Whales and Nightingales
Whales and Nightingales was Judy Collins’ eighth album, and it’s one I own on vinyl.
Judy made her name as an interpreter of other people’s songs with her remarkable, beautiful voice and folkie phrasing. She also inspired Stephen Stills to write Suite Judy Blue-eyes for her, which is pretty neat.
This album is, as the kids say these days, right on brand. Classy performances of good material, well-arranged. By modern folk standards it is probably too well-arranged, a bit too classy, but that’s OK. I prefer my folk music to be a little closer to the soil than the recording studio, but this is a good album–probably the best of the three of hers that I own. It is also the album that gave the world her performance of Amazing Grace.
However, forget Amazing Grace: the glory of this album is one of my favourite performances of any ‘folk’ song ever, by anybody: her rendition of Farewell to Tarwathie accompanied only by the songs of Humpback Whales. The only other recording I know that uses whale song this well is Lisa Walker’s remarkable Grooved Whale, but that’s a very different kettle of cetacean.
As I say, I already have the album, but I saw a copy in out local charity shop for 25p the other day. Even if Ms. Collins is not your thing, it’s worth it for this:
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