How wonderful to see such a huge response to this thread.

I was turned on to the ISB around 1970 and the experience changed my entire world.
While it was Mike Heron's songs that first grabbed me, I came to appreciate Robin's meandering singing and his spacey songs even more as years went by.

I had the chance to see them perform in Chicago (a club called the Quiet Knight) around 1972 or so. What struck me most was standing in line for hours and discovering that all of us in line were "String Band People". It was nothing like standing in any other concert line -- we were all so similar in attitude, interests, politics -- any topic that came up. By the time we got through the doors, we were all best of friends, sharing food, jokes, anecdotes. An amazing experience.

The band I was in at the time -- a Milwaukee folk group called Silmaril -- was so very influenced by the ISB. (By the way -- if there's anyonbe who remembers that band -- the Silmaril LP (Given Time or the Several Roads) is actually being re-released by a Midwest label that found it in a used record bin.

I doubt that I'd be playing folk music now, if it hadn't been for ISB and a few others.