Over the years, BJH fans have either been well-served or well-fleeced, depending on how you look at the persistent rehashing of their pre-Polydor catalogue. Much of their fine pastoral post-1970 prog (and pop-psych before it) was repackaged in the 70s and 80s as numerous best ofs; as unissued material surfaced over the years, it was tagged onto their four Harvest studio album reissues and collections.
For those who aren’t completists but want the definitive overview of the pre- 1974 period, this 69-song set does the business. Shame that John Lees didn’t dust off unheard acetates in his cupboards, but all the non-album single sides are included, along with the long-players. Disc One has eight cuts from two BBC Top Gear sessions in 1968, highlights including the Mellotronic So Tomorrow, a less pysched-out Eden Unobtainable, the frantically-sung Night and an interesting take on the epic Dark Now My Sky, which gets short acoustic shrift. Disc Three revisits the seven bonuses of the classic Once Again, while there’s a five-song BBC session from July 1971 and a solitary April 1972 cut. The final, three-song BBC outing on Disc Five from that October has folkier versions of standards such as Delph Town Morn.
