The Young Tradition – "Galleries" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 172) 1968

 As the cover artwork gets more Psychedelic ,the Young Tradition are subtly getting more desperate for commercial success.Even with Dave Swarbrick and Dolly Collins to sprinkle some fairy dust and provide some much needed instrumentation to their renditions, it weren't never gonna happen .

Neither the magic,or tragic, touch,of Sandy Denny, who makes an uncredited appearance playing piano on track 16, is enough to propel these 'Youngsters' into the lower reaches of the hit parade.

Teen appeal aside,the Tradition still manage to maintain the admirable quality of material to belt out,made all the more palatable thanks to a smattering of minimal instrumentation. They were soon to put the paisley shirts into mothballs for good,and Peter Bellamy to  continue his fledgling solo career,but not after upping their cred with Shirley and Dolly Collins.Peter would ,however, be spotted wearing even more ridiculous clothes in the coming years....and why not? Only his suicide would save us from greater fashion faux pas's;but at least we were also spared from any possibility of 'Bellamy died for you' T-Shirts.

Tracklist:

A1 Intro: Ductia 0:58
A2 The Barley Straw 2:15
A3 What If A Day 2:13
A4 The Loyal Lover 1:15
A5 Entracte: Stones In My Passway 1:00
A6 Idumea 2:07
A7 The Husbandman And The Serving Man 1:43
A8 The Rolling Of The Stones 0:54
A9 The Bitter Withy 2:18
A10 The Banks Of The Nile 2:09
B1 Wondrous Love 2:46
B2 Mediaeval Mystery Tour 2:14
B3 Divertissement: Upon The Bough 0:30
B4 Ratcliff Highway 1:56
B5 The Brisk Young Widow 1:43
B6 Interlude: The Pembroke Unique Ensemble 1:01
B7 John Barleycorn 2:24
B8 The Agincourt Carol 4:38

DOWNLOAD some minstrels on mushrooms HERE!

The Young Tradition – "So Cheerfully Round" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 155) 1967

They look like one of those generic American Psychedelic groups from the cusp of 1967. They even have the creepy older bloke like many a Sunshine Pop combo from Connecticut. The psych era was a vertitable playground for the creepy old bloke who had a modern wardrobe. Free Love baby....or rather Free Rape...which meant, men could have sex with anyone they wanted even if the person in question didn't want to. A sort of acceptable rape trend (Groovy Pops!) .If the young lady in question didn't sleep around she was instantly labelled an off trend square. The sneakiest way around the consensual sex trap that the human male has ever invented in his long evil history. These psychedelic violators would have laughed at the idea of consent forms, which are looming in our mixed up muddled up society;which will surely lead to a boom in forgery will it not?

My favourite creepy old bloke in a pop group has to be the horrific manifestation of pure evil that was ,real name, Peter Mann,head honcho of sixties sunshine pop band 'The Sugar Shoppe'. It was even named after one of the pedophile's most trusted lures,a sweet shop.

Dig this...he's second from the right.....the one that looks like a sex pervert,not the one that looks like a little girl ready for beddie on the left.

The Unusual Suspects.....spot the perv in the line up.

I was once a sunshine Pop obsessive, and I found this 'Please Buy Me' item in Rhythm Records of Camden lock NW1 in the 90's.It pleaded with me to take it home, and I certainly wasn't disappointed......so i guess I should make a rare exception and post two download links.....if you want to hear the Sugar Shoppe,including drug references, then click HERE! Baby!

The run out of the opener, Skip-a-long Sam, is pure Hollywood cheese Psych gold.

I digress......But, don't get me wrong ,obviously Royston of The Young Tradition wasn't too much of a randy perv by all accounts....he was just Balding! Like me......er...but I'm a perv(like all men) so strike that comment!

The cover art and title,of the Tradition's album, is a naked attempt to infiltrate the UFO club psychedelic underground...after all, Fairport and The Incredible string Band played at all the Psych haunts in swinging London,so why not The Young Tradition?....of course they didn't,but they might sell some records to the less hip,a casual browser in Woolworths,or an out of touch grown up Beatle fan maybe?

However, once the casual buyer got this disc home,and slapped it on their Dansette,I doubt they would have continued past track one. No drums, no guitars,no sickly sweet harmonies,no songs about going to the cinema with yer girlfriend. If you liked Pop music, this would have been as shocking as a John and Yoko album.

Yes, they've been to Carnaby Street,but musically they were the real thing.....they just didn't look like it.

Tracklist:

A1 Daddy Fox 3:12
A2 The Season Round 4:02
A3 The Bold Dragoon 2:18
A4 Watercress-O 3:08
A5 The Old Miser 3:50
A6 The Foxhunt 1:40
B1 Knight William 4:39
B2 The Single Man's Warning 2:36
B3 The Pretty Ploughboy 5:25
B4 The Hungry Child 3:48
B5 The Whitsuntide Carol 2:15

DOWNLOAD the Young Tradition of being fashionable HERE!

The Young Tradition – "The Young Tradition" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 142) 1966

Groovy Baby! Its the Waterson's if they lived on Carnaby Street. Note the moody cover photo hiding their Granny Takes a Trip finery.

There must have been some Record Company meddling going on here,crossing the Waterson's with The Mama's and Papa's,and coming up with a still birth. That name too!? It sounds like one of those all singing, all dancing, groups of 'Young' people who invaded our homes during the Des O'Connor Show;but looking at them, they would definitely not  have got a birth in 'Hills Angels' on the Benny Hill Show.....unaware of this dodgy dance troop? Then treat yourself to an offensive on all levels clip of Benny and the Angels in action HERE!....blacked up old men, scantily clad schoolgirls,and what takes the biscuit...its superbly unfunny even on a child's level. We need crap like this NOW!

