Harvey Andrews - The Margarita Collection (2003)

Tracklist
01. Margarita
02. Bruges
03. Dear Miss Allyson
04. Cheeky Young Lad
05. PG
06. Yesterday´s Bread
07. Songs That Harry Wrote
08. Long Ago, Far Away
09. Learning The Game
10. Please Don´t Get On The Plane
11. Pinball
12. She Saw Him Smile
13. Lot 204

Although if you count yourself any sort of self-respecting folkie and admirer of British singer-songwriters you’ll already have Harv’s Margarita and PG albums, this new compilation provides the best of both in one handy package, reissued here with a new annotated lyrics booklet in which he provides a thumbnail sketch of the song’s background.

They’re a mix of the poignant, the personal and the political, ranging as they do from Yesterdays Bread (an indictment of the way we neglect our old folk inspired by a story of a shop selling stale loaves to pensioners) and Cheeky Young Lad (a lament for society’s decline) to Long Ago, Far Away (a memoir of his first love) and Margarita, a moving tale of his aunt Annie who having gone blind was unaware that the photo of her fiancé, killed in the Great War, had faded in its frame.

Dear Miss Allyson is a gentle love song to a screen pin-up and one of three numbers about his own heroes, Songs That Harry Wrote being a nod of the inspiration hat to the late great Harry Chapin (Lot 204 a perfect example of the way Harvey emulates that storytelling style) while Please Don’t Get on the Plane refers to the crash that killed Buddy Holly. Which neatly brings mention of the bonus track, Harvey’s version of Buddy’s Learning the Game, originally released as a single back in 1973.

One day there’ll be a full career retrospective, but for now this is a highly replayable snapshot of part of it.

DOWNLOAD ALBUM [mp3]

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