Album Notes

This 2nd edition is an eco gate-fold wallet (think mini double-lp) and included is a booklet with lyrics and photos. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ VOTED THE TOP 10 BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR: "In much needed times, there comes a CD, which you realize at the very first note, that pure beauty still exists. There are echos of Vashti Bunyan, Nick Drake, Pentangle and Bridget St. John. Courting Autumn is a melancholic and mystic masterwork. Brilliant!" - HEAVEN Magazine(The Netherlands) "A MOST BEAUTIFUL ALBUM...GENTLE AND SENSITIVE...UTTERLY LOVELY, SO SWEETLY POIGNANT...MADE ME SHIVER." - SHIRLEY COLLINS (UK) “SHEER BEAUTY… SHANNON’S GUITAR PLAYING HAS BEEN RIGHTLY COMPARED TO THAT OF BERT JANSCH AND THIS ALBUM EVOKES THE NEO-RENAISSANCE EXPLORATIONS OF BANDS LIKE PENTANGLE.” – SING OUT! (USA) "Pamela’s performing style is enchanting: she has an attractive singing voice, sensitive and responsive, seductively sweet-toned... Pamela’s voice is brilliantly complemented by her well-developed guitar playing, which is at the same time deftly intricate and hauntingly full-toned. She also has an acute ear for colouristic arrangement, conjuring some rich and uncannily persuasive chamber-folk tapestries...The combination of unusual instrumental detail and finely-honed poetic imagery provides some stop-you-in-your-tracks, neck-pricklinghighlights... All told, this is a very special, seriously beautiful album, which also has the measure of a personal artistic statement: one of considerable power, originality and vision. Serendipity’s a wonderful thing, and all’s well with the world after all…" - FROOTS MAGAZINE (UK) "An Absolutely Recommended Masterpiece!" - Gerald van Waes, Psychdelic Folk Homestead (Belgium) "Possessing a voice as sweet as a newly picked autumn apple and a beautiful finger-picking style to match, Pamela Wyn Shannon has created a faultless slice of folk magic that reveals new layers and textures with every listen...The more I listen to the album, the more I come to realise that it is this attention to detail that makes the album such a rewarding listen, the many layers of sound augmenting the songs with rare beauty, each song a flawless part of an impeccable whole...the magical “Pipkin”, one of the finest folk songs you will ever have the privilege to hear...a truly vintage album that all Terrascope readers should own." - TERRASCOPE, Simon Lewis (UK) "Pamela Wyn Shannon plays an interesting brand of pastoral, old world folk music. Calling on the traditions of Ireland and England, she crafts lushly orchestrated ballads deeply rooted in the natural world. Instrumentally, the album is quite impressive from start to finish." -Foxy Digitalis "Since the turn of 21st-century, American music has produced a surprising number of new, classically minded folk musicians. Unlike the sober workingman’s folk artists of the ’80s and ’90s, this new batch takes their inspiration from the starry-eyed, psychedelic music of the 1960s, all cosmic-minded bliss and submersion in the natural world. The reasons for this new movement are manifold, but most obvious among them are an overload with an increasingly corporate, mechanized, and war-mongering world. One of the least noted yet finest of these new folk musicians is the Massachusetts-based singer-songwriter Pamela Wyn Shannon. Emerging from a background in ’90s rock, Shannon found herself increasingly drawn toward more twinkling, organic sounds in the new millennium. She soon developed a captivating, cyclical acoustic guitar technique and began writing and performing songs of timeless grace and beauty. Her sophomore album, Courting Autumn, is a wonderful place to begin as it presents her music in its most gratifying context to date. The disc opens with lightly strummed acoustic guitar and a low airy flute, drawing into the song "O Bittersweet Dear Madeline." Singing a lifting, lolling melody that weaves in and out of her han