Search - Various Artists :: Famous Charisma Box

Moving from sports journalism to band management, Tony Stratton-Smith founded Charisma in 1968, and the label reached its peak during the early 1970s when Genesis, Lindisfarne, Clifford T. Ward, and Van Der Graaf Generator were all on the roster. The Famous Charisma Box serves up a beautiful potpourri. Spread over four CDs, it brilliantly captures the eclecticism of the label while reminding one that, along the way, Charisma produced some great pop records: the pastoral pop of Unicorn's "Ooh Mother," the Nice's symphonic "Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite," Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill," Lindisfarne's "Lady Eleanor," and the original "Fog on the Tyne" all boasted the Charisma imprint. So great was the label's diversity that The Charisma Box shouldn't really work--and indeed, there are some dud tracks spread over the discs. But as a testament to Stratton-Smith's idea of what a record label should be about--warts and all--it is definitive. --Patrick Humphries