The Sound of Music 1965

The tragedy of du Pré’s brief career is still fresh in the public memory and can be summarised here. She was born in Oxford on 26 January 1945 into a middle-class family in which music was important: her mother was a fine pianist and a gifted teacher. The French-sounding name came from her father’s Channel Islands ancestry. Just before her fifth birthday, when she was already showing musical promise, she heard the sound of a cello on the radio and the course of her life was set.

Although often overshadowed by the Los Angeles and New York folk-rock scenes, San Francisco also contributed several notable bands. Among them are We Five, featuring Mike Stewart (vocals/guitar/banjo) - brother of Kingston Trio member John Stewart - Peter Fullerton (vocals/bass), Beverly Bivens (vocals), Bob Jones (guitar/vocals), and Jerry Bergan (guitar/vocals). The quintet was among the first Bay Area groups to have chart success merging acoustic-based folk music with electric instrumentation. This single CD, from mail-order archivists Collector's Choice Music, contains the quintet's first two long-players: You Were on My Mind and Make Someone Happy. Both titles are similar in style and content, charting the linear progression of pop music and its fusion with folk, rock & roll, and post-bop jazz…

Recorded in Bruce Walford's studio in San Anselmo, this album sees the Sons in transition. Tim Cain, the sax player who co-founded the band with Bill Champlin back in 1965, had left, as had trumpet player Jim Beem. The stripped down band has an opportunity to stretch out on a number of fine Bill Champlin compositions, and the album also features the recorded debut of Terry Haggerty's "Follow Your Heart", a tune that would stay in the band's set list until Haggerty's departure in 2001 (a more polished version of the tune appeared on the out of print Circle of Love album, and there is a great performance on The Sons Live CD released in 1997). Soon after the release of this album Bill Champlin took the first of his sabaticals from the group, returning to a new rhythm section and a revised name (Yogi Phlegm) several months later. Not quite as good as Welcome to the Dance, this album still cooks pretty hard and is definitely worth a listen.

There are several reasons to own this Vox Box 2CD set. For the first, it includes five great violin concertos in some of the very best performances in their discography. For the second, Ivry Gitlis (born 1922) is a great living violinist and these recordings made in early 1950s show his art in the best way, when Ivry's violin sounded powerful and brilliant.