Jade

Despite garnering critical acclaim on its 1970 release, Fly On Strangewings – the only album by this Surrey folk trio – bombed and lay forgotten by all but a handful of collectors. Whatever the reason, it certainly wasn’t because of the songwriting.

Like Sandy Denny, Marianne Segal’s songs mined a rich seam of poetic introspection with cut-glass English restraint and tunes that hang around long after their conclusion.

Echoes of Denny’s Who Knows Where The Time Goes? abound on the title track, Fly On Strangewings, but harder to pin down is the intuitive way Segal’s band tease out the drama in her songs.

Alan’s Song, written to remember a friend who had recently died, is easily worthy of a young Cat Stevens.

But best of all is the yearningly pretty Fly Me To The North, which sounds not so much written as retrieved from the communal subconscious.

Following the release of the album, the group embarked on a tour of the US, where the LP was released in a single sleeve as by Silver Jade.

Sadly, no breakthrough occurred there either and the group petered out on their return to the UK at the end of 1971.