Search - Lal Waterson :: Once in a Blue Moon

I'm stunned!

Jay Matthews | Illinois | 10/21/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nico's starkness, Marianne Faithful's rough edges and Sandy Denny's warmth. Brilliant!"

Stands on its own while recalling the best of British folk

icb | 06/18/1998

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Occupying that hazily defined area (chamber folk?) populated by works like Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, Nick Drake's Five Leaves Left, Joe Henry's Shuffletown, and vintage Ronnie Lane, Once in a Blue Moon is a triumph of songwriting and performance. While Lal Waterson's background is in the British traditional folk scene, the album branches in many different directions from those formidable roots. It retains the rough-hewn vocal beauty that makes hers one of Britain's greatest voices, but instrumentally it is a shadowy, minimal affair, with her son's fluid electric guitar playing to the fore, building from valley to denouement in nearly complete sympathy with the lyrics and vocal. It is a "blue" album much like Abbey Lincoln's Abbey Is Blue, in that it is quiet, reflective, lyrically inventing and challenging, and ultimately joyful because of these things. It is the closest thing to a perfect album that I've heard in the 90s, one that will be whispered about reverently in 20 years."

Haunting

icb | 05/11/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"this music wraps around me. I can't say exactly what it is that makes it so special- lal's raspy expressive voice (a highland's billy holliday!) or the odd, simple arrangements- with their birdlike swoops and eccentric phrasings. both i'd guess- the prophetess chanteuse from the sacred well!"