Talking within the mid-Nineteen Seventies, singer-songwriter Bridget St John was conscious that her private musical golden age was over. “It’s not sufficient to make good data anymore,” she informed the Liquorice fanzine. “You’ve acquired to have a complete marketing campaign behind you.” A barely untogether free spirit, St John struggled to adapt to a extra bread-headed world, with this 3CD boxed set, stacked with unheard recordings, capturing the Nico-voiced bohemian’s curious and woolly makes an attempt to remain artistically upright in a time when being a John Peel present common was not fairly sufficient.
The poster woman of Peel’s Dandelion document label, the Surrey-born physician’s daughter carved out a distinct segment on the teacher-training-college-gig circuit on the flip of the Nineteen Seventies with a run of three winsome LPs: Ask Me No Questions, Songs For The Light Man and Thank You For…. Initially inspired to jot down by John Martyn (who she met whereas bunking off from her research at Sheffield College), her deep, reedy voice featured on Kevin Ayers’ Taking pictures At The Moon and Mike Oldfield’s Ommadawn as she turned a function of the post-psychedelic UK underground panorama.
Nonetheless, after Polydor pulled the plug on Dandelion in late 1972, occasions acquired much less groovy. St John recorded a one-off single for MCA, “Passing Through’”, earlier than a brand new supervisor, Steeleye Span hustler Jo Lustig, managed to snare her an album cope with Chrysalis. An exhausted Martyn cried off producing 1974’s Jumble Queen, however stand-in Leo Lyons did a stand-up job. The Ten Years After bassist’s delicate accompaniments and orchestral preparations (most notably on “Music For The Waterden Widow”) assist to make St. John’s final ‘correct’ album thus far maybe her finest.
There are shades of Ayers on opener “Sparrowpit” – named after the Derbyshire village St John had retreated to after splitting along with her husband – whereas the mournful “I Don’t Know If I Can Take It” may need been a business winner if Judy Collins had recorded it. Gawky whimsy helped to make St John’s early album’s cult favourites, however Jumble Queen has a extra weathered tackle love Nineteen Seventies type (which can clarify why it was enthusiastically reviewed by feminist journal Spare Rib).
“Final Goodnight” bridles on the limitations of open-door relationships (“if we made any guarantees we by no means wrote them down,” she sings sadly), and St John writes unashamedly about being the alternative of a hippie home momma on the unusual, stately title observe (“nothing is secure, I do know I’m unable to rise, the dishes are soiled, my palms are unclean”). Languid nearer “Lengthy Lengthy Time” affords some hope that love may one way or the other redeem all at a while sooner or later, however St John’s place – in love and life – was most likely higher summed up by her line on the Nick Drake-ish “Need To Be With You”: “Floundering in guarantees, holding on to desires.”
Within the quick aftermath of Jumble Queen, Chrysalis dropped her, whereas Elton John’s Rocket label flirted with choosing her up, solely to signal Kiki Dee. A notice from publicist Al Clark reproduced within the booklet accompanying this set exhibits that Virgin data boss Richard Branson was contemplating releasing St John’s dolorous take of Perry Como smash “Catch A Falling Star” (“A cassette of that is now in Richard’s possession and is being thought of with optimism… and warning,” it reads), however the cellphone name by no means got here.
St John may sensibly have stop then, however From There/To Right here exhibits how she discovered new impetus after an ill-starred romantic journey took her to New York in 1976. She discovered a brand new dwelling and group in Greenwich Village, taking part in and recording fitfully till the beginning of her daughter Cristy in 1983 modified her priorities. Honking Eighties sax maybe obscures the standard of the songs on the second disc (beforehand launched as Take The 5ifth), but when St John’s sleevenotes present her frustration at her incapability to land one other document deal (“I think about I had no MTV attraction,” she sighs) this assortment suggests she could have had extra enjoyable attempting and failing than she ever would have carried out succeeding. With trendy firebrands Steve Gunn and Ryley Walker now enlisting her as a collaborator, St John’s fuzzy cachet stays undiminished. In the long term, making good music was sufficient in any case.
