THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,852) Vashti Bunyan — “Girl’s Song in Winter”
I’ve recently featured Vashti’s (see #204, 1,170, 1,821) “Winter Is Blue” (see # 1,821). Today — “Girl’s Song in Winter”. To expand on a beautiful insight of François Gorin (https://www.telerama.fr/musique/vashti-bunyan-3-la-fille-de-l-hiver,157777.php), Vashti’s melancholy songs and soul are at home in these months.
D.M. Edwards writes that:
[This was] Bunyan’s first ever recording session from 1964. She paid for an hour in a studio to make a demo and ran through 11 songs. I’m guessing the microphone was close to her mouth, as her guitar is sometimes so quiet that she seems to be singing unaccompanied. The material was mostly written when she was just 18 years old, and it’s impossible to know whether the gentleness in her quiet delivery or the assurance and sophistication of her lyrics reflects the real teenager. “Girl’s Song In Winter” is especially intriguing, due in part to our not knowing for sure if she refers to a dead lover or to their child.
https://www.popmatters.com/vashti-bunyan-some-things-just-stick-in-your-mind-2496210349.html
Jason Ankeny tells us Vashti’s story:
Vashti Bunyan is an English singer/songwriter whose 1970 debut album Just Another Diamond Day was an overlooked gem in its time that later grew to be a defining classic of acid folk. Sluggish record saless discouraged Bunyan enough to give up music entirely shortly after its release, but as the years went on, more new fans grew enamored with the album’s hushed but surreal beauty. . . . Bunyan . . . first took up the guitar while a student at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing. She was ultimately expelled at age 18 for spending too much time writing songs and not enough time painting. A bit of a free spirit even then, she took a trip to New York and, while there, fell under the spell of Bob Dylan’s music . . . . Once back in London, Bunyan was committed to a career in music, and through theatrical agent Monte Mackay she soon met Rolling Stones manager/ producer Andrew Loog Oldham. . . . [H]e signed her to Decca Records and for her debut single brought her the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards-penned “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind.” The record earned little attention, and Bunyan moved to Columbia for the follow-up, “Train Song,” [see #204] released in May of 1966. She moved into the orbit of Oldham’s Immediate Records after its founding that year and recorded a brace of sides, mostly of her own music, none of which was issued commercially. She also cut one side with the Twice as Much (Immediate’s answer to Simin & Garfunkel) entitled “The Coldest Night of the Year.” The latter, with its Phil Spector-like production and beautiful harmonizing, showed off her singing at its most pop-oriented and commercial. Sometime after that, she left London in a horse-drawn wagon on a two-year journey into communal living in the Hebrides, with the ultimate goal of meeting folk icon Donovan [see #908, 1,036, 1,064] on the Isle of Skye. She later chanced to cross paths with American producer Joe Boyd, who had made his name in London recording acts such as Pink Floyd [see # 13, 38, 260] and Fairport Convention [see #1,199]. Throughout her travels Bunyan had continued writing songs, and in 1969 she teamed with Boyd to record her debut LP, the lovely Just Another Diamond Day, which included some assistance from such British folk notables as Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick from Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band’s Robin Williamson. After completing the album she left for Ireland, dropping out of music to raise a family.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/vashti-bunyan-mn0000099104#biography
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