

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When this album came out in mid-1967 its version of "The Circle Game" marked the first significant cover of a Joni Mitchell song, and I was so moved by the lyrics, the melody, and the arrangement that I would to go into the Doubleday book store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan and put the lp on a turntable just to listen to that one song. It's a stirring version that's no less moving for not being spare as others have since recorded it, and the spell Sainte-Marie's version has cast is enough to make me buy the cd now that I see it's available.

From the almost ridiculous "97 men in This Here Town Would Give a Half a Grand in Silver Just to Follow Me Down," the bright "Hey, Little Bird," to the spooky "Lyke Wake Dirge," this album (for that's what I'm listening to, not the CD) is full of the kind of variety folk music is known for.

There are the "meaningful" songs like "The Seeds of Brotherhood" and "The Circle Game." There are traditional folk songs like "Doggett's Gap" and "Lord Randall." There is even a "Wedding Song" on here.

Listen and enjoy the 60's folk music scene again, then go on and listen to Buffy's newest CD's from the 90's to see what progression she has made in her music.

Although she began as a fairly traditional folk artist in style, Buffy Sainte-Marie always had to heavily accented a voice to have any chance of serious commercial viability, and to add to that from the beginning she was one of the first singers to consistently write her own songs, Although she did combine these all along with generally familiar traditional features, her use of the distinctive mouthbow, combined with her often-beautiful-yet-harsh social commentary made her third album Little Wheel Spin and Spin one of the most crucial touchstones in the evolution of the singer/songwriter.

Following up Little Wheel Spin and Spin would prove difficult for any artist, and Buffy's next album, 1967's "Fire and Fleet and Candlelight", has often been condemned as too erratic for the way it combines highly traditional material with interpretations of songs by newer songwriters like Joni Mitchell. However, if you listen closely, "Fire and Fleet and Candlelight" should turn out to prove a much underrated work with come extremely fine material on which her difficult, yet beautiful voice is as eerie and tuneful as on "Little Wheel Spin and Spin".

The simple opener "Seeds of Brotherhood" has a rare charm as well as piercing beauty that can remind one of modern eccentric folk artists like Joanna Newsom, whilst "Summer Boy" is a beautiful ballad that is almost an afterthought, as is Joni Mitchell's song "The Circle Game" that sounds almost danceable. The eerie eccentricity of "Lyke Wake Dirge" manages to convey a mystical reality like few other songs from the period - even the also-impressive Pentangle version - with a totally twisted and original sound that showed folk music could become much more than variations on voice and guitar. "Doggett's Gap" is stark and plain but stunning nonetheless, whilst her foray into chamber music on "Song to a Seagull" is amazingly beautiful like the quieter moments on Illuminations. This trend continues with the shimmering, chant-like "Wedding Song" where Sainte-Marie sounds like a lover praying, before another abrupt change with the strangely-titled " 97 Men in This Town Would Give a Half a Grand in Silver Just to Follow", which is fairly routine rock and one of the less memorable songs here.

The contrast between her unique voice and less eccentric material on "Lord Randall" works very well, and even on the more mainstream "Carousel" and "Little Boy dark Eyes", Sainte-Marie loses little. It is true, however, that "Fire and Fleet and Candlelight" does lost a bit by placing the best songs at the beginning, but nonetheless such pieces as "Seeds of Brotherhood" and "Lyke Wake Dirge" are so good that failing to recommend this album is quite impossible.

This albums finds Buffy Sainte Marie stuck between the folk leanings of her first few albums, and the more contemporary path she was later to pursue. Her own songs work best - the covers are mixed. The version of Joni Mitchell's Circle Game is badly arranged. There is also an extremely eerie interpretation of a Benjamen Britten dirge. Everything here seems to suggest an experimental impulse on the artist's part, yet Fire, Fleet and Candlelight was followed by the rather staid Nashville album I'm Gonna Be A Country Girl Again, and it wasn't until Illuminations (1968, and out of print), that Buffy Sainte Marie recaptured this album's adventurous spirit.

When I read something about "new release" I was too excited. I knew I would have to get hold of that CD as soon as possible. When I received the CD my eyes popped out at the sight of the cover: I know that the 70s are hip today but this, I thought, can't be a new release- and it's not really. This CD features the early Buffy at a state of experimentations. The album reminds me of "litlle wheel spin and spin" but it's miles away form the brilliant masterpieces "coincidence and likely stories " or "Up where we belong". So if you expect the follower of these CDs- better not get dissapointed.