It's A Beautiful Day double CD

* * * * ½

Back to '69 for the debut, eponymous album by It's A Beautiful Day coupled with their second "Marrying Maiden".  This one comes even more austerely packaged than the EMI Al Stewart double CD reviewed here.  To be fair, one cannot blame the record company for this - the packaging declares that: "Due to legal problems we are unable to reproduce the original artwork for either of the albums featured on this double CD.  However the music featured on both albums remains unchanged".  Allegedly there is a long running legal dispute with a former manager of the band.  It's a bit lazy for label Sony not to have come up some suitable artwork though.  How difficult would it have been to find a photo of the band or devise some suitable hippy art?  Surely Sony have an Art Dept?  You can find the fabulous real artwork on the net of course:

This is the iconic cover art of the first It's A Beautiful Day album.  Clearly inspired by Maxfield Parrish, rather like the Barclay James Harvest album reviewed here

 and this is the second album "Marrying Maiden"

and so is this!  I guess if you were really wicked you could print yourself some artwork to liven up the cheapo drab (almost punk) packaging that Sony have come up with.

 Current packaging is dull.

Musically, the first album is a total five-star classic.  Surely, everyone must know "White Bird", a classic San Francisco '60s groove led by David LaFlamme's violin and vocal.  Classics like "Girl With No Eyes", "Hot Summer Day" and "Wasted Union Blues" are here along with "Bombay Calling", later ripped off by Deep Purple for the song "Child In Time".

The second album is more varied and can come across as patchy.  Only four stars for this one then.  So for the double CD I reckon four and a half stars is fair.  One little secret the record company might not want you to realise is that both albums fit comfortably on one CD.  Indeed, research on the web shows that the albums have been issued in this format at least once before.  Anyway, two CDs is fine as the price is right.  I can't see this set remaining in print for long, so get it while you can.