Four tracks from this album, including "Great Horse", were salvaged from spring 1969 sessions for a fourth album with original percussionist Steve Peregrin Took in the wake of the single "King of the Rumbling Spires". These four tracks were overdubbed for release by Finn, Bolan or Visconti or else mixed out completely. "Marc was terrified of paying Steve any royalties," Visconti said. Took was disappointed. "I didn't like the whole scene over A Beard Of Stars," he complained years later. "That was a bummer."
Mark Paytress says that Finn certainly remembered many rehearsals during his early months in the group. "I used to spend all my time up at Marc's place just off Ladbroke Grove. He had a broom cupboard that was his recording studio at the time, and in it was a snare on a stand, percussion equipment and an acoustic guitar. We were in and out of it all day long."
A further four tracks from the Took sessions – rejected for the final album – subsequently surfaced on various compilations, three ("Once Upon the Seas of Abyssinia", "Blessed Wild Apple Girl", "Demon Queen") in Bolan's lifetime, the fourth ("Ill Starred Man") posthumously.
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