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Joni Mitchell may not have been the biggest-selling singer/songwriter star of the early '70s, but her influence, particularly on women performers, can't be denied. As the title of this compilation indicates, the artists on this collection of mega-rare cuts by female singer/songwriters of the era are often in a Joni Mitchell mood. Confessional and narrative lyrics, predominant folky acoustic guitars, warm rolling piano, wide and sometimes swooping vocal ranges — all of those characteristics are here to some degree, even if only a few of the 14 tracks (especially Caroline Peyton's "Engram," Judy Kelly's "Window," and Barbara Sipple's "Song for Life") make the inspiration inescapably blatant. Also, to be frank, all of this has far less of an edge (and musical sophistication) than Mitchell's early work, and some of it treads close to the bland side, sometimes with awkwardly earnest lyrical homilies. Still, as an anthology of pleasant woman-sung mild folk-rock from the period with a slight aura of haunting mystery, this is pretty respectable. There's little spaciness on the order of cult artists like Linda Perhacs — Collie Ryan's reverb-swathed "Cricket" comes about the closest — though a few of the other tracks are a bit strange, like Shira Small's funk-jazz-inflected "Eternal Life," which boasts wildly optimistic cosmic lyrics. Another slight oddity is "Wildman" by Ginny Reilly, whose vocal is something like a combination of Mitchell's phrasing and Buffy Sainte-Marie's vibrato. All of these tracks are taken from scarce private pressings save Ellen Warshaw's closing cover of the Rolling Stones' "Sister Morphine," which is by far the hardest-rocking cut on the CD, and one of the best.



- allmusic.com



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Close your eyes and you could just as well be in a hazily lit club at Bleeker & MacDougal as a sun-splashed Laurel Canyon coffeehouse. But by the 1970s, folk music was the latter, a West Coast kaleidoscope of the spaced-out and serpentine, cross-pollinating a decade of music from the Byrds to Neil Young to Linda Rondstadt's Stone Poneys. Three decades later, this long overdue package of women in song--from California and elsewhere--compiles 14 virtually anonymous artists. While each artist merits a mention, here are the most deserving: ex-gypsy and Joni Mitchell sound-alike Caroline Peyton ("Engram"), who went on to sing in Disney movies; Carla Sciaky ("And I a Fairytale Lady"), with her pin-drop vocals and Boulder, Colorado, high school folk club; the ethereal voice of the late Mary Perrin ("Dedication"); and a 1970 selection from Illinois' Jennie Pearl ("Maybe in Another Year"), one of two performers whose whereabouts are unknown.



By 1970 the folk revival was all but over. Gone were the days of "Will The Circle Be Unbroken" and "If I Had A Hammer." Richard Farina was dead. Dylan plugged in. The sound that began in the hills and caught fire on the lower east side of Manhattan was now being reborn in the canyons of California. The fruits of folk’s second renaissance are collected here. Wedged beneath the infrastructure of the music business, playing in coffee houses and at church picnics. Deeper than recent crit-revisionist darlings Linda Perhacs, Judee Sill, or Vashti Bunyan, Ladies From The Canyon takes a solid look at folk’s private and obscure underbelly.



- amazon.com







Artist: Various Artists

Album: Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies from the Canyon

Date Of Release: 2006

Genre: Folk Rock, Singer-Songwriter

Bitrate: VBR --alt-preset extreme