Barry McGuire & The Stars From The New Christy Minstrels - Star Folk

60s LA folkies… lots of them

The New Christy Minstrels proved to be a staging post for a variety of talents, including Gene Clark, Larry�Ramos of The Association, and the soon-to-be Eve Of Destruction man Barry McGuire. They were the focus for a shifting personnel who also formed parts of various overlapping folk groups prior to the folk-rock boom of 1965.

This collection covers some early 60s recordings from a number of Minstrels, with McGuire’s work to the fore. Although the cover of Hoyt Axton’s Greenback Dollar starts the set in rousing McGuire vocal fashion, the most enjoyable tracks and styles are to be found later, as the more restrained and gentler tracks shine above the massed singalongs. The Sherwood Singers’ Karen Gunderson’s lovely Love Song, and the Art Podell-inked You Know My Name are immediately attractive, with McGuire in restrained mood, as he is on an early cover of Ewan MacColl’s The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.

The sleevenotes reveal the true variety of acts represented, and this may well have attracted more interest had it been marketed as a various artists set of LA folkies.

RPM | Retro 806

Reviewed by Kingsley Abbott
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