(Prog-folk) Lazy Farmer - Lazy Farmer (1975/2005 Remastered Edition), FLAC (image+.cue), lossless

EAC extraction logfile from 2. December 2006, 10:38 for CD
Lazy Farmer / Lazy Farmer

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The musicianship is superb and the production sophisticated - a great lost folk album... - The Tapestry Of Delights

Truly mystical UK acidfolkgrass - killer band and a seriously rare album! - rockinworld.com

This 1975 ultra-rarity was originally released only in Germany, and has never been available on CD before. Featuring guitar legend Wizz Jones as well as ex-COB member John Bidwell and multi-instrumentalist Jake Walton, it's a haunting collection of beautifully-arranged folk standards, along with a handful of glorious cover versions. This reissue, which comes complete with comprehensive liner notes and rare photographs, has been produced with the full collaboration of the band - and, as originals are now highly sought-after, it's the first chance to hear it without paying hundreds of dollars! - Sunbeam

Wizz played and recorded mostly with a small coterie of friends or a band called Lazy Farmer that he and Sandy formed with ex-C.O.B. flautist, Joe Bidwell. Originally released in Germany in 1975 and now at last available on CD, it's a haunting collection of beautifully arranged folk standards, along with a handful of covers versions like "Standing Down In N.Y. Town (R.McTell). Fully detailed booklet rounds off the package. - Freak Emporium

