A remarkably fresh and timeless recording,
Bruce Cockburn
's second album concentrates far more on roots music than its predecessor. There's the
ragtime
blues
of
"Happy Good Morning Blues,"
the ambitious minor-key troubadour
folk
"Love Song,"
and the slide guitar
country
"One Day I Walk"
to kick things off. And over the album's original ten songs it just becomes more ambitious.
"Golden Serpent Blues,"
with its poignant and percussive piano lines, is something out of a Western Canadian barrelhouse where the piano player has heard and loved
"Lady Madonna."
Overall, however, this album -- like
Sunwheel Dance
that follows it -- presents a far more mystical
Cockburn
. His tenderness and poetic vision are almost pastoral on these early recordings, something that would get burned off and become hard-bitten (if no less romantic and more dramatic) as his music and social vision grew. ~ Thom Jurek