Mixed Bag
Artist: Richie Havens

Richie Havens' finest recording, Mixed Bag captures the essence of his music and presents it in an attractive package that has held up well. A close listen to lyrics like "I Can't Make It Anymore" and "Morning, Morning" reveals sadness and loneliness, yet the music is so appealingly positive that a listener actually comes away feeling uplifted.... Read More

California Bloodlines
Artist: John Stewart

Issued in 1969, California Bloodlines is regarded by many to be singer/songwriter John Stewart's finest work. That's debatable, but it is a hell of an album. Stewart who had finally left behind the Kingston Trio to pursue a solo career, solidified it here. Well known as the guy who wrote "Daydream Believer" for the Monkees and "Gold" for... Read More

Original Masters
Artist: Steeleye Span

Original Masters is an excellent compilation of the first nine albums from one of the most respected and revered British folk-rock bands ever. Despite numerous personnel changes, Steeleye Span retained a readily identifiable sound built around folk-based instrumentation and the distinctive vocals of Maddy Prior. Beginning with amplified... Read More

Live at Leeds
Artist: John Martyn

Because Island Records didn't feel it was the right time for a live album, Martyn independently released this record from his home. The initial release was a limited edition of 10,000 (which Island did manufacture, though not distribute or promote) that was numbered and signed. Though the album shares its title with the famous Who live... Read More

Now We Are Six
Artist: Steeleye Span
Community Score: 6.33

With Nigel Pegrum added permanently as drummer, the group rocks out for the first time, and from the thumping tom-toms and snare on the opening track, "Thomas the Rhymer," and Bob Johnson's power chords, it's clear that this is a record with balls. Actually, Now We Are Six is still a folk-rock album, albeit with a beat. This was the first... Read More

Sings Beatles & Dylan
Artist: Richie Havens
Community Score: 8.50

Richie Havens is probably the only '60s icon who could get away with an album like this without apology. But for the presence of the electric keyboards, synth bass, and '80s-style drums, these performances by Havens could easily have appeared 18 years earlier. His performances of "Here Comes the Sun," "If Not for You," "Strawberry Fields... Read More

Sandy
Artist: Sandy Denny
Community Score: 10.00

Sandy Denny's second post-Fairport solo offering, produced by (then-future) husband Trevor Lucas, is a beautiful blend of the traditional style with which she is most often associated and a slightly more lavish sound that would become more prevalent in her later work. Lucas does an excellent job of balancing the two and creating an exquisite... Read More

From Every Stage
Artist: Joan Baez

Listening to this album a quarter century after the fact is an eerie experience; as a Baez fan of the same period and of a politically similar orientation at the time, this reviewer was shocked by the vitriol of the opening number, "(Ain't Gonna Let Nobody) Turn Me Around," especially given that the shows where this album was recorded dated from... Read More

Diamonds & Rust
Artist: Joan Baez
Community Score: 8.33

With the Vietnam War winding down, Joan Baez, who had devoted one side of her last album to her trip to Hanoi, delivered the kind of commercial album A&M Records must have wanted when it signed her three years earlier. But she did it on her own terms, putting together a session band of contemporary jazz veterans like Larry Carlton, Wilton... Read More

Sunday Street
Artist: Dave Van Ronk

This album, originally released in 1976, may or may not be, as annotator (and former Dave Van Ronk guitar student) Elijah Wald claims, "Dave's greatest single album" (frankly, Van Ronk has made so many albums for so many fly-by-night labels that it is hard to endorse so sweeping a statement), but it is certainly a very good one. Van Ronk had... Read More

Resume: The Best of Richie Havens
Artist: Richie Havens

Havens' output has been so extensive that picking tunes for a single-disc anthology would be a difficult task for any label. Rhino has done a respectable job in compiling 17 selections, although there was no material from the LPs Stonehenge or 1984, and while he certainly performed them his way, neither Ray Charles' "Drown in My Own Tears" nor... Read More