Basket of Light vs From the Witchwood
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Prog Polls
Forum Description: Create polls on topics related to progressive music
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=105263
Printed Date: April 27 2024 at 06:31
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Topic: Basket of Light vs From the Witchwood
Posted By: Komandant Shamal
Subject: Basket of Light vs From the Witchwood
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 09:04
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two legendary prog-folk albums.
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Replies:
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 12:42
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From the Witchwood is simply one of the best albums ever recorded. Basket of Light is very good, but there's nothing on there as good as Glimpse of Heaven, Shepherd Song or the amazing Hangman and the Papist. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 13:44
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Yeah.....Strawbs for me also. Pentangle are good but a bit too trad at times for me. I haven't played them in years. Besides Wakeman is on Witchwood.....and that makes it a winner for me.  ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: verslibre
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 14:52
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Strawbs. And ditto about Wakey. ------------- https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ipg=50&_sop=1&_rdc=1&_ssn=musicosm" rel="nofollow - eBay |
Posted By: micky
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 16:04
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really? Nice to bitch that is merely only close... a group of well meaning musicians against one of the best collections of musical talent any group has ever had. ZERO contest man ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 16:38
I think it's a bit unfair to refer to Pentangle as "a group of well meaning musicians". ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
micky wrote:Posted By: micky
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 16:53
almost as unfair to virtuosos to compare them to garage bands like the Strawbs  I'd be willing to bet my paycheck you could dig up a good number of prog fans.. a decent percentage that couldn't name ONE band member of that group. And the other... sh*t man... world class.. hall of fame caliber musicians known pretty much to anyone who has seriously explored music and instruments... ------------- The Pedro and Micky Experience - When one no longer requires psychotropics to trip |
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 17:04
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From the Witchwood is a nice album. Basket of Light is a masterpiece, and one of my favourite albums of all time. That said, I'm not surprised so many people prefer the former to the latter - FTW is definitely more "prog". |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 17:31
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^ ^What is this , a tag team for Pentangle...? ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 18:13
I'd also bet that most people (even some prog fans) couldn't name a single member of Pentangle. Renbourn and Jansch are fine guitarists but Pentangle are not actually that well known. Indeed, I just asked a couple of friends and they had never heard of them. Both knew of Strawbs (it's not THE Strawbs, by the way) and one knew that Wakeman was in the band. In any case if you want virtuosity, listen to Dream Theater. If that doesn't show you that virtuosity doesn't necessarily result in great music, there's proof. The real test is the songs, and Cousins wrote many brilliant ones, with Hudson and Ford contributing some more great ones. Pentangle were not such great songwriters and adapted much traditional material, some of it very well, but I can't listen to their version of the Lyke Wake Dirge, a song I've been singing for well over 50 years. Their version is, to put it mildly, a bit insipid. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 18:22
This. Jansch and Renbourn are folk royalty. I'm not sure which would be the king or queen though. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 18:30
I'd be willing to bet musicians could tell you. Like Jimmy Page, Ian Anderson, Richard Thompson, Paul Simon, Donovan, Neil Young or Roy Harper, to name a few.
