Genre: Folk
Places I remember: Chaldon Books and Records (Caterham on the hill)
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: There But For Fortune
Gear costume: It Ain't me, Babe, I Still Miss Someone
Active compensatory factors: When Joan is on form - There But For Fortune, there is no one to touch her. This record is worth whatever I paid for it (actually I know it was seven pound 50p) just for that one song.
Within that one interpretation, there's sincerity, clear vision, pathos, expressiveness without sentimentality.
Langston Hughes in his liner notes to this album says: when something is arty, it is held in the hand and looked at with conceit. But when something is art, it is the hand.
I think he'd just heard There But For Fortune when he composed that pithy remark.
The rest of the album has huge variety, with Joan taking on Dylan and Johnny Cash (successfully) and some old English ballads and a Brasileiras (less successfully to my ears).
In the middle ground are songs like Stewball (daft song about a horse that The Hollies also had a go at) and Richard Farina's Birmingham Sunday.
Where do they all belong? In the end, it's There But For Fortune that wins the day.
