There’s a moment at the end of the 1960s when the noise, glamour, and city lights all got a bit much. Musicians who had once raced from club to club in Carnaby jackets and Cuban heels suddenly wanted wood smoke, quiet lanes, and acoustic guitars. Whether it was a conscious rejection of the industry, a creative reset, or simply the need for space, a handful of albums emerged from this impulse — not just created in the countryside, but shaped by it.

The phrase “getting it together in the country” is often traced back to Steve Winwood and Traffic. Retreating to Winwood’s Berkshire cottage in 1969, the band re-formed, stripped things back, and found a new voice — slower, more reflective, grounded in folk and pastoral imagery. The press picked up on it, and the phrase stuck.

“What’s the big deal?”, I hear our younger readers ask. Well, back in the day it wasn’t that easy to record anywhere outside the studio. The machinery was too big, too clunky to easily move around, the tape machines too temperamental to trust. These days you can record anywhere with Pro Tools and a laptop — but things were different then.

But these albums weren’t just about where they were recorded — it was the spirit of returning to the land, getting ‘back to the garden’ as Joni put it.

Here are five albums that embody that spirit — made in draughty houses and rural hideouts, with power cables snaking through hedgerows and birdsong sometimes caught on tape. Not one of them recorded with a laptop.

1. Traffic – John Barleycorn Must Die (1970)

Sheepcott Farm, Aston Tirrold, Berkshire

Having disbanded the previous year, Traffic quietly regrouped at Steve Winwood’s country cottage. What emerged was looser, warmer, and far more acoustic — anchored by their arrangement of the traditional folk song John Barleycorn, which became the title track.

The album helped coin the idea of retreating to the countryside to make music on your own terms.

2. Genesis – Trespass (1970)

Christmas Cottage, near Dorking, Surrey

Before they were selling out arenas, Genesis were holed up in a cold cottage with damp floors and woolly jumpers. Trespass is their most pastoral album — full of medieval imagery, gentle acoustic guitars, and a sort of English melancholy that feels soaked in grey skies and woodland walks. Written and rehearsed in rural Surrey, the album set a tone that would define the early Peter Gabriel years.

Whilst the album would ultimately be ‘laid down’ in De Lane Lea Studios and Trinity Studios (a London music landmark where many classic albums were recorded), it carries the influence of a winter in the countryside.

3. Mike Oldfield – Tubular Bells (1973)

The Manor, Shipton-on-Cherwell, Oxfordshire

A young Mike Oldfield took up residence at The Manor — Richard Branson’s newly established residential studio in a grand country house. There, he pieced together Tubular Bells, almost entirely on his own, overdubbing dozens of instruments with meticulous precision. The size of the mansion, countryside location, and the local pub gave Oldfield the time and space to record a classic.

The album is expansive, eerie, and unmistakably rural in tone — not folk, exactly, but full of open space and natural drama.

4. Led Zeppelin – Led Zeppelin IV (1971)

Headley Grange, Hampshire

In a tree by the brook, there’s a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven…

Stairway to Heaven — one of the most mythologised tracks in rock — was recorded in a crumbling old workhouse in the Hampshire countryside. Headley Grange had no studio setup until the Rolling Stones’ mobile truck was parked outside.

The band lived, wrote, and recorded inside the house, letting the acoustics and atmosphere shape the sessions. From Bonham’s thunderous drums to the quiet opening of “Stairway,” the building’s character is etched into the record.

But it’s not just Stairway that channels this influence — “The Battle of Evermore”, an equally pastoral track, included a duet with folk queen Sandy Denny.

I hear the horses’ thunder
Down in the valley below
I’m waiting for the angels of Avalon
Waiting for the eastern glow

In later interviews, Robert Plant spoke of how his lyrics were deliberately ‘Tolkien-esque’, “abstract, not word-for-word, but mood- and landscape-related — influenced by Tolkien’s writing, but not directly quoting.”

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Genesis, no strangers to recording in the countryside, recorded their epic The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway at Headley Grange. However, what came out was not another pastoral album, but a deep, gritty tale more centred in New York than the New Forest.

The influence of Headley Grange must have worn off on the band members, with Jimmy Page owning a number of mansions in the English countryside, whilst Plant headed to Wales.

5. Fairport Convention – Liege & Lief (1969)

Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire

After a tragic van crash that killed their drummer Martin Lamble, Fairport retreated to a house in the Hampshire countryside to mourn, reflect, and start again. The result was Liege & Lief, the album that defined English folk-rock. While the music was newly electrified, the roots were ancient — songs of war, drink, and death drawn from traditional sources.

From the strings of the opening Come All Ye, this was very much a modern take on the traditional folk album, evoking motifs like Reynardine (the mythical fox) and modern interpretations of traditional stories like Matty Groves.

Surprisingly, the band itself took its name from Fairport, the North London house where they’d first rehearsed. From suburban beginnings to rural reinvention.

Other Echoes from the Fields

Not every artist made a full album in the countryside, but many touched the spirit of it.

Paul McCartney recorded McCartney in his home studio in Campbeltown, Scotland, not long after The Beatles split.

Van Morrison channelled rural Ireland in Veedon Fleece, even if he recorded it in California.

Heron recorded their debut entirely outdoors in a Berkshire field, complete with birdsong.

John Martyn captured Small Hours by recording outside at Chris Blackwell’s house, near a lake in Woolwich Green — the ambient hiss you hear is real.

The Quiet Shift

There was a time when getting it together in the countryside wasn’t just a metaphor. It required hauling tape machines down muddy lanes, patching power cables into draughty rooms, and living with the sound of birdsong bleeding into the mix. Many artists now have their own professional studios deep in the countryside.

Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios is nestled in the village of Box, not far from his iconic Solsbury Hill.

Sting found inspiration for Ten Summoner’s Tales, surrounded by his fields of gold:

“In 1992 we moved the family out to the country, to a run-down manor house built in the sixteenth century that needed some care and attention. The gardens were beautiful, and walking in them was like walking into a dream. It was called Lake House. I felt inspired to write, and, for the first time in years, with a genuine spirit of happiness.”

— Sting, Lyrics (p. 205)

One producer who understood the value of escape more than most was George Martin. After Abbey Road, and his own AIR Studios in London — a London landmark in its own right — he built AIR Montserrat, a tropical outpost where artists could get far, far away. So Far Away… for Dire Straits.

Getting It Together in the Country