Gordon Haskell - 1969 - Sail in My Boat

Gordon Haskell

1969

Sail in My Boat

01. Boat Trip
02. Born To Be Together
03. Flying Home Tomorrow
04. Lawbreaker
05. All Since You Went Away
06. Oo La Di Doo Da Day
07. Time Only Knows
08. Better By Far
09. Some Other Day
10. Zanzibar
11. Slow Boat

Gordon Haskell: Guitar, Vocals

Gordon Haskell is usually thought of as a footnote in the history of King Crimson -- the only lead singer in the group's long list of personnel who never played a single live date with the band, though he was with them long enough to cut most of an album (Lizard) and get one performance ("Cadence and Cascade") onto its predecessor. Otherwise, he's been an enigma even to many Crimson fans.

Haskell's history with Robert Fripp goes back to the days they spent together in the mid-'60s as members of the League of Gentlemen, a band that backed various American R&B stars on tour and cut a couple of singles. Haskell was also a member of a Liverpool band called the Quotations, formed by ex-Big Three bassist Johnny Gustafson (before he joined the Merseybeats), who recorded for English Decca ("Alright Baby" b/w "Love You All Over Again") in 1964. His main group affiliation for most of the mid-'60s was the Fleur de Lys, a somewhat lightweight psychedelic band who recorded at least once under the pseudonym of Shyster. Haskell passed through the lineups of Rupert's People and Cupid's Inspiration, and, as a member of the Fleur de Lys, also played on records by Bill Kimber, John Bromley, Sharon Tandy, and Terry Durham. By the end of the '60s, he was a solo act, trying to establish himself as a singer/songwriter, and released a pair of singles in 1969 and 1970, "Boat Trip" and "Oh-La-Di-Doo-Da-Day," and one LP, Sail in My Boat, all for British CBS.

In 1970, as his former League of Gentlemen bandmate Robert Fripp was struggling to keep his current group, King Crimson, viable in some form and complete a second album, Haskell joined the band as successor to bassist/singer Greg Lake, who was leaving the lineup to join Emerson, Lake & Palmer. After singing on one song for that album, In the Wake of Poseidon, he joined a new Crimson lineup and recorded most of the next album, Lizard. As was often the case with Crimson lineups in those days, however, Haskell didn't last -- he and other members of the core band had left by the time Lizard was completed and released late in 1970, and he never worked live with the band.

Haskell cut a solo album, It Is and It Isn't, during 1973, and worked with such artists as Tim Hardin, Alvin Lee, and Van Morrison. His solo work tends to be in a folk-like, singer/songwriter vein, reminiscent of Gordon Lightfoot with something of a progressive rock edge and more humor, some of it very sardonic. Based in southern England at the end of the '90s, he concertized regularly in the Hampshire and Dorset areas, and he continued his recording career into the '90s with his albums Butterfly in China and Hambledon Hill. In 1993, he also teamed up with Mike Wedgewood (ex-Curved Air and Caravan) to tour Scandinavia. In the late '90s, Voiceprint Records' Blueprint label reissued Haskell's solo albums of the '60s and '70s on compact disc. The massively popular "How Beautiful You Are" hit British airwaves in the winter of 2001, announcing Haskell's comeback to music. Harry's Bar followed the next year, fully bringing him back into the public spotlight after years of inactivity. He later moved to a Greek island and proclaimed himself to be Greek, releasing the 2010 album One Day Soon under his newly adopted moniker of Gordon Haskell Hionides.

It's astonishing to think that as King Crimson was recording their monumental, groundbreaking debut album, Gordon Haskell -- who would join the Crimson lineup in 1970 -- was cutting this sappy, orchestrated piffle. The music on his debut album is pretty enough, but otherwise undistinguished. Haskell couldn't decide whether he was trying to be Justin Hayward or Jacques Brel, neither of whom was he suited to emulate. Haskell has a strangely breathy, un-nasal voice, oddly reminiscent of fellow King Crimson alumnus Pete Sinfield on his solo album Still. The music ranges from the syrupy ("Oo La Di Doo Da Day" to the melodramatic "Time Only Knows," and all the while Haskell's voice struggles to stretch its range. The only interesting cut here is the calypso-flavored "Zanzibar," which is at least diverting, if not exactly a classic piece of pop-rock. Only absolute King Crimson completists and serious Haskell fans need bother with the Voiceprint CD reissue of this genuine late-'60s rarity.

Hard to believe that a mere two years before joining the legendary prog behemoth King Crimson, Gordon Haskell released this saccharine, maudlin and exceedingly naive little album in 1969. I actually threw this album into the garbage when I first listened to it. A change of heart only occured after I considered how long I had waited for my CD through the monstrously slow shipping department of Voiceprint Records (who released this title on CD). On giving it this second chance, slowly (very slowly) it dawned on me that its very naivete and earnestness were assets rather than negatives.

In recent years Haskell has cultivated a more world weary persona (probably because in reality he IS a bit world weary, rightfully so) and his voice now reflects his decades long smoking habit, creating something of a milder version of the voice of Leon Redbone. But here, Haskell is a wide eyed lad singing in earnest sincerity lines like, "Rocking chair, oh rock me till I'm dreaming/Put me in the warm sunlight/Baker, bring me bread-your face so gleaming/So we might take a bite." And, "The squirrel disturbed our laughter, the robins are cheeky and tame/The bluebells we picked just after you said you loved me again..." Most of the album is written in this naive sub-par Burt Bacharach lyrical poesy and yet....and yet some of this stuff actually grows on you, maybe more like eczema than some stylin' threads but still, songs like "Better By Far" and "Zanzibar" are so infectious in their unaffected sincerity that you kind of get caught up in it. The set opener "Boat Trip" and album closer "Slow Boat" even convey nice evocative atmospheres with their dreamy, slightly haunting backgrounds.

I met Gordon Haskell back in 2001 and he asked me what my introduction was to his solo work. When I responded "Sail In My Boat" he winced. Before he could give me an excuse for such a "green" album I told him I actually liked it as I subsequently went on to buy his later work. And indeed, his later work is where YOU should start. A good anthology is "Harry's Bar" but "All In The Scheme Of Things" and "Butterfly In China" are stylish, mature and more jaded examples of what Haskell grew into after this sappy yet endearing fist set. Cringeworthy? Yes, at times. Laugh inducing? Oh yeah. Hummable and addicting? Yes as well. 

As an aside, the sound quality of the Voiceprint CD version is only just acceptable. It was seemingly mastered directly from a vinyl copy with some pops and hiss occasionally audible. Of course this isn't an album that warrants any re-mastering! A curio then, but one that can become oddly affecting through repeated listenings.