Various - Separate Paths Together: An Anthology Of British Male Singer/Songwriters 1965-1975 (CD)

Three CD set. In 2017, Grapefruit released Milk Of The Tree, a highly-acclaimed compendium of female singer/songwriters active during the late '60s/early '70s. Having covered the distaff side of the genre, we now provide a companion piece to that set with Separate Paths Together, a similarly detailed examination of the post-Dylan, pre-punk British male singer/songwriter scene during a time when, to quote the late Dave Cartwright, "a man with a guitar could play to hushed audiences hanging on every word and make a damn good living". As our anthology proves beyond any doubt, the singer/songwriter branch of the Sixties/Seventies rock family tree was rather more eclectic than received wisdom might suggest, housing such disparate bedfellows as Peter Hammill and Gilbert O'Sullivan, Kevin Ayers and Peter Skellern, Richard Thompson and Leo Sayer. In addition to the above names, we feature such key figures from the scene as Al Stewart, Donovan, Ralph McTell, Michael Chapman, John Martyn, Bert Jansch and Gerry Rafferty while also exploring the roads less travelled with a host of more obscure, collector-friendly acts. Housed in suitably evocative artwork and a stylish clamshell box design, Separate Paths Together provides a wide-ranging, four-hour overview of the pop stars, the club folkies, the rock band refugees, the stoned poets, the political agitators, the wry humorists and the bedsit bards that came together to make up a vibrant, multifaceted scene. With a dazzling array of hit singles, key album tracks, cult favourites, buried treasure and glorious one-offs, Separate Paths Together recalls a lost era via tales of love and pain, of childhood memories and adult disillusionment, of beautiful strangers and family men, and, perhaps most poignantly of all, of time past and time passing.