DRAGONFLY

This is the real Strawbs that everyone of us should know - the folk group. Full of delicate harmonies, simple acoustic melodies, but unfortunately not well recorded but nothing shameful either. Dragonfly is mainly two singing acoustic guitars (Cousins & Hooper) and a stand-up bass (Chesterman) and sometimes a cello (although the bassist could have used a bow on his bass) so it sounds very pastoral.

Side 1 has just song format numbers that manages not to bore you but keep your attention, of which the title track is easily the stand out. On the flipside, the highlight is the almost-11 mins Lady Of The Lake that starts as a usual Strawbs folk number like the rest of the album but soon evolves slowly into an epic on which all of the guests announced on the back sleeve appear, not the least the arrival of a drummer (yet another Dane Rotsvold) and Wakeman in his first appearance with the group (he will be much more present in Antiques and Witchwood) to finish this number of epic manner. Even though this "epic" is not a real masterpiece like those of Yes and Genesis' quality, it's definitely a great step forward in Cousin's songwriting. This song will also appear in the bonus track of the remastered version of Just A Collection.

While Dragonfly might not be a real strong album, we finally get glimpses of the prog group they will become soon enough and if you're a fan of the group, you'll eventually pick it up. While this might need confirmation, Dragonfly is the first appearance of Wakeman on a prog record along with Bowie's Space Oddity.