60 albums
1970 - Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day

Like, I suspect, most people, my introduction to Vashti Bunyan was at the beginning of the 2000s rather than the beginning of the 1970s when this album was made.

Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day

The album is more than an album, it’s a story too, and one that’s told in Vashti’s lovely book Wayward. The story is of a two year long trek from London to the Outer Hebrides with a horse-drawn wagon, a dog, a guitar, and her then partner. The journey was mostly not as romantic as that sounds.

The album is beautiful… a Google search makes it clear that it is actually impossible to describe the album (and/or Vashti’s voice) without using the words “fragile” or “delicate” (About 24,400 results for your search ‘“Vashti Bunyan” “fragile”‘) - I could try but I’m not a wordsmith and fragile and delicate it mostly is.

I didn’t buy my physical copy until a couple of years ago, a nice 2019 reissue on clear vinyl and a lovely stiff gatefold sleeve but I was already very familiar with the record by then. After reading Wayward I felt the need to have a real copy. My copy sounds beautiful, I’d suggest more beautiful than the original 1970 release which sells for over £1000 whenever it turns up on Discogs.

Vashti gave up music for close to 30 years - “I didn’t even sing to my children” - partly because she heard Joni Mitchell singing Both Sides Now - “I thought I could never come close to that” - since her rediscovery she has recorded two lovely albums Lookaftering and Heartleap and some older stuff has also found its way out there. All achingly beautiful… and fragile!

Her book Wayward - Just Another Life to Live is also beautiful - it reads like her music plays - it is sprinkled with her lovely accompanying illustrations. My copy is signed although sadly not in person. She did do a Q&A in Newcastle around the time of release… but we were elsewhere.

Vashti Bunyan - Wayward

Look at that sleeve too, that’s why music should be released in big packages, and putting records in 12” gatefold sleeves is the very best way!