Although
Jimmy Campbell's 1969 LP
Son of Anastasia was his first full-length release, he'd been on the Liverpool rock scene since the mid-'60s as part of the Merseybeat band the Kirkbys, and then the more psychedelic outfit
23rd Turnoff. While
Son of Anastasia contained a few songs he'd recorded in released and unreleased versions in the
23rd Turnoff days in 1967, it was a marked change in direction for
Campbell, in his style if not his songwriting. For
Son of Anastasia is largely a folky, acoustic album, occasionally venturing into orchestrated folk-pop, even if
Campbell is more a pop/rock songwriter than a folk one.
Campbell's slightly moody yet catchy melodies, as well as his drolly understated lyrics, mark him as perhaps the best '60s Liverpool rock songwriter never to have a chart record; his likably fragile voice can sound like a cross between
Robin Gibb and
Cat Stevens, with perhaps a pinch of post-'60s
Marianne Faithfull scratchiness. It's an attractively introspective record laced with some bittersweet irony, but the combination of bare-bones and lightly orchestrated arrangements doesn't always ideally suit the material. Some of the songs with nothing or little more than guitar backing sound a little like demos that could have done with fuller treatments; the ones with orchestral arrangements are sometimes a bit dated, and, in the case of "On a Monday," more than a little derivative of
Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe." Worse, occasionally riffs are taken by what sound like either kazoos or someone (
Campbell?) trying to imitate a trumpet with mouth noises, which not only adds an unappetizingly vaudevillian flavor, but leaves the impression that there wasn't enough budget allotted for proper instrumentation. Still, most of the songs here are good, particularly the arch but quite catchy "Another Vincent Van Gogh" (the track that comes closest to actual folk-rock), "Lyanna," and "Lovely Eliza Cope Is Dead" (where the early
Cat Stevens similarity is strongest). Best of all is the gloriously melancholy "Michaelangelo," which
Campbell had done in an all-out psychedelic version of part of
23rd Turnoff, but which sounds quite lovely as a stripped-down acoustic tune here. ~ Richie Unterberger