Judy Henske - Judy Henske & High Flying Bird (Reissue, Remastered) (1963-64//2001)

Henske's two Elektra records albums from 1963 and 1964, respectively, remastered and packaged together in a narrow double jewel case with new notes. The sound is sterling, and Elektra has never released an album as funny as Judy Henske. Henske belts out numbers that most folksingers of the period approached gently and reverently, as though they'd break -- her introductions to and descriptions of the songs are nearly as valuable as the singing (and sometimes better than the songs themselves) and the arrangements, acoustic guitar and bass with harmonica and the occasional presence of a trombone, interspersed with some brassy orchestrations. This wasn't the G-rated side of the folk revival, either, as Henske makes more mentions of sex, whores, whorehouses, and other subject matter not suitable for children than one usually heard on records from this period. High Flying Bird offers a somewhat more restrained presentation, without the same level of humor and, generally, more conventional blues arrangements -- Henske does a version of the title-track that blows the Jefferson Airplane's rendition right out of the sky, and she may give us the most distinctive performance of "Columbia Stockade" this side of Darby & Tarlton's early-'30s recording, interspersed with works by Hoagy Carmichael and Billie Holiday. The sound on both discs is a wonder, stripping off decades of age and compensating for the old, relatively noisy vinyl pressings from Elektra (on top of which, this reviewer never found a used copy of either of these LPs, both long out of print, that wasn't too worn to be playable). The annotation is revealing and funny and covers most of Henske's life and career in greater detail than heretofore was known.