Music Box

"Songs Of Sunshine" 1972





















On first hearing Songs of Sunshine by British outfit Music Box, you could be forgiven for thinking of it as an album out of its time when it originally appeared in 1972 on the obscure Westwood label. Wasn't this the era of volume & arenas? Echoes of the mid '60s folk rock boom, and whimsical lyrics with a twist of Dylan (his "Tom Thumb's Blues" is the only non-original song on the album) were perhaps at odds with the sounds of that era. Whatever the reasoning, the album quickly disappeared... shame. Here is an album about a more intimate, predominantly acoustic music. Flutes, chimes, and gentle organ sounds. It spins tales of faraway lands, sand, sea, castles, kings, queens and even Peter Pan. Bet you thought only Donovan made 'em like that? Songs of Sunshine is incense & innocence, folk rock 'n' flowers! Well played, tastily arranged... and overlooked. But that was then, and things change.... we're now probably far enough away for the mid '60s to be the early '70s anyway, and if you can remember those times, well, you weren't there, as the saying goes...or something like that.