THE BEST OF BARCLAY JAMES HARVEST - VOLUME 3

Saving the best for last

The third and final in this particular series of "Best of" BJH's which focuses on their four LPs released on the Harvest label in the early 70's. It might be expected therefore that volumes 1 and 2 would have mopped up the best tracks, leaving the "also rans" for this collection. Such was the quality of their output however that this collection actually contains many fine tracks.

"The poet/After the day" for example from "And other short stories" is a two part track which builds from a soft symphonic start to a magnificent crescendo, representing one of their finest ever works.

There are three bummers included ("Blue John's blues" "Ball and chain", and "Harry's song"), but these are more than compensated for by great melodic rock ("The sun will never shine", Someone there you know"), straight loud rock ("Thank you"), and an atmospheric ballad ("Song for dying").

I'd always recommend getting the original albums before these type of compilations, but should you want to dabble in BJH, this is a fine introduction to their early material.

The third and final volume of EMI's series of vinyl-only compilations covering BJH's 'Harvest years' is once more a mixture of the great [Song For Dying, The Poet and After The Day] and non-album [I'm Over You] amongst standard album fodder like Harry's Song and Little Lapwing. When you consider BJH only recorded four albums for Harvest, you realise that three 'Best Of' albums is rather stretching credibility a bit thin. Nevertheless, it is again a nice enough compilation though hardly a 'best' of anything nor does it contain anything particularly rare. All this material can now be obtained elsewhere, making this out of print album of interest only to collectors.

The presence of the majestic "The Poet", "After the Day", and "Song for Dying", and the upbeat rocker "Someone there you know" notwithstanding, this is the weakest of the 3 "Best of " LP-only releases. Since those 3 tracks are best culled elsewhere at this point, and since there is only one rare single, the pleasant "I'm Over You", it is also the least collectible. The presence of poor tracks especially from "Short Stories" but also "Baby James Harvest", makes this a miss for all but the most serious collectors. 1.5 stars rounded up.