Description
It’s now half-a-century since British folk rock emerged, with the early practitioners breaking new ground and inspiring an entire scene that peaked in the late Sixties/early Seventies. Earnest young post-Dylan singer/songwriters moved away from the intimacy of the folk clubs in favour of the nascent college/university circuit; Counter-cultural iconoclasts The Incredible String Band became a seismic influence on a whole raft of bands now categorised as acid-folk; Pentangle’s use of acoustic instrumentation within a nominally rock framework attracted many emulators (though arguably no real equals); Fairport Convention graduated from their initial American West Coast-indebted sound to explore their own country’s musical heritage, thus establishing the concept of indigenous English folk rock.
Housed in a clamshell box featuring a lavish forty-page booklet, Strangers In The Room documents that hugely fertile period, when everything was grist to the mill in what quickly became a glorious stylistic melting pot. As with other Grapefruit genre anthologies, the set features many of the scene’s prime movers while taking a broader look at the overall picture with the inclusion of several acts who ploughed a similar musical furrow without the same level of acclaim. Strangers In The Room does a wonderful job of highlighting the vast range and variety in the emergent British folk rock scene of this abundant and exciting time.
