Paul Lake of The Chemistry Set has produced a nice slice of nostalgia from his youth in the shape of Traffic’s ‘Mr Fantasy’ and he has done it proud; I might even prefer it to the original version! The guitar solo made me think of the great solo on 10Cc’s ‘Feel the Benefit’ for some reason (a welcome recollection) and, for me, it could have gone on longer. The 12-string at the start was a nice touch as well. In case you’re wondering, there’s no sax but Paul’s wife Helen’s recorder does a grand job in place of Chris Wood’s flute. Less familiar to me is Paul’s cover of the B-side of ‘Jumping Jack Flash’, ‘Child of the Moon’ (loved the owl at the start), right down to Brian Jones’s Hammond organ break, adding in a fluid guitar run of his own invention, and also adding to the authenticity of his version by playing some sitar. Kudos too for Tom Savage whose drumming propels things along nicely. Paul says his personal approach to recording cover versions is to accentuate rather than replicate and, with these two songs, he has certainly succeeded. The lathe-cut single will be on sale in December and is available for pre-order now.
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