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Few words about Maggie's vocals on some old recordings: Jim Wilkie's The Waxer (1979), Maggie Reilly's As Tears Go By (1984), D.Greenfield's and J.J.Burnel's Rain&Dole&Tea (1983)


On Christmas 2007 Father Christmas dropped me three pieces of round vinyl things.  It contained Jim Wilkie's The Waxer, Maggie Reilly's As Tears Go By, and Greenfield's and Burnel's Rain & Dole & Tea. And ... I was wondering, why his beard was brown, not white as usual: just like a squirrel's tail.

In most songs of The Waxer Maggie sings backing vocals, she produces most of the volume of the choir (or perhaps all), few words solo or duet. In the end of The Wind Can she makes an instrumental solo. She sings, of course, but the solo is the kind of stuff you could play with a yelling guitar or some woodwind instrument. The solo seems to carry tremendous musical substance in it. Maggie starts far and thin, then she comes closer, unfortunately the fellow behind the mixer runs the volume dial in a bit clumsy, square way. The following Skye is Maggie's meditative, light and airy solo song with a salty breeze from the Atlantic. Anyway, Skye is not especially catchy song for those who are not devoted Maggie-fans. Sure, I wish Jim had let Maggie sing more. But News and Weather is delightful track to listen even with minimal contribution by Maggie.

This time it's not that whisky burnt grinder voice of Marianne, rather it's pure and ethereal voice of Maggie that sings As Tears Go By. I really love this song. And Maggie seems to cleave the note in two equal pieces, when she starts the high tone at exact pitch from the very beginning. Surprisingly, her tones can be high-pitch, soft and gentle at the same time. And when it's the time for instrument solo, Maggie tends to hum along, so, those who are thirsty for Maggie's voice, will have value for their money. Even the sound quality is reasonably good despite of  vinyl restrictions.

Maggie's voice has been treated into a metallic hue in Rain & Dole & Tea. Somehow,  everything just goes together and it makes quite a catchy song.  However, the lyrics are difficult to comprehend, even more than usual, but it seems, Maggie has trouble with some English boy and livelihood. The sound quality could be better and the vinyl is not the only culprit; the ancient production causes harm, too.

Syonara is perhaps the least interesting song among this collection, because Maggie has re-made it as Syonia on album Elena. The complex signal of Syonara wakes up all the bad habits of vinyl. It's not too bad to listen to and enjoy, but it can not avoid comparison with Syonia and the musical ideas have been further developed towards Syonia, too.  
 

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