However, The Young Tradition,were as straight faced about their art as I was watching the Benny Hill Show.They seem,however, to have been accepted by the infamously snobby UK Folk Revival scene,the Young,and very middle class snobby Folk Revival Scene. They sang largely unaccompanied, like the Waterson's, were probably older than the Waterson's, but had a clothing budget,although  one of them had sideburns,and a comb-over baldness hiding hairdo,likely by Vidal Sassoon's dumber brother.

The not so Young Tradition do psychedelia

You can forgive the moronic record companies trying to sell this Folk Fad to the Beatles bobby-soxers, they were in business after all,even if they were clueless about the stuff they were forcing upon us.The Beatles were, after all, a contemporary electric Folk group. But John ,Paul,George and Ringo's vocal harmonies were certainly sweeter sounding that the harsh Folk realism of Peter,Heather and Royston's abrasive traditional vocalisations. The subject matter of the songs were usually X-rated,unlike the Fab Four's 'will you go out with me' storylines, so it was unlikely they were gonna trouble the British Market Research Bureau, who compiled the charts,too much.They were also terminally lacking in the Good looks department,something that was/is as essential in Folk Music as it is in Politics....Fuck the Music,Fuck the policies, the only thing that interests the casual human being is can you imagine wanting to fuck them....in this case,probably not,especially the groovy kat with the comb-over.

Tracklist:

A1 Byker Hill
A2 The Bold Fisherman
A3 Betsy The Serving Maid
A4 Henry The Poacher
A5 The Lyke Wake Dirge
B1 The Banks Of Claudy
B2 The Innocent Hare
B3 Dives And Lazarus
B4 Derry Down Fair
B5 The Truth Sent From Above
B6 Pretty Nancy Of Yarmouth

DOWNLOAD these crazy kids' first album HERE!

The Watersons – "The Watersons" (Topic Records – 12T142) 1966

1966, a fine year indeed, England won the world cup with a dodgy goal that pissed the Krauts off double LOL!,and The Watersons released their second album on Topic.

No selling out for The Waterson family,still banging out the ,largely,unaccompanied traditional songs mostly from East Yorkshire and the lovely city of Hull,with a swarthy gypsy's religious Zeal.No Aryans allowed here thanks.

Their enviable,it says on the sleeve-notes, combination of dark good looks, ringing voices, abundant charm and immense vitality earned them a kind of star status within the UK folk song revival which was usually reserved for them silly pop singers. With unpretentious zestfulness for their craft they had little or no interest in the glamorous sewer of showbiz,and doubtless, showbiz had little interest in them? Unless they changed them into The Hollies or some 60's dross like that,and send the ladies to Mary Quant for a vast makeover.They luckily escaped this humiliation,unlike some of their fellow travellers,such as Sandy Denny who was made to go and get glammed up for David Bailey to take some of his shite photo's of her for that big push for stardom....which of course went very tits up indeed!

Tracklist:

A1 Dido Bendigo 2:53
A2 The North Country Maid 2:31
A3 Brave Wolfe 4:27
A4 The Jolly Waggoners 2:53
A5 I Am A Rover 4:59
B1 Fathom The Bowl 2:52
B2 The Thirty-Foot Trailer 3:30
B3 The Holmfirth Anthem 1:58
B4 Twanky-Dillo 3:38
B5 The White Hare Of Howden 1:59
B6 The Plains Of Mexico 1:49
B7 All For Me Grog 2:39

DOWNLOAD by the watersons HERE!

The Watersons – "Frost And Fire: A Calendar Of Ritual And Magical Songs" (Topic Records – 12T136) 1965

Hull,the home of Britain's longest road bridge,and due to its close proximity to the former Soviet Union,was chosen as the site for Britain's early warning system and listening stations pointing towards Moscow.Only been to Hull once,when I went a wassailing with a nice young lady I conversed with in the early days of the internet.She hadn't heard of the Watersons,or The Housemartins, but boy could she wassail.....and other things too (nudge nudge).Sadly I have forgotten her name,but she did have a interesting fantasy to be tied to a tree naked,taken advantage of, and left there!? The great conversationalist that I am,I asked her what she did for a living(no,not while tied to a tree....pleeeze!),which she wasn't at liberty to disclose because she had signed the Official Secrets Act"!? Hmmmm?

So, can we all name five famous people from Kingston upon Hull?.....er,as previously mentioned....there's that bloke from The Housemartins......er....ummm...oh yeah;and, of course, The four Watersons in The Waterson's, Folk's version of Crass.

They dressed in various shades of grey,had poker straight black hair,class war politics,and drank copious amounts of northern ale. Which for the female members of the group,including Norma, Martin Carthy's future wife, was shocking behaviour for the early sixties.

They performed mainly traditional songs with little or no accompaniment, and banged out the tunes with their distinctive close harmonies,and proud Hull accents, across the pubs and clubs of northern England,kick starting the UK Folk revival with an almost religious zeal. They had a great spartan image too, which is always a plus.

Crass at the Waterson themed Anarchy center fancy dress party 1977....Rimbaud is top left.

This debut on the legendary Topic Records was voted Melody Maker album of the year,which considering what it was up against (Bobby Dylan etc..) is a mildly impressive achievement.

Opening with what is something of a theme tune in "Here We Come A-Wassailing", this record was the benchmark for how to do contemporary versions of traditional song forms.

What the fuck is Wassailing anyway you may ask? Good question...well instead of asking your mates if they fancy a pint later,try asking them if they want to come A-Wassailing, which basically means are you coming tut pub to get wasted th'neet?

There's plenty of similarly themed tunes celebrating the simple things in life,and includes the definitive version of "Hal-An-Tow, the pagan anthem for the rebirth of summer.Which in Hull lasts approximately a wet fortnight in august.

One simply couldn't get further away from commercialism or the musick biz as this.

