Dave & Toni Arthur – "Morning Stands On Tiptoe" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 154) 1967

The first part of the holy trilogy of Dave and Toni Arthur albums was this classic on the fashionable Transatlantic label......it didn't sell of course, and they got dropped.....which should be the ambition of all serious musicians.

Pictured here,in the obligatory pose donning the proceeds of a record company funded trip to Carnaby Street.We find our hero's near one of the many ancient chalk carving's of Horses dotted about the English countryside.It's likely that they've never been to the countryside before.....Tree? What is Tree?

But as is more likely,and very prevalent with most late sixties Folkies, they had actually seen many trees in the leafy suburbs of London where they grew up. The early days of the Folk revival was mainly influenced, sartorially,by the Beatnik preference for unwashed sweaters with holes in....not attractive to yer average record buying punter. Also,dressed in their kings road finery would have not gone down too well in the Folk Clubs of northern England, where The Watersons, Anne Briggs and A.L.Lloyd ruled the roost.South of London was the same problem,with the puritanical Copper Family,...oooh it was a hard life being a suburban Folk Singer.

"Come taste my apples and pears kind sir" sings Toni.....Gawd Blimey ,will you please excuse me for a minute kind sirs.....!

Ahhh,that's better.I'm back, and relaxed.

There be a rendition of the classic hunting song from which influential posh peado (fully documented in his biography) DJ John Ravenscroft,he from the leafy suburbs of Liverpool, got his show biz name.

I'm not sure Dave and Toni got to do a Peel session,but young John was certainly very into this new wave of folk,as was evident on his radio shows from the era.

All three of Dave and Toni's album are indispensable classics of Neo-sixties Folk,and recognition is due.They got the Thumbs up from A.L.(Bert)Lloyd anyhow,and he was doing this since the 1940's!

This stuff all suggests that romantic idyll of an unattainable "better,'sustainable', Way Of Life" to us of the bourgeois in denial crowd.If these songs are recycled,so must we the plastic in tribute to the old ways.....yep....we're still DOOOMED!

Tracklist:

A1 A Maiden Came From London Town
A2 Morning Stands On Tiptoe
A3 Female Rambling Sailor
A4 Padstow Drinking Song
A5 The Guilty Sea Captain
A6 The Eynsham Poaching Song
A7 Green Grass
B1 The Barley Grain For Me
B2 The Jolly Ploughboy
B3 The Blackburn Poachers
B4 John Peel
B5 Bold Robinson
B6 Green Broom
B7 Bendigo Champion Of England
B8 The Football Match

DOWNLOAD on tippy toes HERE!

Dave & Toni Arthur – "The Lark In The Morning" (Topic Records – 12T190) 1969

 

Oh No! Not more of this hippy folk shit!? I hear you exclaim!? We want to hear some Punk Rock!

Well, for one, this has got Toni Arthur from Playschool on it, and two, Punk Rock is one of thee Folk musics of the twentieth century,with lashings of 'Hippie' hidden within its crumbling veneers. Rotten has long come out as a Folkie since the demise of his reputation.The fact that Johnny has also come out as a bit of a twat does nothing to alter this inalienable truth.

You can't get more noncommercial than this,despite the fleeting fashionable edge to it all between the years of 1969 to '71. Unaccompanied singing of yee olde tchoons from the 17th century was about as far away from Led Zeppelin as you could get....to the point that Plant and Page were envious of the Folkies' street cred...or rather, field cred.This is why the lovely Sandy Denny was press ganged into singing....for FREE by the way....on Led Zep 4,duet ting with screeching Bobby Plant for some silly track called "The Battle Of Evermoor"  apparently.I still haven't heard it to this day,and long may it remain so.

This is Dave and Toni's sole release on the Rough Trade of Folk, Topic Records,in glorious Mono. Where else could you hear about Six jolly little dancing Miners,and a horse called Creeping Jane? This stuff is weird,and No-one knows who wrote it!Like illegal Downloads on the internet...ahem!....this stuff was made for sharing....no royalties,except the Royals mentioned in the songs,and no money exchanging hands.This is how it always was, so stop moaning Pop Stars,the getting rich on a couple of days work era has ended,and we gone back to the traditional ways of enjoying music.....for FREE!

