A Maid in Bedlam is credited to the
John Renbourn Group, not to
John Renbourn alone, and that is an important distinction, since this is not another album of
Renbourn's acoustic guitar stylings. It really is the work of a group, consisting of
Renbourn on guitar and vocals, his
Pentangle partner
Jacqui McShee on vocals,
Tony Roberts on vocals and wind instruments,
Sue Draheim on vocals and fiddle, and
Keshav Sathe on tabla and finger cymbals. The song list consists of traditional British folk music dating back to the Renaissance, with three instrumentals mixed in with the vocal numbers and one -- the concluding hymn "Talk About Suffering" -- an a cappella performance. The most familiar number to contemporary listeners is likely to be "John Barleycorn," if only because of the
Traffic recording, and the
Renbourn Group is careful to present a different arrangement with an altered time signature. The arrangements are traditional, with the singers giving the words a madrigal feel. It's true that the tabla is not a traditional British instrument, but as
Sathe plays it, it resembles a bodhran enough to get by. Thus,
A Maid in Bedlam works as a collection of music that inspired the members of
Pentangle in their contemporary folk-rock, played by some members of that band and their associates. ~ William Ruhlmann