Tracklist:

A1 Here We Come A-Wassailing
A2 The Derby Ram
A3 Jolly Old Hawk
A4 Pace-Egging Song
A5 Seven Virgins Or The Leaves Of Life
A6 The Holly Bears A Berry
A7 Hal-An-Tow
B1 Earsdon Sword Dance Song
B2 John Barleycorn
B3 Harvest Song: We Gets Up In The Morn
B4 Souling Song
B5 Christmas Is Now Drawing Near At Hand
B6 Herod And The Cock
B7 Wassail Song

DOWNLOAD to come a digital wasailing HERE!

Martin Carthy – "Shearwater" (PEG – PEG 12) 1972

It be the great daddy of the UK Folk revival's 80th birthyday today. All Hail!

So as a tribute,and with virtually zero moronic waffle from me, here's One of Martin's bestest ever albums for you all to celebrate with...bloody crap cover though!? This may be an unimaginative piece of script,but its more than most other blogs can be bothered to write.Normally its jsut a picture and a highlighted "Link" that's long dead.....unlike the great Martin.

Happy 80th Birthyday Martin Carthy.....MBE.

Tracklist:

A1 I Was A Young Man
A2 Banks Of Green Willow
A3 Handsome Polly-O
A4 Outlandish Knight
A5 He Called For A Candle
A6 John Blunt
B1 Lord Randall
B2 William Taylor
B3 Famous Flower Of Serving Men
B4 Betsy Bell And Mary Gray

DOWNLOAD the leftie with the MBE,but with reasons,HERE!

Michael Raven & Joan Mills ‎– "Hymn To Ché Guevara" (Folk Heritage Recordings FHR 054) 1974

There aren't too many openly conservative Folkies. They're all looney left wing, unless you count Johnny Cash as Folk? Well at least in the UK, all Folk musicians were proud exponents in sucking the red end of the political spectrum. Michael Raven may well have the deportment of an off duty Police officer,but his recording career suggested that he was somewhat a frustrated Pinko. Firmly out of the closet by 1974,the title of this crime worshiping album kind of confirms a revolutionary bent.

Making a record in praise of Ché ,a terrorist by modern standards,quite possibly a war criminal by any code of contemporary civilised ethics, and very guilty of crimes against humanity for his role as Minister of Justice in Castro's early government.'Justice' meaning executing enemies of the people,aka, anyone they didn't like.

Very popular on T-shirts,crowned the sixties Jesus, Ché,was more a fashion token rather than someone to base a new world order on. Somehow I can't imagine Joan and Michael having an in depth discussion about Ché's concept of the 'New Man' and the collectivization of farmlands.....saying that ,however, he looked good,and if you have a cool image, crimes against humanity don't count for diddly-squat.

I can just imagine these gentle folkies turning into blood thirsty killers come the revolution, hacking that doom metal fan next door into pieces with a scythe at the slightest wink from the latest Ché-a-like @ Facebook.com. Human's have a track record of stuff like this.

Depending on the blugeoner of course, I wouldn't mind being bludgeoned to death by an acoustic twelve string if it was wielded by Sandy Denny's resurrected ghost......as long as it was in tune mind!

That said, if the would be bludgeoner was some faux-folkie like James "You're Beaudiful" Blunt,or that Ginger twat from X-Factor,then I would willingly surrender my liberty,or even my life, to render them harmless with a couple of lead lined mandolin's. 

Raven and Mills, seem to enjoy singing about criminals in general it seems,because of the misconception that all criminals are the hard done by working class lads'n'lasses featured in many a traditional tune.Or was Raven really a plain clothes policeman after all?

 
Tracklist:

1 Belle Starr & Jesse James
2 Twenty Years
3 Tim Evans’ Dance
4 Melancholy Pavanne
5 Perry Mason’s Maggot
6 Hymn To Che Guevara
7 The Great Train Robbery
8 Magpies In Picardy
9 Little White Donkey
10 Dancing Lady
11 Over The Wall
12 Midnight City

DOWNLOAD the commie book of prayer HERE!

Michael Raven & Joan Mills – "Death And The Lady" (Folk Heritage Recordings – FHR 047) 1972

Well the tenuous connection between me getting Pfizered today and some twilit english folk moozick,is this sought after LP by Michael Raven and Joan Mills."Death and The Lady"

Death being the looming shadow of Co-Vid 19,and the lady being the charming young nurse who penetrated my left arm with the serum.

A liquid which, depending on which facebook post you last read instead of watching responsible news channels, or reading serious newspapers, will either render you a screaming vegetable as part some some fiendish genetic experiment, or turn you into a political zombie working for the Illuminati (Aren't we already?). There are many others that I can't be fucking bothered to list,but I do suspect,I'm crazy i know, that there wasn't any nano-bots or nano chips shot into my body, and the planet Earth is definitely elliptical rather than Flat.I know this because I can't see Australia,or at least the Himalayas from my nearest hillock.

Anyway, I've took one for the team to help free us all,even the Anti-vaxxers and conspiracy nuts, from this absurd repression......not that i've minded it at all.It kept people away from my front door,business increased by 500% due to the online boom,and i don't have to go anywhere.....look, I've got the photo's,so whats the point?

As lockdown is being lifted,and bars are opening, at least in the UK, I'm waiting for the anti-vaxxers to become the dominant breeding ground for super-covid,as the virus works out how to avoid the immune system altogether and become 100% lethal.My dearest wish is that it kills the Anti-Vaxxers in horrible slow agony before it gets to us responsible adult types.Dying will be worth it knowing that these post-truther fools got a free crash course in immunology before they realised that they just might have been....er,silly I know but.... wrong???....can't be?...nah?

"Do your Research" they said? Meaning watch some basket-case with a self-importance deficiency on YouTube,rather than doing 6 years at university studying immunology and/or virology.Duh!

