Fare Thee Well Love

The Rankin Family produce excellent traditional tracks (like " Fair And Tender Ladies") and mix them with folk/pop songs like "Orangedale Whistle" and "Gilles Mountain" to name but two very good tracks. Others are "Fisherman's Son", "You Left A Flower" and the title track which keep the standard up to a very high level.

Simple arrangements, well played and with great individual singing or even better harmonies, this is an classic album unfortunately not known to most of the great British music public, which is a shame. Every time I hear it, I feel all the better for it - it makes you glad to be around.

All their albums are very good and it made me wonder why they decided to call "time" on singing as a group, but maybe they wanted to finish on a very big high. Also, maybe they thought the band had run its course. The fact that they stopped making albums will no doubt be the one thing that the "music fan from San Diego" will be pleased about, having read his/her review (what was (s)he expecting?). The number of people who read that and thought it helped make up their mind (a big zero) says it all.

Whatever, after buying the Collection, go and buy the rest. However, this should be the first - you won't regret it.

Fare Thee Well Love is also very heart felt and moving. The rest of the cuts are somewhere between outstanding and somewhat tedious to listen to.

None the less, I felt the price for the two songs mentioned was worth the price.