Rupert Hine – Pick Up A Bone (1971)

Another lesser-known genius.  I first bought his second album ‘Unfinished Picture’ from a couple of years later, not realising he had made an earlier album.  I have struggled over the years to find this debut album.  Rupert became a brilliant record producer after these two albums, occasionally joining others to form the band Quantum Jump and another collaboration called Spin 1ne 2wo.  He also released a handful of solo albums in the Eighties with incredible lyrics by Jeanette Obdtoj, and then as a fictional band ‘Thinkman’ in the early Nineties.  His albums are always complex and strangely beautiful and often challenging but ultimately very rewarding.  He died in 2020 but I have managed to get all his known recordings and he has a special place in my collection.  This album, his first, is quite folky really.  Best tracks ‘Landscape’, ‘Me You Mine’ and ‘BooBoo’s Faux Pas’.  Not for everyone I must admit, but eclectic and quite brilliant.