A song first played by Davey Graham that Jansch utterly jammed to and Paul Simon made famous: ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: Komandant Shamal
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 18:33
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Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 22:25
Strawbs, and they have at least 4 albums better than Witchwood (the next 4). Way more emotion, way more melodic, way more of a group effort, way better original lyrics, and way more prog as well. Geez, is there anywhere that Pentangle wins this? - oh yeah, yawn, they are virtuosi  |
Posted By: Wanorak
Date Posted: December 22 2015 at 23:01
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From the Witchwood for me. ------------- A GREAT YEAR FOR PROG!!! |
Posted By: Komandant Shamal
Date Posted: December 23 2015 at 00:58
| i voted for "Basket of Light" cause "From the Whitchwood" sounds dated to me - in spit of that it is an indisputably great progressive folk album of early 70s - while "Basket of Light" still flowing a fresh breath of early English spring, as when the album was recorded in '69. |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: December 23 2015 at 02:32
Name me one musician (or prog fan) who doesn't know Rick Wakeman. I would expect most know Dave Cousins (well - Roger Glover, Miller Anderson, Jon Hiseman, Richie Blackmore and Ian Anderson certainly do). Anyway, this argument is a bit futile. The other key point is that From the Witchwood is very progressive folk and Basket of Light is borderline at best - it's more jazz folk and I question whether Pentangle should even be on this site, whatever their musical merits. Certainly back in the 60s/70s, we folk and prog fans never considered Pentangle to be prog, but folk. ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |
Posted By: dr wu23
Date Posted: December 23 2015 at 11:13
Yeah....I have to agree with that...never thought of them as prog at all. And for the most part I like Renbourn and Jansch's solo compositions better than most of Pentangle. ------------- One does nothing yet nothing is left undone. Haquin |
Posted By: The Dark Elf
Date Posted: December 23 2015 at 17:57
You somehow completely failed to comprehend what I was inferring. The musicians I listed didn't just know who Jansch was, they all acknowledged his influence. That's one helluva list of those who revere him. ------------- ...a vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people of this area, but destined to take the place of the mud shark in your mythology... |
Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: December 23 2015 at 20:23
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Pentangle were an early supergroup no doubt about it. Being a musician's musician is certainly worthy of respect, but so is being an arguably singular sounding band like Strawbs, that evolved from being Britain's first bluegrass group through singer/songwriter folk, progressive tinged folk rock to fully bombastic prog that was as symphonic as it was folky, to the present day with albums that seem to combine all eras into one. Although they were certainly not the first to use the mellotron, they were one of its biggest adopters, and keyboard players - Blue Weaver and John Hawken - that followed Wakeman - were highly skilled and perhaps more suited to the group than Wakeman was. Weaver's use of mellotron choir on the smash UK hit single "Lay Down" was one of the first, and certainly the first to make the singles charts. Strawbs and their members were actually no slackers in the influential department. Just ask Fish, who was apparently a huge Strawbs fan. I was playing a CD compilation of 1970s tracks by Strawbs to friends and one kept remarking how much they sounded like Marillion, on several songs. "Martin Luther King's Dream" was one of John Bonham's favorite songs, so one might infer influence, while the acoustic splendour of "Simple Visions" has been said to have presaged the jangly college rock of the 80s and 90s. Newer prog folk bands like Midlake cite Strawbs as well as Pentangle as influences. Drummer Rod Coombes pioneered synthesized percussion on the aforementioned "Simple Visions". Albums like "From the Witchwood" and "Grave New World" made it ok to include Christian oriented lyrics in mainstream rock along with the usual Buddhist and hippy themes. "The Hangman and the Papist" was one of the first "neo folk" songs, and the "Tears" part of "Tears and Pavan" has been called the very first "Goth" song. Through Hudson-Ford, Strawbs even influenced the punk movement via THE MONKS, which died on the vine in the UK once erstwhile fans discovered the Strawbs connection, but went multi platinum in Canada. Oh those Canadians.... Lots of firsts for Strawbs, and here are a few more: they were A&M's first UK signing, their first album released in America was a live record, they were the first UK group to have a CD released on the Canadian subsidiary before the mother ship decided to do it ("Hero and Heroine", which went gold in Canada). They also had 9 straight albums charting on one or both sides of the Atlantic in the 1970s, and in recent years they have headlined both prog rock and folk festivals. But in the end, this is a poll about favorites between classic prog folk albums, not about who was more influential on whom, since that says nothing about how the music moves you. And to me, there is simply no contest. I'll take the lyrics, melodies and vocals of Dave Cousins and all his blemishes (at least back then, now, well, it's getting more challenging to listen to him live) singing like his very survival depends on it, backed by many of the talented artists who passed through their ranks. and I'll leave you with another track off "From the Witchwood" followed by a track from Kerrs Pink's "The Art of Complex simplicity". Coincidence or... |
Posted By: Hercules
Date Posted: December 24 2015 at 08:11
I think that sums it up pretty thoroughly! ------------- A TVR is not a car. It's a way of life. |