Frank Farley of The Pirates as Joan Mills minder

However..... this album is rather mid-budget Pentangly, but worth the price of admission for the fact that Michael raven looked like a bald Frank Farley of the Pirates ,and sometimes like Roger Whittaker crossed with the Sweeney......sorry anyone not from the noisy island of Britain,I just can't help myself using Brit-culture references,it amuses me.

Joan mills has a nice line in delightfully dark(-ish) warbling,but tends to overdo it a bit.She so wanted to be Jacqui McShee (Pentangle),and almost pulled it off. But one cannot fault the quality of these songs.....the guitar playing, although very BBC schools program theme tune style is suitably haunting!......OUCH!...those nano-bots are starting to take over, I must kill,Kill KILL all non believers!

I predict the new 100% lethal'Super-Covid' will hit round about the end of the holiday season(sept).....and there'll be No escape....not even for Bo-Jo bless him,as he'll miss being voted the worst Prime Minister that ever got to redecorate the Downing Street Flat 'cus he'll be dead!

Tracklist:

1.Death And The Lady
2.The Jolly Highwayman
3.Lisa Lan
4.Ladies Don't Go A-Thievin'
5.Robin Hood's Dance
6.Staines Morris / La Folia Saraband / Adson's Saraband
7.Saraband
8.The Lichfield Greenhill Bower Processional
9.The Captain's Apprentice
10.Can Y Melinyd / Troseg Y Gareg
11.Sarah Collins
12.The White Gloves
13.La Russe Waltz / Paris Polka
14.The Queen Of The Night

DOWNLOAD some intravenous english folk HERE!

Dave Swarbrick – "Swarbrick" (Transatlantic Records – TRA 337) 1976

Barry Dransfield may have had the eyebrows, but Fiddler numero uno was of course, David Swarbrick, the Fag-meister.The funny looking one in Fairport Convention with the sticky out ears and questionable dress sense.

Never seen without a tab in his mouth,even when sleeping, he was one of the musicians responsible for the resurgence of  folk music in the UK and made it attractive to a mainstream rock audience.

During his tenure on the highway to emphysema, dual lung transplant, and inevitably, death,he effortlessly churned out a seemingly endless repertoire  of jigs, reels, and melodic violin led laments,as well as accompanying all the legends of the UK folk revival,often whipping out his mandolin.His workload was enormous,but never a complaint about shite record sales,unlike todays spoilt and lazy drug free bratola's. Basically his legend loomed large,and looms larger today. I bought this back in the day,because i liked the cover(rarely goes wrong), thinking this was some violin led prog rock group,but was pleasantly surprised it was prog jig mixed with some prog reels,and some prog folk.... a great album, and a great man.Chain Smoking's obviously good for some people after all?

Tracklist:

1.The Heilanman / Drowsy Maggie 2:39
2.Carthy's March 2:31
3.The White Cockade / Doc Boyds Jig / Durham Rangers 3:09
4.My Singing Bird 3:37
5.The Nightingale 2:18
6.Once I Loved A Maiden Fair 1:57
7.The Killarney Boys Of Pleasure 2:37
8.Lady In The Boat / Rosin The Bow / Timour The Tartar 4:10
9.Byker Hill 5:07
10.The Ace And Deuce Of Pipering 2:11
11.Hole In The Wall 1:19
12.Ben Dorian 1:36
13.Hullichans / Chorus Jig 2:00
14.The 79th's Farewell To Gibraltar 3:26
15.Arthur McBride / Snug In The Blanket 4:32

DOWNLOAD the postive sides of tobacco abuse HERE!

Barry Dransfield – "Bowin' And Scrapin' " ~~(Topic Records – 12TS386) 1978

Rumour has it that Barry Dransfield's fiddle bow was beefed up by strands of Barry's own eyebrow hair liberated by some handy wire-cutters,which adds that extra raspiness so characteristic of Barry's solo fiddle style. I suspect that Dave Swarbrick did the same thing, but this time using his ample sideburn hair.?

All the secret age old techniques of Folk music are being brought into the light here, so one must curtail these revelations pronto or risk a visit from a fuming Green Man with wood on,looking for sexual recompense of the type as described in "Recitation Upon A Gentleman Sitting On A Cremona Violin".

Although Barry's youthful looks as pictured on his first solo album had waned somewhat by 1978.This has to be the best album cover in the vast Topic Records catalogue. Which isn't saying too much,as most of 'em are bloody terrible.Here we have a police helicopters view of Barry's piercing eyes framed by the famed eyebrows,handling that fiddle like a freshly sheered sheep's arse.

The back cover has our second favorite fiddler doffing his cap in an unsettlingly Russell Brand-like pose,but with a better hairstyle than the self-styled Che Guevara of Hampstead,or Citizen Smith of Beverly Hills when he's on set in Hollywood.

But when Barry's a-fiddling he, the hideous spectre of ex-junkie stand up joker Brand,disappears like a mirage in a desert of forgotten folk reissues. 

Tracklist:

A1 Rattling Roaring Willie / Metal Man 3:18
A2 Fiddler's Progress 2:29
A3 Who Know Where The Time Goes / My Lagan Love 4:15
A4 Sheffield Hornpipe / Pet Of The Pipers 2:18
A5 Up The Aisle Medley: Swedish Wedding March - Wedding Song - Bridie's Wedding - Norwegian Wedding March - Wedding Morris 6:35
B1 Sandy Bell's 1:19
B2 Obliged To Fiddle / Planxty Davy / Spanish Cloak 4:32
B3 Bushes And Briars / Swedish Air 2:45
B4 O'Carolan's Concerto 3:42
B5 Recitation Upon A Gentleman Sitting On A Cremona Violin 6:19
B6 Sally Gardens / Clonmel Races 2:06

DOWNLOAD without blowin' and crappin' HERE!

