Long overdue reissue, Vashti Bunyan's lone 1970 solo release features contributions from British folk royalty including members of Fairport Convention and preeminent producer Joe Boyd. Vashti was recently heard singing alongside Devendra Banhart on the title track of Rejoicing In The Hands.
"Ejected from art school in 1964 for failing to choose between writing songs and painting, Vashti Bunyan was found by Andrew Loog Oldham singing her songs in London. She was given a Jaggers-Richards song to record as a single for Decca and a year later she released a single on Columbia. She went on to record further tracks for the Immediate Label, which remain unreleased. Vashti intended to leave the music business and the city behind for good when she started off for the outer limits of northern Britain in 1968 with a horse and a wagon, heading for the promised land.
"The songs were written over two summers and one winter of travelling. After a chance meeting that winter with Derroll Adams (noted Woody Guthrie era folksinger and banjo player) who told her not to "hide her light under a bushel," Vashti took the songs of her journey to Joe Boyd. A year later he recorded Just Another Diamond Day, inviting Robin Williamson of the Incredible String Band, and Dave Swarbrick and Simon Nicol (who also played on Nick Drake's records) from Fairport Convention to accompany Vashti on some tracks. "The album was released late in 1970 to little attention. The music was abandoned by the singer in favor of further horse journeys and complete obscurity. However, over the years all the recordings have succeeded in finding their own way to the notice of music collectors. The master tape of the album lay in a London warehouse for thirty years before being unwisely taken across the city in an underground train and getting wet in a raging thunderstorm, but has survived almost intact. The four additional on this edition are from well traveled old vinyl, acetate demos, and home recorded tape." -- Paul Lambden, CD liner notes
"This record is a kind of document of a pilgrimage lasting a year and a half. Vashti and Robert and Bess (the horse) and Blue (the dog) and an old green wagon fleeing London for the Outer Hebrides. Half way there, they stopped for the winter and a friend brought brought Vashti back to London for a short visit. She rang me, Did I remember her? And of course, I remembered. I had heard her three years before at a poetry reading, singing songs of delicate beauty that melted me on the spot. I had tried without success to persuade her to make a record-- before she set out for the North. Vashti's songs may seem unreal to urbanized listeners but they should listen with open hearts and minds; I have never known anyone whose music is so completely a reflection of their life and spirit." -Joe Boyd, 1970 album liner notes
