American Baroque – Chamber Pop and Beyond 1967-1971 – CD – Ace

The heyday of American baroque pop - or chamber pop - ran from 1966 to the turn of the seventies. It used string quartets, harpsichords and woodwinds to create a summer-into-autumn melancholy that was quite new, and quite far removed from rock’n’roll as Eddie Cochran would have known it. Baroque pop’s musicians often came from a folk background, with an affinity for acoustic instrumentation. Linda Ronstadt's first band the Stone Poneys had introduced the autoharp to their line-up in 1965, while the likes of Bonnie Dobson and Nico experimented with string quartets, searching for different, post-electric Dylan directions.