Customer Reviews

Patrick Sky

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Though little remembered today, long retired from the music business, Patrick Sky recorded two classic Vanguard albums which are among the most artistically vital recordings of the 1960s folk revival. In this, the first of them (the second, A Harvest of Gentle Clang, has yet to be reissued), he proved himself a masterly interpreter of traditional material and a talented composer of original songs. In the former category is his brittle reading of "Reuben," a post-Civil War song of murky origins and many variants, its lyrics conjuring up cryptic images of loss, distance, and violence, leaving it to the uneasy listener to fill in the blanks. Sky's own composition "Nectar of God" is an overlooked masterpiece, as good as any Dylan song of the period, as emotionally compelling as the best of Townes Van Zandt and John Prine. With his dry, laconic vocal style, accompanied on all but two cuts by solo acoustic guitar (with occasional harmonica), he proves that great music does not depend on walls of sound and state-of-the-art studio technology. To me this record sounds as powerful now as it did when, thousands of albums heard since, I first put it on my record player more than three decades ago and was touched by its understated beauty.

I met and sang with Pat before he made his first trip to New York. "I'm a legend there," he said, "everybody's heard ABOUT me, but nobody's heard me." Then as now, it's too bad. Pat taught Buffy Sainte Marie to fingerpick and was equally at home with Mississippi John Hurt. Buy it!

This was Sky's first album, (1963?) combining traditional folk with Patrick's first originals. Why he never excelled beyond this and perhaps four other albums, ending with Song's that Made America Famous is beyond me. He now resides in North Carolina working on Irish Pipe music. He seemed to have self destructed with "Songs...." This first album is a must for all folk lovers.

Way back when I was a little bitty boy (alright, I was 25) I decided it was time I started to seriously get into folk music, and I asked a friend who knew all about it where I should start. He didn't hesitate - Patrick Sky, he told me, and he described the self-titled 1964 Vanguard album as "the perfect folk album". Well, that was in 1979. It's now 2005, and I have acquired and listened to a lot of folk albums in the last quarter century, and I'm here to tell you that my friend was 100% spot on - Patrick Sky is still "the perfect folk album".

The album starts with his self-penned rambling song, Many A Mile, which was later recorded by Buffy Sainte Marie, among others. There is something about this song that kinda makes you want to start a long journey. "I damn near walked this world around, another city, another town; the only home I ever knowed was a suitcase and the open road. And it's many a mile I've spent on this road, it's many a mile I've gone..." The delivery is tender, almost as though he were caressing the words; the melody wistful and plaintive.

For the second track, he immediately switches gears, and we get "Hangin' `Round" a light hearted comical "break-up" song, whose humor is both light and graceful at the same time. Love Will Endure is as gentle and tender as Hangin' Round is playful. "Reuben" is the obligatory harmonica tune, and like every other tune here shows his guitar skills and vocal prowess in the best possible light. Rattlesnake Mountain, a tongue-twisting fun-filled epic comic narrative about the fate of two star-crossed lovers will have you playing it again and again just to catch all the words. I like songs like that, and have actually typed the words out so that when friends ask "What did he just say" when this album is playing in the background, I can actually show them.

"Everytime" is the perfect love song, hauntingly beautiful and stunningly simple. Come With Me Love is the perfect song to follow Everytime.

Nectar of God is so powerful that it defies description, and is probably the high point of the album. The Ballad of Ira Hayes, which was also covered by Johnny Cash (but less effectively) is easily the second best track on the album, maybe first if you're not bowled over by Nectar of God.

Words Without Music is music without words, and Wreck of the Old '97 is, I suppose, a nod to those who insist that a folk album must contain some traditional folk songs. If that's true, it's some nod, for it's one of the best recordings of it I've ever heard (including the celebrated version by Ramblin' Jack Elliott).

If you are just discovering folk music, Patrick Sky is indeed a good place to start. If you are a folk aficionado and somehow have not come across his first album until now, trust me, he ranks right up there with the best of them.

...I was just digitizing this album from vinyl to trackable CD (wav.), when I thought I'd check Amazon to see if it had been re-released... and so it has! So I stopped the turntable... good thing as the album is scratched all to hell from being played too many times. (Warning: unabashed 'name dropping' to follow:)... Pat and Cathy Sky played a house concert at our house this past Saturday (9/5) with another folk icon of the mid-sixties Jim Glover (of Jim and Jean fame -- get that re-released album, too, if you like this sort of stuff!) It's an honor for me to have them as good friends and together in my home as I had learned guitar finger picking and 'harmony' singing from both of them. Patrick still sounds great, his stories are even better - listening to Patrick and Jim reminisce about those Greenwich Village days, where they knew each other, had my head smiling corner to corner. This first album is indeed a classic because it is just as 'listenable' today as it was 45 years ago... mainly because Pat's style is not so much '60's as it is 'old time'... true 'folk' music based on his experiences and influences of those times. Patrick (and Jim Glover) are both 67 years old, now, and they're both still kicking (and singing). Pat has been and is a superb Uilleann Pipes (Irish Pipes) player, and with his wife Cathy, who is a terrific Irish fiddler, have just recorder a new CD of traditional Irish tunes. Look for it soon. In the meantime, buy this album, and enjoy - I just did, ... and you'll be glad you did too.

I remembered this album by Patrick Sky from its original release in the 60s. Some of the tunes have stayed in my mind for decades. Hearing it again makes it all fresh......the sound of a talented rambler, a real folkie who was at the heart of everything that was going on in the Greenwich Village folk scene as it erupted. I knew Patrick at the time and remember both his humor and his natural, modest style. Those qualities are alive in this wonderfully satisfying album.

I have to disagree with the reviewer who calls this the best folk album ever. (I was 27 when it was released.) I don't know what my pick would be but it would probably be Woody Guthrie or Cisco Houston. Nonetheless, this is a fine album and worth your money, better than his second, but not as good in my opinion as the two he made after he left Vanguard, which I wish someone would reissue as CDs. Calling them folk music is a bit of a stretch. The last 2 albums he made of which I am aware, one on Adelphi and the other a collection of other writers and traditional but no Sky originals, are mediocre. But the first four albums should be on CD now, and you should buy all of them. I know I would.

I know that practically every item reviewed on Amazon has 4 or 5 stars, because people usually review things that they like, but this is really wonderful music. I remember particularly the guitar accompaniment to "Love Will Endure," with its dissonant f-sharp in the bass against a C-major chord. This album is one of my all-time favorites.

Nothing remains the same -The times, People, Taste or even memories, but, this recording (last heard on a long lost LP),does brings back remembeance of things past. A youth-not entirely wasted-laughs and tears, and Patrick's voice. I guess you just had to be there!

... then you will want to buy this CD. When my wife heard one of the tracks in our car, she said, "This really takes me back". I'm glad that these older albums are being remastered to CD format.