TRAVELLING MAN

"Travelling man" is a compilation made up entirely of short tracks taken from three of Caravan's Mooncrest label albums ("All over you", Battle of Hastings", and "Cool water"). This makes for a strange mix of tracks as, although they were released around the same time in the mid 1990's, only "Battle of Hastings" contained new material. "All over you" consisted of re-workings by Caravan of their old classics, while "Cool water" was a lost album from the 70's which only saw the light of day in the 90's. All but three of the tracks which appeared on "Battle of Hastings" are included here, while the other two albums contribute three tracks apiece. Caravan's shorter tracks tended to be rather whimsical, and serve as lighter intermissions between their more complex longer tracks. They were at their best when they are making long relaxing melodic prog rock, with hints of jazz.

The album opens with "In the land of grey and pink", one of the three re-workings taken from "All over you". Like the other two ("If I could do it all over again.", and "Place of my own"), the rendition is pretty faithful to the original, such that those who are not fans of the band will probably be unaware that they are not the originals.

Since "Battle of Hastings" was a lighter album than the prog albums of the 70's, its dominance here perpetuates the generally pop rock feel of this collection. Tracks such as "Liar" (which is similar to the Russ Ballard penned Argent song of the same name), "I know why you're laughing", and "If it wasn't for your ego" are excellent, but little more than high class pop songs. One of the more interesting tracks from BOH is "Travelling ways", which features a rare appearance by Jim Leverton on lead vocals. The track sounds similar to Simon Nicol's work with Fairport Convention.

The three tracks from "Cool water" have clearly been selected to complement the light feel of the collection with that album's title track, a soft melodic piece, being the best of the three.

An album full of their short tracks will probably be of less appeal to Caravan fans, and "Travelling man" is clearly intended for the more transient, pop orientated market. Indeed the official Caravan website describes this compilation as "cheap and nasty". That is perhaps a bit harsh, as musically it is inoffensive and pleasant. It does however reflect that fact that this budget priced compilation was intended to generate income for the label, rather than to represent The best of Caravan.

Not to be confused with the more complete 2 CD compilation, "Travelling ways".