My Top 50 Psychedelic Folk Albums

For FolkWorld’s fiftieth issue, the writer David Hintz offers in March 2013 a personal top 50 of psychedelic folk albums from the “classic psyche-folk era” of 1966 to 1982. He uses the term liberally: any folk album with elements of folk rock or progressive folk and a full or partly psychedelic sound and spirit qualifies. He sees the list as a snapshot in time; tomorrow it will change. He recommends Jeanette Leech’s Seasons They Change and Rob Young’s Electric Eden for further reading.

At number 46 stands John St. Field’s Control – the pseudonym is Jackie Leven. The short comment runs: Ian Rankin’s favourite musician was Jackie Leven, who had an interesting band, Doll by Doll. But it is this first effort that shines brightest, released under a mysterious pseudonym “due to various nefarious stories”. What the ‘nefarious stories’ refer to, the author does not say.

The placement, next to Tim Buckley’s Goodbye and Hello at 45, marks Control as a collector’s record of the psychedelic folk scene. The entry is brief but shows that Leven’s early album is regarded among genre connoisseurs as a discovery.