CARAVAN
If I Could Do It All Over Again I’d Do It All Over You/ Cunning Stunts DECCA/UMC
Canterbury classics get the 180g vinyl treatment.
While 1971’s In The Land Of Grey And Pink hogs a considerable portion of the spotlight in Caravan’s story, these new reissues remind us of the importance of 1970’s If ICould Do It All Over Again I’d Do It All Over You, establishing the groundwork crucial to their future growth and development as a band. Not only does Jimmy Hastings’ deft flute and sax become more integral on this album, but the band’s jazz-rock DNA also comes more clearly into focus. Along with the bucolic air represented by the cover and the whimsy of the title track, and Hello Hello’s nursery rhyme conundrums, the hard-edge palindromic riffing and increased instrumental muscularity of side two’s epic and ambitious For Richard suite posits a more confident template for what Caravan would do next.