Jan & Lorraine
Gypsy People

THE REVIEW

A lot of mystery surrounds the American female duo Jan & Lorraine, who produced only one beautiful album of psychedelic folk-pop, "Gypsy People," in 1969. Jan Hendin and Lorraine LeFevre (vocals, 6- and 12-string electric and acoustic guitars, piano, and organ) have an unclear origin in the United States; Detroit? Or Canada? They were supposed to come to London to the IBC Studios to record without American musicians in tow. Instead, with a cast of quite remarkable English musicians, at the service of these two "female hippies of the beach," but musically and technically gifted, they realized their only work, which presents all original pieces except for the title track "Gypsy People" by English guitarist-songwriters Daney Graham and Michael Chapman and the two "Break Out The Wine" and "Don't You Feel Fine" by Canadian Richard Keelan.

The work is a successful collection of stories with remarkable acidic potential, told with clarity of vision, without hesitation. We also remember the presence of Terry Cox (Pentangle) on drums and percussion as a session man. This album, later released only in America and Canada, is enveloped in an esoteric aura immediately noticeable from the stunning acid-tinged style cover designed by Connie Keelan. The introspective style with vague memories of Joni Mitchell's early works presents a constant and moody melancholy, which jumps from the decadent and nostalgic ballad for acoustic guitar and mellotron "Foolin' Myself" to the serene and suspended "Bird of Passage." The excellent melodic counterpoint of the two folk-singers in "Gypsy People" is supported by the oriental imprint on tamboura and tabla, for a virtual belly dance; the refined vocal dialogue of "Life's Parade" is stamped on a fresh rhythm marked by Brian Odgers's bass; the splendid delicate and ethereal "Snow Roses" takes us for a moment to wander through the English moors with unspeakable wonder. The driving rhythm of the long "The Assignment Song-Sequence" accompanies the doubled singing of the two musicians, which gives way to the trip mono-tone of only instruments in the second part of the piece. The arpeggios of "Number 33," paced with a metronomic tic-tac, frame the childlike singing of a boy, doubled in a feminine voice, one of the bizarre choices that confirms the psych-flower color scheme of all the ballads; at times, the accompanying arrangements are not easily identifiable but add enriching strangeness.

This album has in itself a completely American old fashion and a typically English new boldness. The few moments where we sense guitar chords so dear to groups like Pentangle and Fairport Convention, are juxtaposed with not too frontal melodic echoes of Jefferson Airplane and The Mamas and the Papas. We notice the refined singing of the two female singers playing by shifting from counterpoint to doubling, up to interposed or simultaneous dialogue, but it is essential to let ourselves be guided by the enigma of listening, to capture the secrets of this extraordinary work, and it is not easy to find other female testimonies (perhaps only in Linda Perhacs), for a folk-psych construct that takes advantage of these original stylistic choices, but this could perhaps happen because Gypsy People is a "nomadic" creature, born in the land of Albion. The interactive relationship between the two continents also leads to unusual and interesting results. We believe that the unknown "exiled" hippies, finding "asylum," fertile ground in that musically hospitable London, which was already looking ahead with the new language called "progressive," but did not at all disdain recovering the deserving "stylistic delays," expressed the peak of inspiration, in the service of what has become a true retro cult of American acid-folk.