The English Folk Dance and Song Society headquarters in London, otherwise known as Cecil Sharp House, became a Mecca in the late 1960s to young musicians and singers. Different than those who flocked the place in previous decades, they were armed with electric guitars and smoked rolled cigarettes that smelled funny. Like their predecessors they mined the vast library of traditional folk songs that passed unrecorded through generations of singers for nuggets of melodies and harmonies to make their own.

Fairport Convention, mavericks of the style known as folk rock, did just that and in 1969 released two of the genre’s most celebrated albums, Unhalfbricking and Liege and Lief. The following year another band followed the same pattern and released two wonderful albums that put a new spin on traditional folk songs.

They were much less successful commercially and short lived as a result, but their albums survived the test of time very well. This is the story of Trees, who in 1970 released two albums, the second of which – On The Shore, is a true classic [ . . . ]

Continue at Music Aficionado : The story behind On The Shore, by Trees