Bonnie Dobson
Album: She's Like A Swallow And Other Folk Songs
Label: Big Beat
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.acerecords.com

Back in July last year, I reviewed a magnificent "comeback" album by this "child of the 60s folk boom" who gained a high profile early on in her musical career as one of the four female folk singers who formed the focus of a landmark 1961 Time magazine article (the others featured were Judy Collins, Carolyn Hester and Joan Baez). With a combination of modesty and plain innocence, Bonnie always stressed that she was simply following her natural love of the folk form rather than seeking stardom, and this shines through in abundance on the four LPs she made for the Prestige label in the early 60s, the first of which is now made available again here, in beautifully remastered form, splendidly repackaged with original liner notes and a solidly insightful essay, through the auspices of Ace Records (with album number two, Dear Companion, to follow shortly, I understand).

The then-just-twenty-year-old Bonnie's talent was captured in its natural, formative state by the truthful, immediate recording. No frills or studio tricks prove necessary to communicate the intense power of Bonnie's pure, forward-driven vocal delivery, which soars above her simple but effective guitar accompaniment on an expertly chosen selection of songs that she'd been picking up on her travels since leaving Canada a few years earlier. And rather a groundbreaking selection, as it turned out - with songs from tradition that were at that time only just beginning to gain currency (The Prickle Holly Bush, Will Ye Go Laddie Go, The Silkie Of Sule Skerry, and the title track), sitting alongside others that even now are rarely sung (The Cruel War Is Raging, the cheeky nursery rhyme Mistress Bond), and at least four songs of French-Canadian origin (including two sung in the dialect). There's also an involved rendition of Robert Gard's tale of a BC mining disaster (Frankie Slide) and, most interestingly, what would turn out to be virtually the première recording (after Peggy Seeger's own, that is) of Ewan MacColl's exquisite The First Time, Bonnie's exceptionally heartfelt take on which is still something of a time-stopper some four decades on.

This 1960 LP is still compelling listening after all those years, not just for the bold and pioneering choice of material but, most importantly, due to Bonnie's sheer force of personality as a song interpreter of true distinction: her peerless singing, its purity allied to her self-evident passion for communicating her vision of the text and its meaning for our age.

David Kidman