Tracklist:

A1 All Frolicking I'll Give Over
A2 The Death Of Queen Jane
A3 Creeping Jane
A4 The Merchant's Daughter Of Bristol
A5 The Bold Dragoon
A6 Cold Blows The Winter's Wind
A7 The Lark In The Morning
B1 Poor Old Horse
B2 Hey John Barleycorn
B3 Bedlam
B4 Admiral Benbow
B5 Father, Father Build Me A Boat
B6 The Press Gang
B7 Six Jolly Miners

DOWNLOAD for free HERE! and I'd offer up every Led Zep album for FREE too if they weren't so shite!

Dave & Toni Arthur – "Hearken To The Witches Rune" (Trailer – LER 2017) 1971

I'm sick of all this modern musick,ain't you?So my current obsession with ye olde originale DIY music,yep, Folk culture,is gonna infiltrate your psyche for the coming days,if I can escape my depressed stupor for half an hour to wax lyrical about how great this shit is.This can still clear a room of most sophisticated music fans.Its a pity Dave and Toni Arthur couldn't have supported Sleaford Mods in my fantasy fuck you bill at the last concert at the end of the universe competition.I fucking hate musical smart arses.....like us.....don't you? There's still time to burn those Beatles re-re-re-remastered,re-released,75th anniversary box sets before the balloon goes up.

Beware the fairy Fiddler of County Antrim kids!

'Twas a dangerous place for lone children in the countryside of the 17th and 18th centuries where pedophilia was just something you had to do instead of going to school.

Speaking of Schoolin', Toni Arthur found c-list celebrity fame in the UK as a presenter on groundbreaking kiddie TV show "Playschool".....she was the Hippie one,and one must say the 5 to 8 year old Zchivago experienced a subtle yet inexplicable sensation in his erogenous zone due to her womanly presence on BBC2 of a morning.(Apologies for referring to himself in the third person...purely a deliberate act for it's poetic effect)

Imagine my joy,when, as an adult, I discovered the delightful Toni was also a member of husband and wife cult folk duo, Dave and Toni Arthur?

An integral part of the UK Folk revival, Toni and Dave were ardent students of ye olde English Folk tchoons under the Ewan Macoll Dogma,sung with suitably minimal backing.No lush string sections for these puritans, no Dave Mattacks on the drums and electric guitars to propel them onto the bill of "Glastonbury Fayre",aka the first Glastonbury Festival like Fairport Convention,great though they were;.....lacking Dave Swarbrick's sartorial elegance and chain-smoking abilities,David and Tone could only sell out by making Folk LP's for kiddies to try and cash in on Toni's cult audience. Naturally, the BBC children's department was a treasure trove of Folk classics,and all were subliminally absorbed by my impressionable brain in one's formative years......Bagpuss being a shining example of this phenomena.

Toni went on to star in "Play Away",and can be seen here with a young Jeremy Irons fresh from Drama school,and the king of UK Kids Telly himself, Brain Cant....I said CANT!.....tut...honestly!?

However, this dark folk outing is the best,and rarest of their meager Discography...good gloomy cover too.

She never did warn us impressionable kids about Paddy The Handy man,or, Terrance McShane 'The Fairy Fiddler Of County Antrim' ,or even the evil leprechaun McJiminy Saville the Kiddie Fiddler of BBC television Centre,and one of Toni's colleagues. Toniiiiiii, tut tut tut!

And you're just as bad you Cant Brian (RIP)!

Tracklist:

A1 Alison Gross
A2 Tam Lin
A3 A Fairy Tale
A4 The Fairy Child
B1 Broomfield Hill
B2 The Standing Stones
B3 The Cruel Mother
B4 Alice Brand

DOWNLOAD the wicked spells from the witch of play school HERE!