Mike Acker

The direct successor to an earlier Lake collection, Acker Bilk's Acker, Mr. Acker Bilk's Lansdowne Folio rounds up four tracks from A Golden Treasury of Bilk, a single, three previously unreleased numbers, and finally, a dozen more from the original Lansdowne Portfolio album. It's a gripping collection as well; though Bilk was certainly well on his way to embracing the pop mainstream by this time, and his ear for melody was certainly leaning toward the more popular end of things, still his stabs at Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," the traditional "Lord Let Me in the Lifeboat," and "Go Tell It On the Mountain" are nothing if not rousing and, if Bilk's version of "Tishomingo Blues" has little of the drama of Ken Colyer's earlier Denis Preston-produced rendition of the same number, again one must remember the very different audiences that the two men were playing to.