“You Can All Join In” – Front Cover (1) | Listentomusicanywhere's Blog

In the autumn of 1970, when I was 14 years old and had possessed a record player for less than a year, my school chum with the hip elder brother (to whom I have referred many times before in this blog) told me that there had been an earlier Island sampler before “Nice Enough To Eat”, and that it was called “You Can All Join In”. I therefore saved up the 14/6d I needed to buy it and bought a copy.

The title is derived from the Traffic song of the same name which appears on the record, taken from their second, eponymous, LP. It was clear that the front cover was also inspired by the idea.

I was bemused by the photo from the word go, recognising more or less immediately 5 or 6 of the people depicted, and wondering who on earth the rest of them might be. I still have that problem with at least 5 or 6 of them.

I felt sure that I had seen a labelled diagram giving all the names, somewhere in the physical media I own, but I cannot find it now.

Anyway, starting here, for the next few posts, I shall have a go at identification, beginning with the unique ones. The only female is of course Sandy Denny of Fairport Convention. The one black face is that of Rebop Anthony Kwaku Baah of Wynder K. Frog, and who would later join the reformed Traffic.