Barry Dransfield – "Barry Dransfield" (Polydor – 2383 160) 1972

Once voted thee most expensive Folk album on da planet,f-king hell, it costs even more than anything on elitest re-issue label Vinyl On Demand!!!? But infinitely better value for money music wise,in the fact that it is actually 'Music'. The more talented Dransfield brother, Barry, garnered himself a major label one album deal. with kraut label Polydor. Label mates with James Last was something to keep quite down at the Folk Club at the local pub.

It is,however a great piece of authentic contemporary folk art,made and played by the owner of the densest set of eyebrows this side of Chris de Burgh.I think I may have a man crush goin' on here?....no not De Burgh! Dransfield, B.

Of course it sank like the Titanic,with the Dransfields' ancestors trapped beneath decks in steerage ,such be the role of the working classes.Die in wars, die in factories, die in pits,die in luxury liner disasters. Not sure if there are any folk tunes about the Titanic....one must do some research, proper research, not the type of 'research'(ie watching you-tube video's by nutters) that anti-vaxxers and relatives always accuse your scribe of not doing.

Anyone know of any?

Tracklist:

A1 The Werewolf
A2 Be My Friend
A3 Jigs: Hyde Park Mansions / Irish Jig
A4 She's Like A Swallow
A5 Broken Barricades
A6 Girl Of Dances
B1 Lots Of Little Soldiers
B2 Lily's Ballade
B3 Reels: The Trip To Derrow / The Traveller / St. Anne's Reel
B4 Robin Hood And The Peddlar
B5 General Worthington

DOWNLOAD from steerage HERE!

Morris On - "Morris On" (Island Records – HELP 5) 1972

 

No, not a lost album by Jim Morrison as channeled by a nutter from beyond the grave. It's an album of Morris dancing jigs and reels as performed by a Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span,plus Barry Dransfield super group...that's them nutty fellows pictured in their off duty relaxation gear on the cover.

The brainchild of Ashley Hutchings,this is a funked up version of some of the tunes that the Morris Men dance to, evoking the sex gods to make these dancing lunatics fertile around human mating time.So crank up the volume, and make ready your pigs bladder,polish the bells that adorn your legs and prance around like an idiot with a handkerchief and some sticks....among other questionable acts.There's quite a few tunes that are rather rude,so you have been warned.

It sounds like the lads, plus Shirley Collins,seem to be having a jolly fine time anyway.So much so that there were several sequels to this LP over the decades,starting with "Son Of Morris On"......noooo not Jim Morrison's secret son!Although I do know someone who did actually father a child after he was dead. He finally succumbed to his fifth heart attack,but his girlfriend had insisted that his spunk should be frozen for future use...post mortem. Thankfully we won't have to suffer any surprise kids by the stiff Jim Morrison,and the potential threat of more terrible poetry springing forth from the snake king's DNA helix.Dare I suggest that death may well be preferable,unless a hell exists beyond the one we are in now,in which we are taunted by Jim Morrison's "An American Prayer" for eternity plus one.....and don't forget, Suicide is no longer an option when you are already dead.

Tracklist:

A1 Morris Call
A2 Greensleeves
A3 The Nutting Girl
A4 Old Woman Tossed Up In A Blanket / Shepherd's Hey / Trunkles
A5 Staines Morris
A6 Lads A'Bunchum / Young Collins
B1 Vandals Of Hammerwich
B2 Willow Tree / Bean Setting / Shooting
B3 I'll Go And 'List For A Sailor
B4 Princess Royal
B5 Cuckoo's Nest
B6 Morris Off

DOWNLOAD morrison's ghost HERE!

Robin & Barry Dransfield – "The Rout Of The Blues" (Trailer – LER 2011) 1970

I noticed that the posting, previously, of some cassette kulture euro-Industrial led to a sharp upsurge in blog traffic, possibly due to a mention of  the blog's favourite fat idiot over at Vinyl On Demand,or, even sadder, that you lot out there can't get enough formulaic Industrial skronk ,that if i posted the same cassette over and over again,you'd download it again and again until you ate yourselves.

A happier tone seems to have been struck by a few complaints that i have forsaken my recent Folk direction deliberately to pursue viewing figures by giving them what they want?.......Nah!

Here's Yorkshire's 1970 version of The Proclaimers,but with two handsome farmer types replacing the rather unattractive geeky twosome, and with far less shouty spittle involved.

The cover photo does look like the Dransfields are looking around the site of the male rape scene with the Trump voters from  John Boorman's "Deliverance"....after all events like that are what most Folk tunes are written about.Subject matter rarely touched upon by the mainstream rock and punk bores.

1970/71 could well turn out to be the best years for music ever.....even Yes were good then for chrissakes!?

But what about the Punk Rock the aging Ramones shirted punx whine?....this stuff IS Punk Rock! Besides that you proto punk bores are always inventing new bands who were the first Punks before Punk every bloody week,so you should be happy in 1971...especially when you discover that there were actually no,zero, Punk bands in 1971 (pretty much like 1976 in fact)......and don't yee come back with Iggy effing Pop , the rocking dwarf. Pleeeeeze!

The real underground was the Folk scene.No-one bought the records, but they carried on oblivious of the global indifference.Even shunning electrical instrumentation.

So here we have the Dransfields giving it their all with a mixture of self-penned and traditional tunes, given a cutting edge by Barry's barely disciplined fiddle scraping.

I should have saved this for this coming Saturday's F.A. Cup final, in which I am expecting, nay demand, a Rout of the Blues by my beloved Leicester City...the Blues being the arrogant and Russian Oligarch financed Chelsea.

