Even if elusive vocalist Vashti Bunyan had only given the world her wistful 1965 single “Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind” (penned by a couple of up-and-comers named Jagger and Richards) that would have been enough. Sure, Bunyan didn’t have Dusty Springfield’s fulsome pipes, but her whispery work has turned out to be just as influential–though she had to wait longer to be rediscovered.
Her revival revolves around her Joe Boyd-produced album Another Diamond Day which wasn’t a hit when it was released in 1970, but has grown in stature to the extent that she has started recording again after a three decade-long absence. Her collaborations with fans Devendra Banhart and Animal Collective (see the Prospect Hummer EP) led to the release of full-length follow-up Lookaftering in 2005.
Then as now, Bunyan wasn’t a traditional folkie, like Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny, but she wasn’t a conventional pop singer, either. For inspiration, she looked to Dylan and Donovan. As she explains in the liner notes, “I wanted to bring quiet acoustic music into mainstream pop.” Like Nick Drake, she had feet in both camps, and it’s worth remembering that the troubled troubadour of “Pink Moon” fame also had difficulty mustering up an audience in the ’60s. By contrast, Bunyan had Stones manager Andrew Long Oldham on her side, and he did his bit to spread the word, even securing an appearance for her in Peter Whitehead’s epochal Tonite Let’s All Make Love in London (she sings 1966 single “Winter Is Blue”). Fortunately, Bunyan didn’t give up hope when she failed to follow contemporaries like Marianne Faithfull (another Oldham client) into the charts. She simply retired to Ireland to raise a family.
This 25-track set assembles singles, demos, and home recordings, most of which have been hidden away for 44 years (the latter stored in her brother John’s attic). Notable selections include “Train Song,” which anticipates Kendra Smith’s paisley-patterned folk-pop, and “17 Pink Sugar Elephants,” a surprisingly poignant tribute to a children’s confection. Better late than never–every track, from the fully orchestrated A-sides to the low-fi guitar-and-voice sketches, is the essence of enchantment.