C.o.B

Clive Palmer was only in the Incredible String Band for one album before departing, and to most rock and folk fans vanished off the radar screen after leaving the ISB. However, the banjo player-singer did surface in the early 1970s as the leader of C.O.B., an acronym for Clive’s Original Band. On their first album, Spirit of Love (1971, CBS), the C.O.B. trio was completed by multi-instrumentalist John Bidwell and singer Mick Bennett, with some other musicians (including Ralph McTell) lending a hand on some tracks. The record is a surprisingly engaging piece of rock- and psychedelic-tinged British folk music reminiscent of the Incredible String Band at their most melodic. It rounds off some of the grating bent notes, vocals, and weirdness that both got the ISB some cred with psychedelic fans and annoyed others. C.O.B. also did a second album, Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart, in 1972 on Polydor.