The Wildlife Album

They Say...

Review by Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

The idea behind this 21-song compilation was to generate funds and support for wildlife preservation, with all of the profits going to the World Wildlife Foundation and the Ulster Wildlife Trust. A dozen of the tracks were specifically recorded or commissioned for the album, and a half-dozen others were previously unreleased, with just three of the selections taken from albums that had already been issued (note that all three of those are "abridged," or edited, versions). Though there aren't many big names involved, and there's not a strong central musical or lyrical theme, it's a nicely diverse mix of sounds that are placid without being treacly. British folk and British folk-rock are the styles visited most often, which isn't a surprise, as compiler Colin Harper has often written about those genres, in addition to playing on and producing some such releases (a few of which are sampled here). Bert Jansch, Roy Harper, and Fairport Convention -- major British folk-rockers all -- are (along with Jan Akkerman) the most familiar artists, with Jansch contributing the instrumental "Blues for a Green Earth" (with Pentangle-ish glockenspiel), and Roy Harper, unusually, offering a spoken recitation of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky." But there are also ventures into classical-like pieces (Colin Harper himself composed the Dennison Quartet's "Passing Away: For the Dodo and the Great Auk"), blues (cult British blues-rocker's Duffy Power's "Sweet Again"), and lightly jazzy singer-songwriting, as well as a very infrequently covered George Harrison/Beatles tune ("Long, Long, Long," sung here by Janet Holmes). There's also a chronologically anomalous early-'70s hard rock track from the mighty obscure Leaf Hound (though this is one of the abridged cuts). Everything else, however, was done between 1995 and 2004, and usually recorded shortly before the CD's release in late 2004.