Michael Chapman - Rainmaker 1969

In 1969 British singer/songwriter Michael Chapman took the U.K.'s folk-rock world by surprise with his debut album, Rainmaker, on the Harvest label. In an era when each week garnered a new surprise in the music world, gathering serious and widespread critical acclaim wasn't easy, and finding a buying public near impossible. Rainmaker showcases a new talent who holds nothing back for himself. Every songwriting principle and trick, killer guitar riff, and songwriting hook in his bag makes an appearance here (something he would never do again). As a result, there are several truly striking things about the album that makes it stand out from the rest of the Brit folk-rock slog from the late '60s. One of them is Chapman's guitar playing. A true stylist in his own right, he holds a middle line between John Martyn and Bert Jansch with the provocative electric rock funkiness of Martyn juxtaposed against the rock solid folk traditional so wonderfully espoused by Jansch. Another is Chapman's lean, carved, sleek lyrical style, preferring the starkness of poetry to the lush elements of the song styles usually found on records of this type. Both are put to fine use on the opener, "It Didn't Work Out," a gorgeous broken love ballad with a philosophical bent, along with Chapman's doleful resigned vocal; the electric guitars cascade over fingerpicked acoustics, and acoustic and electric basses courtesy of Rick Kemp and Danny Thompson. Here, the old-English melody style was welded to a rock backbeat and fused into a whole, rhythmic, elegant, but sparse tale of broken love. The fiery emotions were carried through the measures by Chapman's tumultuous guitar leads. allmusic.com

Tracklist:
01.It Didn't Work Out
02.Rainmaker
03.You Say
04.Thank You P.K. 1944
05.No-One Left To Care
06.Small Stones
07.Not So Much A Garden - More Like A Maze
08.No Song To Sing
09.One Time Thing
10.Sunday Morning
11.Goodbye To Monday Night
12.It Didn't Work Out, Single Version
13.Mozart Lives Upstairs
14.Mozart Lives Upstairs, Part 2
15.On My Way Again
16.Bert Jansch Meets Frankenstein

Musicians:
Michael Chapman - Guitar, Guitar (Acoustic),Vocals
Clem Clempson - Guitar (Electric)
Richie Dharma - Drums
Alex Dmochowski -    Bass
Aynsley Dunbar - Drums
P. Harold Fatt - Guitar
Norman Haines - Organ
Rick Kemp - Bass
Barry Morgan - Drums
Danny Thompson - Double Bass
Johnny Van Derek - Violin