Description
Label Review.
1974 album remastered with 6 bonus tracks. Produced by David Gilmour who also guests. Esoteric.
Our Overview.
Mining the vein where late 1960s folk rock intersects with early 1970s country rock yields some bona-fide gems from bands like Buffalo Springfield, Crosby, Stills Nash & Young, Poco, The International Submarine Band, The Flying Burrito Brothers, etc. But in veering from U.S. soil and digging a little deeper around similarly inspired U.K. bands from the same time, things get a little more interesting. 1974’s Blue Pine Trees was Unicorn’s sophomore album, and arguably their best.
David Gilmour recalls: “Unicorn were playing at the wedding reception of an old friend of mine, Rick Hopper, when I first saw them and while I was impressed by their vocal harmonies, their tightness and the fact it wa the drummer that sang the lead vocals, it was the songs themselves that I liked the best.Ken Baker’s songs while firmly seated in the American country rock genre had a very original and unusual wry English feel in the stories that they told. The one that made me notice was “Sleep Song”, about a trip to the dentist. Not a common subject for a popular song.
Largely on the strength of this I invited them to my tiny home studio in Essex to record some demos. This was the start of an association that was to cover two and a half albums over the next couple of years.
Gilmour helped to get them a record deal with EMI's Harvest label and wound up producing and playing on the album. He also covered one of Baker's songs on his debut solo album from 1978.