Like Rock and Punk music, Football used to be property of the common man,but the rich have stolen it,as they have Rock music;but Folk is still with us,and could never be bought by Russian blood money. Hopefully we can get the other stuff back one day; but not using the VOD method of selling it back to us in unaffordable over elaborate box sets with shite artwork,to display but not play.

Here,the music will remain free,so we can reclaim the notes without feeding the phat cats,or the fat twats.

Tracklist:

1.The Rout Of The Blues
2.Scarborough Fair
3.English Medley

     St. Clement's Jig

     The Huntsmans Chorus

     Nancy
4.The Waters Of Tyne
5.The Earl Of Totnes
6.Tapestry
7.The Trees They Do Grow High
8.A Week Before Easter
9.A Fair Maid Walking All In Her Garden
10.Who's The Fool Now

DOWNLOAD from the internet's rout 666 HERE

Sandy Denny - "York University 14th October 1972" (Bootleg)

Yep, it's 43 years today since Sandy Denny's life support systems were turned off, following a brain hemorrhage probably incurred after falling down the stairs of a rented cottage in Cornwall while on holiday with her parents....better known as the two middle aged persons on the front cover of "Unhalfbricking" ...and hitting her head on the stone floor.Falling down some stairs was something she tended to do quite regularly apparently. She was discovered, by chance, at a friends house unconscious on the floor.She never regained consciousness,and basically died alone......Sandy would not have liked that eventuality at all.

I should write my own Candle In The Wind" for her really I suppose,as like Reg, I was just a kid when she ,the bucket, did kick. Ironically, 'twas Elton's entertaining performance at the Albert Hall in 1970,supporting Fotheringay, that was the final nail in the coffin for Sandy's ill-fated band of chums......so thanks for that Elton you fat bastard. Choosing an act whose specialty was audience pleasing entertainment as support was rather ill-advised for Sandy's preference for the add doomy lyric and a group not exactly renowned for jumping around too much.

It was also Sandy's flaccid contractual obligation recording of "Candle In The Wind" as a desperate single, that ended her tenure on Island, and likely her career.I'm sure she could have made a comeback in the nineties however,June Tabor managed it.

However detrimental the break up of her group was for her confidence and drinking problem, I prefer Sandy Solo,with minimal backing...check out her Demo's for justification.

This solo concert at York University,is classic Sandy, nervously joking between songs,but the joking stops when she starts to sing.

Its got another nicely doomy version of "Late November",my personal fave,which recounts the fatal Fairport Convention bus crash on the M1 in late november 1968,for which she never got over her survivors guilt,but at least it got channeled lyrically.

Hard to believe she would have been an old lady now,although she smoked like a chimney and drank like a fish,so that's debatable. Alas, she remains another case of die young and stay pretty.

Tracklist:

1 It'll Take A Long Time
2 Bushes And Briars
3 Sweet Rosemary
4 It Suits Me Well
5 The Sea Captain
6 Tomorrow Is A Long Time
7 The Lady
8 John The Gun
9 Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood
10 Late November
11 The Music Weaver

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Martin Carthy – "Landfall" (Philips – 6308049) 1971

Archie Fisher was not the only MBE on the folk circuit incredibly. For sooth ,Martin Carthy MBE has been a reality for more than a decade.This means I have to choose a favourite Martin Carthy album,so, having a liking for grim tunes and psychsploitative sleeve art I've plumped for this...."Landfall". A word that usually means the moment when a hurricane  hits the shore and calms down a bit.

There's good songs about infanticide,loneliness,death,injustice, and mental illness,what more could you want?

Martin is also worth his MBE for never selling out,and  for his impeccable ethics...you know, those things the Punk Rockers conveniently forgot about once they got in the charts.....I know,'but he accepted an MBE' you say....in the world of Folk this is not the same act of betrayal as Mick Jagger accepting a knighthood, as the royal family was always an accepted part of the folk world especially in the lyrics.Without the murdering, thieving, war mongering scum that made up the royal families of the past, we would have only about half of the folk songs available for the good Martin to re-interpret for us!?

Tracklist:

A1 Here's Adieu To All Judges And Juries
A2 Brown Adam
A3 O'er The Hills
A4 Cruel Mother
A5 Cold Haily Windy Night
B1 His Name Is Andrew
B2 The Bold Poachers
B3 Dust To Dust
B4 The Broomfield Hill
B5 January Man

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Archie Fisher – "The Man With A Rhyme" (Folk-Legacy Records – FSS-61) 1976

What does 'Sister Ray' mean to you?.....No not The Velvet Underground, obviously the late Sister Ray Fisher,sibling to the more successful Archie Fisher; both members of Scottish Folk Royalty The Fisher Family.Archie, as it says, is the man with a Rhyme,and he penned quite a few popular contemporary Folk tunes that garnered an audience in the States, United of...!

Archie is also the man with an MBE,awarded for services to Folk music in the 2000's.

He does a nice line in gentle, acoustic folk,and manages to sing in various accents, both Scotch and English; a fact that would make many a kilt wearing Scottish nationalist bigot spin in his shallow grave.

Archie realised we were all the same people on that wretched Island.

Tracklist:

A1 Twa Bonnie Maidens 3:23
A2 Welcome Royal Charlie 3:03
A3 Dark Eyed Molly 2:59
A4 Queen Amang The Heather 3:49
A5 Jock Stewart 2:57
A6 The Witch Of The West-Mer-Lands 4:38
A7 The Echo Mocks The Corncrake 2:42
B1 Western Island 2:01
B2 Upstairs, Downstairs 1:58
B3 Mount And Go 3:13
B4 The Wounded Whale 4:09
B5 The Cruel Brother 5:45
B6 Coshieville 3:04
B7 South Wind 3:19

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Ray Fisher – "The Bonny Birdy" (Trailer – LER 2038) 1972

Staying on the theme of androgynous female first names, after Frankie, and Lindsay ,but not staying on the same musical theme, we've got Scotch Folkie lady,and bonny birdie, Miss Ray Fisher.She,who sings with a Scottie from Star Trek style scotch accent(but this one is apparently 'real'?) about Scottish stuff,but without that distasteful Scottish Nationalism that makes everyone groan as soon as North Sea fucking Oil is mentioned! The same shit happens in conversation with persons of Irish decent too.The clock is ticking as to when 'Da Potatoe Famine' is inevitably mentioned. Jeeeezuz, let it go will ya!?

