Pentangle Seals

Essential box set presenting exceptional live and BBC session recordings by the reunited original line up of legendary folk rock band Pentangle. Tracks include live versions of fan favourites such as 'I've Got A Feeling', 'Pentangling' and the hit single 'Light Flight'. The recordings on disc 1 are sourced from the BBC archives and previously unreleased. These include six songs from Pentangle's brilliant first reunion appearance at The Cambridge Folk Festival in 1982 and a great version of 'Bruton Town' from their return there in 2011, plus sessions from BBC TV shows Six Fifty-Five Special and Later With Jools Holland, the 2007 Radio 2 Folk Awards and BBC Radio 6 Music's Freak Zone. Apart from the first eight tracks that feature the quartet of Bert Jansch (vocals/guitar), Jacqui McShee (vocals), John Renbourn (vocals/guitar) and Danny Thompson (double bass) as drummer Terry Cox was absent due to injury, 'Reunions' features all five members of the original Pentangle. Disc 2 contains 18 previously unreleased recordings of stunning performances from Thiene and Milan on Pentangle's triumphant 1982 Italian tour.

Although Sweet Child is usually cited as the group's high-water mark, Basket of Light finds them at their most progressive and exciting. Highlights of this album - which actually reached the Top Five in the U.K. - include the buzzing jazz dynamics of "Light Flight," their moving rendition of the traditional folk song "Once I Had a Sweetheart," their reinvention of the girl group smash "Sally Go Round the Roses," and "Springtime Promises," one of their finest original tunes.

Son Seals in an experimental mood, utilizing chord progressions that occasionally don't quite fit together seamlessly (but give him an A for trying to expand the idiom's boundaries). Less innovative but perhaps more accessible are his smoking covers of Albert King's "Nobody Wants a Loser" and Junior Parker's "Goodbye Little Girl".

A much more polished set than its predecessor, Midnight Son is a particularly effective effort with several numbers that remained in Son Seals on-stage repertoire for quite some time – "Telephone Angel," "On My Knees," the jumping "Four Full Seasons of Love." The addition of a brisk horn section enhanced his staccato guitar attack and uncompromising vocals, rendering this his best set to date.

Son Seals 1991 Alligator release "Living In The Danger Zone" is arguably one of Seal's finest studio releases to date. His best live performances being "Live and Burning" and "Spontaneous Combustion". Like the live disc's, Danger Zone features and abundance of gritty vocals and piercing guitar solo's in the style of Albert King. The songs on the disc range from the humorous "Frigidaire Woman" to the slow blues number "Danger Zone" to the funky "Bad Axe" to a ballad like "My Life". Seal's is a natural for the blues. He was born in Osceola Arkansas and, as a child, spent much of his time in his dad's juke joint surrounded by the likes of Albert King, Sonny Boy Williamson and Robert Nighthawk. About four years after recording this CD his wife shot him in the face. He would survive that trauma only to later have his leg amputated due to complications from diabetes. As the saying goes, you got to live the blues to play the blues.

The grotesque cover illustration is an abomination, but the contents are right in the growling grizzly bear style that we've come to expect. Only four Seals-penned originals, but the R&B-laced "Life Is Hard" and "I'm Gonna Take It All Back" are quality efforts. So is his heartfelt tribute to Hound Dog Taylor, "Sadie".