Quaker Way

Various Artists - The Golden Age Of American Popular Music 1956-1965 (2006) {Ace Records CDCDH 1111}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 327 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 152 Mb
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© 1956-65, 2006 Ace Records | CDCHD 1111
Pop / Transcended Rock'n'Roll / British Invasion

It was always going to be a dangerous mission. Trevor Churchill’s brainchild, THE GOLDEN AGE OF AMERICAN POP, had been in development for some time and the prototype was about to be launched into the fray with a bundle of seemingly undifferentiated repertoire. The potential embarrassment factor was high with risk of heavy flak on the way and snipers on the ground in the landing zone. Trevor was calling for volunteers. There was a lot of nervous shuffling among the ranks. Some of the lads took to studying their toecaps, while others took an inordinate interest in the state of their cuticles, or tried to look inconspicuous by melting into the background.

The music chosen for this recording is strangely and poignantly relevant, I believe, for each of us. We all now understand “The Fruit of Silence,” a motet that reminds us to visit those beliefs which are most sacred in the work by Cortlandt Matthews, or now, a deeply personal Requiem by Peter Relph that in reflection, remembers the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in this pandemic. And then there is the LaVoy work “O Great Beyond.” While all great texts speak to the universality of the human condition and, if are truthful, are timeless. Particularly the George Fox text set by Jackson Hill and the Tagore text set by LaVoy give us messages to reinforce the humanness of each of us for hope. Two works on this disc poignantly remind us of the passing of life in the Relph Requiem and especially the final movement of “O Great Beyond.” May these words give comfort to all those who endured the deepest of Life’s losses during our shared Pandemic journey. For, so many loved ones, goodbyes were said in silence, and alone.

Acoustic guitar arrangements of Australian folk songs and bush tunes featuring some Australia’s finest players … John Kane, David Hyams, Kate Burke, Michael Fix, Nigel Date, Marcus Holden, Daniel Champagne, Jeff Lang, Kieran Ryan-Colton, Marcus Sturrock, John Munro, Dave O’Neill and Ian Date. The album is 80 minutes of pure guitar joy and will provide other guitar players with a road map as to what can be done with tunes that are connected to our own story as Australians.