But, when it comes to traditional music, Scottie from Star Trek can sum it up in one of his adapted catchphrases.

"Yae cannie change the laws of Folk Captain!" (Montgomery Scott,chief engineer, USS Enterprise)

No doubt that The Fisher family were staunch nationalists,but no real hint of that crap on this record anyway,especially as most of the English folk glitterati appear on this album,as featured on the rear cover in that folk style of heads floating in bubbles. Included in the floating bubbles are folk gods Martin Carthy and Ashley Hutchings who supply arrangements, guitars and backing voices.

As far as I can see the song selection only hints at the Glencoe massacre when scots killed scots,and no tiresome tunes about slaughtering the English at one of the few battles they actually won.

American Aussie and Jew Hater, Mel Gibson,barked the immortally fictional line "You may take our lives but you won't take our freedom!",in that rather silly film about William Wallace.

They are still a slave state of the English to this day apparently? All that devolved power and democracy, higher capita per head spending of govt funds north of the border,and other atrocities like that. Poor fuckers.

The Uyghur's in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar have got it easy compared to the repressed Scots.

I know that by mentioning the Uyghur genocide in China I am risking receiving a virus that wipes this blog completely and emptys my bank account,but I felt obliged. A western boycott of Chinese goods, like anything by Apple, would go a long way to offer some support for our Muslim chums in the Re-Education centres and forced labour Factories of China.This is probably the only time I have agreed with Iain Duncan Smith ever! Who is normally reprehensible in his obnoxiousness......this also sadly means that I agree with Trump on China too...but perhaps for different reasons.

Oh Yeah.....this albums pretty good by the way.....got rather sidetracked.....again!? 

 

Tracklist:

A1 Johnnie Sangster
A2 Mill O'Tifty's Annie
A3 Bonny At Morn
A4 Forfar Sodger
B1 Pride Of Glencoe
B2 Silkie Of Sul Skerry
B3 Shipyard Apprentice
B4 Bonny Birdy

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Frankie Armstrong – "Lovely On The Water" (Topic Records – 12TS216) 1972

"No no no! Heavens to murgatroyd Frankie, the water' s down there,that's the sky you're looking at!? Sheech!

They're not the sharpest tools in the box thems countryside folk, but when it comes to minimally accompanied singing of the old tunes they can make the most complicated of emotions seem explicable,and pop singers seem like the talentless dicks they undoubtedly are.

Apparently,now blind,which would explain a multitude of things,except that Frankie, isn't a bloke, and she comes from one of those places that no-one can find or escape from,namely, Workington...the clues in the name.A industrial town in the gloriously savage slate grey wilderness of Cumbria,the most radioactive place in England,which sits on the coast next to the most radioactive sea in Europe,The Irish Sea. Cumbria being the home to the first Nuclear Reactor in the western world at Windscale.

So the combination of Coal dust, Steel plant pollution, and radioactivity makes for a heady cocktail that produces the kind of strangeness that manifests itself in English Folk Culture,so Obviously there's gonna be a Folk singer or two that comes from Workington isn't there?

The issues in these songs are as old as the human race.The Brown Girl especially being an early example of Black Lives Matter,or rather Brown Lives matter ,even though the Brown Girl in question does actually survive.

Things never change do they? 

"The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime" is a two hundred year old version of the recent anti-male protests in the UK.

Tracklist:

A1 Tarry Trousers
A2 The Green Valley
A3 Low Down On The Broom
A4 The Cruel Mother
A5 The Crafty Maid’s Policy
A6 The Maid On The Shore
A7 The Frog And The Mouse
B1 Lovely On The Water
B2 The Brown Girl
B3 The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime

B4 The Unquiet Grave
B5 The Saucy Sailor
B6 The Two Sisters

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A. L. Lloyd, Anne Briggs, Frankie Armstrong with Alf Edwards and Dave Swarbrick – "The Bird In The Bush (Traditional Erotic Songs)" (Topic Records – 12T135) 1966

Phwooooaaaar, Fnar Fnar, Kyuk Kyuk,,Titter Titter, them rude Folk Singers Folks eh?

If you've ever wanted a semi-boner caused by a 17th century song full of sexual references as sung by a fusty old bloke called Bert,accompanied by another old duffer called Alf on the squeeze box, then this is the album for you.

Luckily, we also have the lovely,and apparently sober but sexually liberated goer, Anne Briggs , to achieve the same effect rather more easily;depending on your sexual orientation of course.Then again there's also Frankie Armstrong, who, as fate would have it,isn't a beered up old bloke,but turns out to be another fair folk maiden with at least a couple of admirable qualities.

Yes it's true, country folk from the olden days had a sex life,and what's more, they sang about it.Although I guess there weren't many songs about Homosexual love affairs.....but I wouldn't put it past 'em.Seems like the country folk were far ahead of those urban dwellers on most issues at the time.I guess it depends on the person singing,as is the tradition of Folk singing,that you can adapt the words to fit your own personal leanings?So if you were a Gay Shepard,you can adapt any of these tunes to be about that tempestuous affair you had with young Billy Biddlesthwaite round the back of the grain silo in the silage pit (Snigger!). Or, knowing some farmer boys, that troublesome evening in the hay with Susan the transvestite Ram treating him like the lady he wished he were.

