Black Balloon

Celtic music, classical, and tunes created by John Renbourn. John Renbourn is a master of the guitar. On this album he plays an acoustic guitar and sometimes is accompanied by a flute player. Very beautiful music. Calming. You can listen to it and pay attention closely to catch every phrase, or it is also wonderful as background music such as while you're having a meal. This is guitar music only, no voice.

If you loved the A side of Sir John Alot you'll love this too. How lucky for us that this man spent much of his adult life researching, recreating, and interpreting the sounds of medieval and renaissance music. Rest in peace sweet prince.

Beautiful!

Good

Renbourn is always going to calm and sooth you now matter what set your day off balance. Great to chill by.

It was about 2:30 a.m. on a long forgotten date in 1979 I heard on a radio in the other room, just faintly, music that seared into my unconscious. The DJ paying freeform on WHFS, back announced it as from an album named Black Balloon. It was decades before I ever found it. The track: Medley: The Mist Covered Mountains of Home / The Orphan / Tarboulton.The entire album is exceptional music. Sample it first; if you like world class Celtic folk guitar music, influenced subtly by the blues, with both pure acoustic and electric elements as well as fabulous flute fantasies, then you need this album.I learned today John Renbourn moved into Eternity recently. We have lost a genius, but his heart and soul inhabit his recorded music. Buy it; celebrate it. I am listening to it right now as I write, still astonished.

On this collection of mostly solo instrumentals (Renbourn is occasionally joined by flute and tabors), the listener is treated to a series of folk pieces--the last three all in excess of seven minutes.The liner notes get a bit technical for this listener. For example, of the opening track we are told: "After establishing the theme in sedate quarter-notes, it launches into a fascinating set of variations in typical Elizabethan manner, moving into progressively more animated figurations in slightly altered harmony. At the fifth variation, the theme migrates beneath lively motifs in the upper voice in eighth--and sixteenth notes, before introducing fresh but related material leading to a closing restatement of the original theme intact." I think what that really means is that Renbourn plays some of the most amazing fingerstyle guitar you're ever likely to hear.In addition to his solo albums, Renbourn has recorded a series of duo albums with former Pentangle bandmate Bert Jansch as well as with American Stefan Grossman, all of which are worth seeking out. If you enjoyed the folk music of Pentangle or the John Renbourn group, but are more interested in simply hearing Renbourn's unadorned guitar playing, this album is an excellent introduction. RECOMMENDED

Although The Hermit is a close contender, I would claim this to be Renbourne's finest album, and this from a man who has a respectable body of work behind him. This is an instrumental album displaying the virtuosity of Renbourne's guitar playing. The dazzling display of fingerwork shown on all these tracks would impress a Segovia or a Bream, with whom, to these ears at least, I would not hesitate to place him. The first three tracks are stately baroque pieces played without accompaniment. The final two tracks are composed by Renbourne and have a lovely accompaniment by a flutist and, through the use of double tracking, Renbourne on electric guitar. In case you think the use of an electric guitar clashes with the acoustic purity displayed elsewhere, the playing is so masterly that he manages to make it sound like the most natural thing on earth.The Black Balloon is a thing of beauty from the opening note to the last. For fans of the acoustic guitar, I recommend it whole-heartedly.