FOUR BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST ORIGINALS

Four by four

BJH's first four albums, recorded for the Harvest label, have been repackaged a number of times. For this offering, all four have been bundled together at a budget price. The excellence of the music is undeniable, many of the bands finest tracks were recorded during this period.

There's little point in reviewing the individual albums here as they are identical to the original releases. You can check out the reviews for "Barclay James Harvest", Once again", "BJH And other short stories" and "Baby James Harvest" on their individual pages. Given that these four albums have recently been remastered and released with plenty of interesting bonus tracks, I would recommend those before this collection. If however you have the opportunity to introduce yourself to BJH through this set, it's well worth the effort.

By 1996, EMI must have grown tired of devising new combinations of BJH material recorded for the Harvest label back in the early 1970s. Only four albums were recorded and they had been plundered in just about every way possible. The ultimate 'Best Of' would be to throw the whole lot together in a single box. That's what you get here - a box containing all four original albums on separate CDs in mini facsimiles of the original covers at a bargain price. This was an excellent way of obtaining them, and for anyone interested in BJH's earliest albums was an essential buy, bearing in mind the original albums had never been on general release in the CD format at that time. Since those albums have now been re-issued as re-mastered CDs with extensive bonus material, this collection has receded in importance and desirability. Nice packaging though, and the music is mostly wonderful!