Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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This obscure folk-rock artist from the late '60s left a track record of a few albums and a handful of obscure single releases, including the languid "Lyanna" and the demanding "Don't Leave Me Now." Campbell first came to prominence as a singer/songwriter on the folk club scene. He signed a contract with the interesting Fontana label, which released much cutting edge folk-rock and psychedelic music. He recorded one album and three singles for them before switching dizzily to the Vertigo label. The resulting album took a proud place in this label's catalog, right between the largely forgotten Dr. Strangely Strange and the grandly remembered Paranoid by Black Sabbath. It was definitely Campbell's most famous album, entitled Half Baked with just a note of derision. The album's title track is in turn the most well-known cut by this artist. The label had high hopes for the song, which was also included on The Vertigo Annual compilation, one of the first wave of promotional collections featuring new artists. There must have been optimism that the song's success would carry the album as well, since the latter was pressed in enormous quantities considering the relatively unknown status of the artist. When the single never took off, the label and the world in general was left with many, many Half Baked albums, carrying the artist's commercial failure forward into the misty world of record collecting, where the album has never become particularly collectable because of the large number of copies originally pressed. His next move was to form the group Rockin' Horse, whose 1971 album for Philips is in contrast something collectors look for, but hardly ever find. The band continued without him, making another self-titled LP for RCA. Campbell did one further solo album before calling it quits.

Eugene Chadbourne, Allmusic.com

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Although Jimmy Campbell's 1969 LP Son of Anastasia was his first full-length release, he'd been on the Liverpool rock scene since the mid-'60s as part of the Merseybeat band the Kirkbys, and then the more psychedelic outfit 23rd Turnoff. While Son of Anastasia contained a few songs he'd recorded in released and unreleased versions in the 23rd Turnoff days in 1967, it was a marked change in direction for Campbell, in his style if not his songwriting. For Son of Anastasia is largely a folky, acoustic album, occasionally venturing into orchestrated folk-pop, even if Campbell is more a pop/rock songwriter than a folk one. Campbell's slightly moody yet catchy melodies, as well as his drolly understated lyrics, mark him as perhaps the best '60s Liverpool rock songwriter never to have a chart record; his likably fragile voice can sound like a cross between Robin Gibb and Cat Stevens, with perhaps a pinch of post-'60s Marianne Faithfull scratchiness. It's an attractively introspective record laced with some bittersweet irony, but the combination of bare-bones and lightly orchestrated arrangements doesn't always ideally suit the material. Some of the songs with nothing or little more than guitar backing sound a little like demos that could have done with fuller treatments; the ones with orchestral arrangements are sometimes a bit dated, and, in the case of "On a Monday," more than a little derivative of Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe." Worse, occasionally riffs are taken by what sound like either kazoos or someone (Campbell?) trying to imitate a trumpet with mouth noises, which not only adds an unappetizingly vaudevillian flavor, but leaves the impression that there wasn't enough budget allotted for proper instrumentation. Still, most of the songs here are good, particularly the arch but quite catchy "Another Vincent Van Gogh" (the track that comes closest to actual folk-rock), "Lyanna," and "Lovely Eliza Cope Is Dead" (where the early Cat Stevens similarity is strongest). Best of all is the gloriously melancholy "Michaelangelo," which Campbell had done in an all-out psychedelic version of part of 23rd Turnoff, but which sounds quite lovely as a stripped-down acoustic tune here.

Richie Unterberger, Allmusic.com

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Prior to the 1970 release of Half Baked, Jimmy Campbell had been making interesting but uneven music for about five years that always seemed to hint at the breakout of a standout talent, but never quite seemed to deliver all the way on that promise. This, his second album, was very much in that continuum – it had too much of worth to dismiss, but wasn't quite the sort of thing that demanded attention. Campbell's assets remained undimmed, those being a winning way with a meditative folk-pop melody, a likably shaky voice, and an overall engaging persona of a fragile, sensitive, somewhat reticent soul. Here, however, that fragility at times verged on solipsistic eccentricity (occasionally accented by similarly eccentric chamber pop orchestration), particularly on "In My Room" (in which Jimmy resides "with its broken door, the posters on the wall of Hitler, John, and Paul"), the jaunty yet desolate romantic ballad "Dulcie (It's December)," and the title track, which starts with him croaking "If I'd have known what would happen, I would have stayed in bed," and gets more despondent from there ("If anyone calls, say I'm dead"). Occasionally, the poetic loner sensibility threatens to tip into something more worrisome and suggestive of unhealthy withdrawal, especially on "Will Not Mind," whose hollow and creepy whimsical romantic optimism is one of the closest parallels you'll hear to Syd Barrett's solo work. When Campbell tries to rock out, the results are pretty pedestrian, and much less distinguished. That leaves about a little more than half a pretty good album here, and the sense of listening to a talented recluse with hints of the kind of genius possessed by Barrett (or the early Bee Gees at their eeriest), but not quite enough follow-through to get placed on the same plane. If some brave reissue company combined the best of this with the best of his solo debut (1969's Son of Anastasia), you'd have a pretty good if imperfect CD, but as of this writing, that hasn't occurred.

Richie Unterberger, Allmusic.com

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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Jimmy Campbell - Albums Collection 1969-1972 (3CD) Remastered 2009

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This may have been Jimmy Campbell's album, but in reality it was Michael Snow's baby, and the set's wistful and whimsical aura, delicate atmospheres, and lovely simplicity are all down to him. Tied to a three record deal, Campbell begrudgingly laid down the tracks for his final solo set with little care or concern, running through new and old songs accompanied only by his own, ofttimes out of tune acoustic guitar. At a loss, Campbell's manager handed the tapes to Snow in hopes of him conjuring up something that Campbell's label would accept. Snow enlisted RKO arranger Ron Carthy and a pair of Rockin' Horses to help, and set to work cleaning up the tapes, creating arrangements for the songs, and recording them. The result is no masterpiece, but does beautifully encapsulate Campbell's essence. A feted songwriter with a fragile delivery, and a lyrical pen that gave remarkable voice to a quirky world view, in many ways Jimmy Campbell's Album is far truer to Campbell's own vision than his previous more glossily produced solo sets. Snow couldn't erase all the imperfections, of course, but his and Carthy's extremely effective arrangements, the Horses' sympathetic backings, and the stripped back production still manage to undo most of Campbell's self-inflicted wounds, creating a delicate album that emphasizes the singer/songwriter's strengths. Which is far more than the artist expected or deserved. And while you're listening, Mark Johnstone's excellent liner notes not only conjure up the mood of the day, they also help you understand why Campbell was, and (sadly posthumously) remains one of the most fascinating talents of his early-'70s era.

Dave Thompson, Allmusic.com