Numero Group 
Catherine Howe : What a beautiful Place (UK,1971,re.2006)****
While rock and pop most often focuses on the front people, there was a time when great orchestras and fine arrangers were much in demand and fully appreciated. Graduay they were pushed more and more into the background, while orchestra records now are more often associated as being of minor importance and for second hand shopping for pennies, and with easy listening kitsch. But times have been different. Catherine Howe must have had the right feeling and connection for this. Besides, her favourite record was Burt Bacharach’s “the look of love”. Through CBS, she came into contact with the manager of their independent partner from Reflection Records, Andrew Cameron Miller. He immediately understood the idea, and invited the, in that time, musical director and arranger, -now more known as a jazz man-, Bobby Scott, to be the producer. Bobby Scott is a man, who, once with the idea, was completely dedicated and a perfectionist. The arrangements for the album made the album in fact a really perfect and beautiful to listen to musical concept, where the songs almost fit in with the music, (and not the reverse), and work like one harmonious pair. Scott’s idea to add a prologue (with spoken word on orchestrations), an interlude and an epilogue gives you the feeling there has only been one big composition.
No less an orchestra than the London Symphony Orchestra was hired, with some session musicians, like Stan Gorman on drums, Mike Ward on bass, Lance D’Owen on guitar. The costs were high and the project was ambitious, but the unexpected happened: CBS didn’t want the album, so only a few copies were print for media purposes. The critics were very positive, but some unrelated problems of the manager with the boss of the company meant that with the final departure of Miller, the album had to go with him. It took four years but then Paul Rich heard the recordings of the first LP. He offered her a new deal for RCA, which would lead to her next album, “Harry”...
BGO Rec. Catherine Howe : Harry / Silent Mother Nature (UK,1974 & 1976,re.2006)***°
To understand Catherine Howe's music, for me, is a bit more difficult matter, trying to grab the whole range of what it expresses, because, compared to most artists from those days, especially the rock and psychedelic artists stand more for being expressions of the "youth" of its times, with their own direct renewal, which is more easy to understand considering how we look back to these days, as to the direct reference of the late '60s to mid '70s potential. Catherine Howe however, is more like a mature resume of what is achieved in culturally linked ideas that could be felt more deeply in those days, in England (from literature, theatre, television, and music from various genres that were considered as being serious these days). All this is now expressed in songs that reveal that kind of matured vision from a distance. While I mentioned a fondness of Bacharach in her first album, in the booklet of this reissue are mentioned other references that developed her visions, certain specific songs from the Four Seasons, Gene Pitney, Del Shanon, Moody Blues, Crystals : mostly names that I still neglected to get acquainted with, to get a detailed enough idea now.
* “Harry” :
The accompaniment on "Harry" is really different compared to her début 4 year previously. While on the debut album, the music was one strong harmony, here the focus is on the songs, and the music is a compromise of studio arrangements. With such a fundament, where the studio ballgame decides what is best for the songs, this always depends a bit on the people involved on whether it is successful or not, and will always have the risk to lose a bit of the natural process in creativity. With her voice a bit more on the fore, I also realise that her specific voice, for big public appearances, in commercial terms, might not be the strongest voice you can imagine, (because certain songs tend to sink her moods into a background mist, with a beautiful and fresh melancholy), but it is her inevitable charm in her kind of soulful voice, its appearance with a background maturity, and luckily once more the well done string arrangements (even different in approach and sound to the first album) that bring these songs to a different, rich and harmonious reality. Some songs have adapted elements from mainstream pop and rock, while others have the already mentioned uplifted and rich romantic melancholy. "Harry" is such an extremely romantic song, about an ideal love (imaginary, of course ;), a song which was easily recognised by listeners in their heart, and which also made it to wider recognition, but similar feelings are also sensible in many other songs. "Harry" is a really fine album to listen to, even whilst it has a few more time-related and more mainstream arrangements in some of the songs, they luckily never spoiled this collection.
* “Silent Mother Nature” :
This third album has the most convincing collection of studio arrangements. Also in the few more rocky tracks, they succeed to make her voice come out best, and are done convincingly well. This album, in a rather "soulful" poprock singer-songwriter, style still has something inevitably English, (even when trying to reach the international style levels), and at times, especially on the calmer tracks, I am reminded of the Sandy Denny evolution from folk into the pop territory. The songs from Catherine always have a soulful character, but on this album, it is slightly pushed and speeded up in energy towards these soulful expressions, which tend to make her stay singing in more higher registers a bit longer. I personally think that it is the calmer songs, that reveal a slight melancholic character but also warmth, that her soul essence had already the full range of strength of her temperament with everything it needed. Another, enjoyable album, with its own qualities.
