RNR Magazine
By Boff Whalley
Five stars, all the way. Anything less would be ridiculous: it would be a submission to the media dickheads that constantly tell us what we ought to like and what we ought to be listening. This is Leon Rosselson, with a hand-picked selection (by Rosselson himself) of not-hits, a quick trawl through a lifetime of agitprop musical storytelling and beautifully crafted songwriting.
I could refer you to Robb Johnson’s perfect sleeve notes that accompany this release – they stand as a beautiful summing-up of Rosselson’s musical impact and legacy. But in the meantime (before you rush off and buy it), a quick summary: a single CD release spanning a sixty-year career and including some stuff you might know (the seminal ‘The World Turned Upside Down’, the almost-hit ‘Ballad Of A Spycatcher’, the awkwardly brilliant ‘She Was Crazy, He Was Mad’, the deliciously sacrilegious ‘Stand Up For Judas’) and some stuff you might not know (which I won’t list in brackets). In short, it’s all good.
I’ve followed Rosselson’s career as a dan since the early 80s, and it’s been an honor to hare an occasional stage with the man. Not least at once of the anti-capitalist Occupy London demonstrations in our capital, where Leon asked if he could borrow my crappy acoustic guitar to sing some songs. And then here we are a decade later, and there on the cover of this CD…is the man himself pictured playing my guitar. Job done.
