Gather Me

Product Information

Buddha was a relatively new label that had been spun off Kama Sutra Records (which had made it with the Lovin' Spoonful), when its distribution deal with MGM ended. It opens with Little Bit of Me a sincere explanation of why she can't be constantly touring and recording. My Favorite album from Melanie's stint with Buddha Records, All great songs, with a lot of complex arrangements.

It's unfortunate that this should become, for many, her definitive album, because it's really not one of her best. She enthused at the time that it was her best album yet (which should always be taken with a pinch of salt), and that it was the first album she was entirely happy with, and one that reflected exactly where her head was at, at the time! For this listener, the biggest problem with the album is a more mundane one - there's too much religious content.This is an early classic from the folk scene in the States, which, of course, is very different from the UK music scene involving folk music. But then, the "God stuff" keeps cropping up where you least expect it - not only in the album's coda (a song which may date from the 1900s), but implicitly in "Some Say I Got Devil" and "Railroad", and explicitly in "Center of the Circle", the longest of those seemingly-unfinished songs which fortunately is rescued by arranger Roger Kellaway - who unexpectedly converts it into a wild flight of fancy, a chamber-pop tour-de-force. If Melanie has always been anxious not to be defined by her religious affiliation (which has changed over the years), and in later years has regarded herself as a secular humanist first and foremost, you'd never know it from listening to this!

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The whole album presents a grown up Melanie with a interestingly wide range of material and the same intensity that marked her earlier albums and along with her sincerity was a defining characteristic. Some Day (I Got Devil) has the Spanish guitar intonations and sound as well as the same passion found in her song Tuning My Guitar, from the Melanie LP. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. You could debate whether Candles In the Rain or Gather Me was Melanie's best album but I think fans would agree that they are together her best albums.The only negative being the lyrics with Melanie at times, explaining what a great person she is, which can be a little irritating. After I finish recording, I never listened back maybe if I had I might’ve known but I was on to the next thing I was working on.

To his credit, label head Neil Bogart promoted her relentlessly and also left her style be her own rather than trying to make her a bubblegum princess. Melanie always sounds so sweet, and even her version of protesting usually involves badges and light words rather than the more usual shouts and taunts by bare-chested young men.The album also features the singles “Some Day I’ll Be a Farmer” and the Top 40 hit “Ring the Living Bell”. Ring the Living Bell is arranged in a roots music fashion with an opening that sounds like it could have been recorded by a raw group in the Appalachian Mountains, before it shifts into more of a pop vein. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Allmusic stated that the album "is one of her most accomplished and confident albums, a set that allowed Melanie the room to indulge her lyrical obsessions while Schekeryk created superb musical accompaniment from her simple but forceful melodies. However, this is a great album beyond the popular "I've got a brand new pair of roller-skates" song, and the quality of the vinyl was excellent.

The album also features the singles "Some Day I'll Be a Farmer" and the Top 40 hit "Ring the Living Bell". I have a very well-worn vinyl copy of this album, and I have a feeling I’ll be spinning the digital version just as much.My personal favorite is the melancholy Railroad, an intimate, confessional song with a nice arrangement of strings, guitar and winds. Gather Me was Melanie's first album on the Neighborhood label which was founded by herself with her husband and manager Peter Schekeryk (to whom she stayed married until his death in 2010). It was such an unexpected surprise when I listened back to Brand New Key, Living Bell, Some Say, and I look at the girl I was. Non-personalized content and ads are influenced by things like the content you’re currently viewing and your location (ad serving is based on general location). Buddah never did forgive Melanie for this and continued to dog her career by releasing old, in-the-can songs right around the time she'd release new songs on Neighborhood.