Midwinter - The Waters Of Sweet Sorrow (1973)

Studio Album, released in 1993


 This album is a chance oddity offered by Paul Corrick and Ken Saul who would later form the only slightly more modern Stone Angel. The other dynamic here is the almost angelic and medieval-sounding Jill Child. As the story goes Corrick and Saul recruited Child to lend a voice for a local show, which later turned into a couple years of sporadic live appearances before Child left to pursue an education.

Too bad, because this is a charming bit of old Anglo-inspired folk music that would have yielded the group a modest career had they chosen to hang on. There’s no drums here and very little rhythm to speak of; instead, the trio employ mandolin, recorder, Jews harp, dulcimer, acoustic guitars and a banjo for an altogether timeless sound that should appeal to just about any fan of folk music. There’s an electric bass for some reason, but otherwise these songs would have been more at-home a hundred years or more prior to the seventies.