“Here come The Crushed Velvet people”
There is a documentary here about The Incredible String Band.
It has a great comedic introduction and commentary from Billy Connelly (who was another character from another interesting group from Scotland at the time- The Humblebums along with Gerry Rafferty). He described them walking by and said…“Here come The Crushed Velvet people”
My opinion is they were The Beatles of the Folk world bringing in disparate influences both in music and in lyrics. As Richard Thompson said it was “World Music” before the term was coined. They also shook up the rather staid folk music scene on both sides of the Atlantic.
In the movie- The Boat That Rocked (in the UK Pirate Radio) there is a scene at the end where ship is sinking and the John Peel character dives down to retrieve the only record album that mattered. What does he come up with ? The Layers of the Onion album by The Incredible String Band.
A very unique group and one that people either really hated or really loved. I think mostly misunderstood by Americans of the time as they were thrown in (especially at Woodstock) with the likes of Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Jimi Hendrix etc. Big arenas and big sounds were simply NOT their venue. They needed smaller intimate places where like the Bards of the Celtic of Old they could weave tales of the real and the imaginary with lyrics about people being stabbed by a “sword of willow”.
Above-Their very first album which pre dates the psychedelia of latter albums but is still a solid piece of Folk music.
Above-Their second but most popular album with the famous cover
. The 5000 Spirits or The Layers Of The Onion.This one introduced Americans to them through the new fledgling Elektra Records. Many influential people heard it and this well known song from the album was covered by Judy Collins…
The First Girl I Loved.
Above-Their third album strangely titled The Hangmans Beautiful Daughter continued their popularity.
Above– number four was a double album (originally) called The Wee Tam and The Big Huge which was a magical Mystery Tour extravaganza of sounds and words which I think was their baroque period before (just my opinion) becoming less interesting.
Because Mixcloud does not allow multiple tracks from an artist
here and
here are my choice pieces in sequence of albums on Spotify.
Here is my Mixcloud collection of British Old Folkies which has many tracks by the ISB and The Humblebums and many others from the early British Folk Rock scene of the sixties seventies.
Also they were stalwarts at John Peel´s late night
Perfumed Garden show on Radio London in 1967.
Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Incredible_String_Band
YouTube: The Parts You Don’t Hear series on them
https://youtu.be/gv0n_s10Ktk
And on Scottish TV a brief history.
