Going Where the Music Takes Me

Amazing is the only word that can possibly be applied to this triple-disc set devoted to the British folk-rock group Amazing Blondel — except that, strictly speaking, there's no "Amazing Blondel" material on this CD set. Rather, it's devoted to a wide sampling of virtually everything else that the three members did, separately and together, principally after the group's original run — but it also includes a delightfully melodious folk-rock track, "That's the Way Love Goes," by John David Gladwin's and Terry Wincott's 1967-vintage band, Gospel Garden. Everything else dates from various 1970s experiments and attempts at recording by Gladwin, Wincott, and Eddie Baird, most of which sound to a great degree like Amazing Blondel, all very English and most of it hauntingly beautiful. Disc three is an all-region DVD (mastered in NTSC for the U.S.-distributed edition) containing an extremely informative and good-humored interview by Jet Martin with the members of the trio, in which they range freely across their whole history, individually and collectively — it's remarkable to hear of their near-misses and brushes with the subsequently famous, including crossing paths musically with Jeff Beck and future Moody Blues producer Tony Clarke.