By 1973 the glory days of the 1960s British folk revival were fading. As if to compensate, mainland Europe was embracing the music and British acts were spending ever more time gigging abroad, particularly in Germany.
Legendary singer-guitarist Raymond 'Wizz' Jones was firmly established on this circuit, playing his distinctive brand of folk, blues and originals. Wizz had met his wife Sandy while busking in Paris in 1961, and persuaded her to take up the five-string banjo ("Having tried this with previous girlfriends, this time it worked!"), and they hitch-hiked together to the South of France and on to Morocco. On returning to England, however, Sandy devoted her time to raising a family and working as an office temp to support Wizz's burgeoning career on the folk scene. This left little time for the banjo, and it was the early 70s before her enthusiasm was rekindled by John Burke's clawhammer-style banjo tutorial book, Old Time Fiddle Tunes For Banjo.
The Jones's door was always open to musicians, and local flatmates 'Little' John Bidwell and Jake Walton, both originally from Cornwall, became frequent visitors. John had recently left the brilliant COB (Clive's Original Band), in which he'd played guitar, banjo, harmonium, whistles, recorders and the dulcitar, an unique sitar-style instrument he'd invented with his former bandmate, Incredible String Band founder Clive Palmer. Clive had moved to Cornwall in 1968 and recorded Sunshine Possibilities with The Famous Jug Band before forming two more bands, both featuring John - the Stockroom Five (who played old-time country music) and The Temple Creatures (Indian-influenced and much more esoteric). Neither recorded officially or even played much outside Cornwall. COB, however, had recorded two remarkable albums, both produced by Ralph McTell - 1971's Spirit of Love and 1972's Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart. Since COB's split John had been teaching guitar in local secondary schools and, having dabbled with wind instruments in the past, bought a flute and decided to work on becoming an expert player. Jake, meanwhile, was a psychology graduate of Reading University who was also teaching guitar in secondary schools. He played Appalachian dulcimer and guitar, greatly inspired by Donovan, and knew John well from the Cornish folk scene. Sandy, John and Jake began to jam regularly.
"I came back from Germany and found Sandy had been sitting around playing music from the John Burke book with Jake and John," says Wizz. "I already knew all the songs from old Folkways albums and playing bluegrass music with banjo-picker Pete Stanley, so that was the basis of Lazy Farmer." Jake describes the band as "very much a social thing - meet round at Wizz's and bring a few cans". Sandy agrees. "It was just for fun, and we had no intention of gigging." The few British gigs the band did in fact play were mainly in Cornwall, where the Jones family always spent the summer. Enthused by a headline spot at the St Ives Guildhall on 10th August, 1973, Sandy went to London's Cecil Sharp House for a couple of banjo lessons from Tom Paley, the only formal tuition she ever had. Afterwards she and Wizz attended a music session in a nearby pub. "As we walked in we heard this wonderful, swinging rendition of June Apple played in a beautiful frailing banjo style," recalls Wizz. The musician responsible was a young player from Nottingham! called Don Coging, who had been playing with folk/country artist Bryan ] Chalker and soon fell in with the Lazy Farmer crew.
Wizz, meanwhile, had a solo career to attend to, and in October 1973 he recorded When I Leave Berlin, released on Bristol's Village Thing label the following spring. Along with a guest spot from Bert Jansch, the album is notable as Lazy Farmer's recording debut. Listed as Sandy on banjo, John on flute and Jake on guitar and dulcimer, the band plays on four tracks - Woody Guthrie's Pastures of Plenty, Jesse Winchester's Skipping Song, the traditional Cluck Old Hen and Wizz's own title track. Don is credited separately for contributions to two tracks. One might expect a band featuring two banjos to sound brash, but they were determined to avoid the cliches common to their instruments. Their sheer instrumental range could cause problems, however, especially as the dulcimer and banjos often used different tunings. "Trying to keep a guitar, a flute, two banjos and a dulcimer in tune was almost impossible. It could easily fall apart onstage - and often did!" Sandy laughs.
Wizz sensibly stayed in standard tuning ("and I found that hard enough to get right!"), but tuning wasn't their only onstage hazard. "I don't cut my strings, I leave them coiled," he explains. "One night at the Winter Gardens in Penzance, John got his flute keys entangled in my guitar strings and we spent the rest of the tune trying to disentangle them, turning a poignant love song into a comedy routine in the process." On another occasion a doorman asked why they were so early for a gig. "To do a sound check," they replied. "No need," he told them. "It was tested last week." In fact the band undertook few gigs at this time, its members working alone or in various combinations instead. One gig they did play was at the Half Moon in Putney, where they were mysteriously billed as 'The Balham Banjo Band'. The venue was packed by word of mouth alone, and one impressed audience member was Wizz's German manager, Carsten Linde, who happened to be staying with him and Sandy at the time.
So impressed was he, in fact, that he promptly found them a deal with German EMI subsidiary Songbird and fronted the money for an album. Thus it was that they entered a studio in the countryside outside Koln in January 1975, with Carsten producing and the legendary Conny Plank engineering. They went for a clean, natural sound, recording the band exactly as they were. Many producers would have added bass and percussion as a matter of course, but Lazy Farmer already had a full sound. Though there are a few overdubs (notably on John Lover's Gone), several tracks are actually first takes.
Sandy, however, did record her vocals separately, modestly insisting they be left low in the mix. She also broke a nail on her right hand, causing an audible click on some numbers. A fair proportion
of the album (Lazy Farmer, The Cuckoo, John Lover's Gone) comes from the John Burke book, though its songs were much adapted by the band. "We did adhere extremely tightly to the fiddle timings in the book, though," remembers John.
"This, along with our instrumental texture, gave the material a weird, Eastern slant, I always thought." Their ally Ralph McTell contributed Standing Down In New York Town, inspired by his first visit to the USA in October 1971, while Love Song was by enigmatic US banjo player Derroll Adams, who'd lived in London in the late 50s and (along with his friend Rambling Jack Elliot) left an indelible impression on the young folkies of the day. The album's closer, Wizz's When I Leave Berlin, was prompted by the few brief days in Easter 1972 when the Berlin Wall was opened for the first time. He remembers the city as an exciting place, full ofgreat musicians and places to play - but accessible only by a bleak road full of deep ruts from the trucks using it. "You'd be in an old Volkswagen van, trying to get there as fast as you could and praying you didn't break down," he says.
Overall the album is remarkably assured and smooth, beautifully recorded and full of delightfully unpredictable changes of mood. "In retrospect," reflects John, "much of its energy came from tension
between the soft, low-key approach exemplified by Jake and Sandy's vocals and his dulcimer, and the rawer sound
that characterised the bands Don and I developed later." Despite its obvious potential, Lazy Farmer was released in Germany only and sold poorly, despite being housed in a striking gatefold sleeve.
Undeterred, Lazy Farmer undertook a grueling 30-date German tour in the summer of 1975, including some large festivals. Though many gigs were triumphant, the band didn't carry their own PA and often suffered from a lack of microphones and the apathy of sound engineers unfamiliar with their music. "There were never any monitors," remembers Sandy. "You couldn't hear yourself, just someone tuning up over you." Wizz readily agrees. "I know you shouldn't blame your tools, but banjos are a bugger to keep in tune even when they're working properly. My God, it was shambolic at times!"
Though the schedule was punishing, some members were determined to have fun too. "When the rest of us were ready to rest after a gig, Don would say to John 'come on, son, lets find the night-life!'", chuckles Wizz. "This led to some classic 'band on the road' episodes, such as Don and John being locked out of the hotel, finding a ladder and climbing into the wrong room."
After the tour, Sandy decided to return to England full time. "While we were recording and promoting the album, Ralph and Nana (McTell) looked after the children in Cornwall, but I couldn't tour and be a parent," she explains. Wizz adds that "I was trying to hold it all together, driving the van and using all my connections to get gigs. It would have been great if the band could have carried on, but it became impossible to sustain." So it was that Lazy Farmer fizzled out, though they remained friends. Wizz is as active as ever on the folk scene today, while Sandy and John have retired from playing for the time being. Jake has become one of the world's leading hurdy-gurdy players, but Don was last heard of working as a gardener in Augsburg and has lost touch with his bandmates, much to their regret.
Lazy Farmer was a short-lived and often fraught collaboration, but the album they made is lasting testament to the enthusiasm, sensitivity and dedication they brought to their material, and it is to be hoped that this first official CD release finds them the audience they were denied first time around. - Grahame Hood, September 2005