DAVE COUSINS (& THE BLUE ANGEL ORCHESTRA)

The Boy In The Sailor Suit

TStrawbs leader’s second solo album from 2007, remastered with live tracks.

he Boy In The Sailor Suit, Dave Cousins’ first solo album since 1972’s Two Weeks Last Summer, was recorded and mixed in a week and has a leanness and freshness about it. The band includes blues guitarist Miller Anderson – who played on its predecessor – and Strawbs stalwart Chas Cronk on bass, and it was produced by Chris Tsangarides, who is better known as a metal producer. Although there are a few big rock moments, like the sinuous riffing, Hendrixy rhythm guitar and wah-wah lead of Mother Luck, overall the music reflects the lyrical content of this particularly personal collection.

It begins with Never Take Sweets From Strangers, a tale of a one night stand with an enigmatic young woman, which has the feel of a straightforward autobiographical tale, until the denouement reveals that she was the ghost of someone killed in a hit and run accident. And although there’s nothing as uncanny on the rest of the album, Cousins delves deep into family, memory and history, particularly on The Smile You Left Behind on which he addresses a treasured photograph of his father who died at sea in World War Two – and which prompted the album’s title – set to acoustic guitar, with violin by Ian Cutler.

Wish You Were Here reeks of old ballrooms, but is a series of seaside postcard images both nostalgic and ribald, and features a sweet solo from Anderson. Hellfire Blues, an account of wartime bombardment near his home in Kent, is set a tough R&B stomp.

Cousins has denied that he was ever a folk artist per se, but Skip To My Lou, about the execution of smugglers, has a jig-like tune that sounds steeped in tradition, as does the hymnal Bringing In The Harvest, its melody bolstered by church organ played by Tony Attwood. Cousins was surprised to be reminded that the young Tsangarides was a tape op for Strawbs’ 1972 album Grave New World, and this song could have fitted on that album.