We also have a pre-Fairport Dave Swarbrick on the fiddling...Fnar Fnaaar,Kyuk Kyuk!

Tracklist:

A1 A. L. Lloyd– The Two Magicians 4:41
A2 Frankie Armstrong– The Old Man From Over The Sea 2:49
A3 A. L. Lloyd– The Wanton Seed 1:30
A4 Anne Briggs– Gathering Rushes In The Month Of May 4:46
A5 A. L. Lloyd– The Bonny Black Hare 2:54
A6 Anne Briggs– The Whirly Whorl 1:12
A7 A. L. Lloyd– Pretty Polly 1:27
B1 A. L. Lloyd– The Old Bachelor 3:42
B2 Anne Briggs– The Stonecutter Boy 1:53
B3 A. L. Lloyd– The Mower 1:57
B4 Frankie Armstrong– The Bird In The Bush 2:55
B5 A. L. Lloyd– The Pegging Awl 2:46
B6 Anne Briggs– Martinmas Time 4:50
B7 A. L. Lloyd– The Widow Of Westmoreland's Daughter 2:15

DOWNLOAD into the birds bush HERE!Kyuk Kyuk!

Various Artists – "The Iron Muse (A Panorama Of Industrial Folk Music)" (Topic Records – 12T86) 1964

Nooooooo, this isn't an album by Current 93,Coil, or any of the other ,so-called privately educated Industrial folkers .This was made by people who actually worked for a living. And they didn't live anywhere like the tastefully paved avenues and nooks of Hampstead either.They endured the rough end of the Industrial revolution that made the various Polytechnics and Art schools that Throbbing Gristle attended look like fluffy pink kindergartens, and trod the grimy cobbled  slipways to an early death in the ,to quote Pere Ubu, Dub Housing of the Industrial north,where the sun literally never shone. The only way out for these slaves was ,hopefully, a rampant case of emphysema.A disease which Ironically,did for Genesis P.Orridge look alikey, fiddling folk legend Dave Swarbrick in the end,after his double lung transplant......but his was due to chain smoking rather than breathing in coal dust for 40 years.

Ay Lad, life wir aaaaaard oop North,but down the ale houses and pubs.......(amazingly there were no,slash, Zero Wine Bars???.).....of the open cess-pits of northern England,in the absence of TV and Radio,the local singers entertained the cap doffing proletariat with some centuries old Folk songs,passed down purely by ear to mouth. One doubts very much,following the impending extinction events to come,that Aqua's 'Barbie Girl' would achieve the same distinction?.....maybe "The Final Countdown" has a chance, or the Crazy Frog?...But what is sure is that the songs from the English Civil War will still be sung in the crumbling bunkers of the near future.

Often, of an evening,after alighting the pit lift and a quick communal shower, it was down the local, to hear Old Bert sing unaccompanied songs about the Napoleonic Wars,unrequited Love,murder and suicide.....and every body knew the words and their harmony parts.

Thanks to Pete and Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl, there was a Folk revival going on on both sides of the Atlantic.Little did those kids listening to Leadbelly and their exotic American Blues heroes know,most of the songs they were singing were in fact Olde Folk tunes from the British Isles,that were just about to be claimed back.

1964 may have been the height of Beatlemania,but it was also the height of the UK Folk Boom when even records like this sold out like hot potatoes.....I say potatoes instead of Chips because the nouveaux Folkies were predominantly middle class and upwards....exceptions being the legendary Martin Carthy,Anne Briggs and the Watersons of course,but there was a fashion element included that some purists would find distasteful, especially head Folk bore and Kirsty's dad, Ewan MacColl.

Before Bob Dylan (BB),and to a greater extent Fairport (BF) this purist approach was all you got in the Folk Clubs,but this was the inspiration for the Folk Rockers of the late sixties.

I apologise for you having to endure several examples of the depressing Geordie accent on this record,but this is the stuff you would have had to listen in the Folk clubs of the north in the late fifties to mid-sixties.An honest excursion into epic story telling inside a couple of minutes.As Martin Carthy says; "It takes a couple of days to read a good book,an hour and a half to watch a decent movie, but a  song can get you to the same place in just five minutes".......unless it's "Barbie Girl" of course.

Another aspect of the 'Folk Revival' was its politicization.Naturally being working class music, it was hi-jacked by a champagne socialist agenda,leading to pink coloured overtly righteous bores like Billy Bragg!

Ironically it took Margaret Thatcher to liberate these people from the Mines and Factories,an act that in centuries to come will be called 'The Great Liberation'.Being very working class myself,and not Tory in the slightest,I took my chance to escape a lifetime of slavery, fueled by the DIY message of Punk Rock and indeed Thatcher herself, to achieve what most of us working class scummers wish to attain....yep....comfortable bourgeois status.The bleating pinko's and punko's were largely Bourgeois themselves,playing politics with the little people where the music came from,which had absolutely nothing to do with Political Dogma,and politics has nothing to do with freedom.

Nowadays the Iron Muse has been replaced by the Plasma widecreen Muse,or ,even more disturbing, the Social Media Muse.Woe betide all the musicologists of the future unearthing the folk music of today.....one assumes they will rebury it instantly,and create a 'Forbidden Zone' like the one in 'Planet Of The Apes'

Tracklist:

A1 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– Miners' Dance Tunes
A2 Bob Davenport– The Collier's Rant
A3 Anne Briggs– The Recruited Collier
A4 A. L. Lloyd– Pit Boots
A5 Louis Killen– The Banks Of The Dee
A6 Matt McGinn – The Donibristle Moss Moran Disaster
A7 Bob Davenport– The Durham Lockout
A8 Louis Killen– The Blackleg Miners
A9 A. L. Lloyd– The Celebrated Working Man
A10 Bob Davenport– The Row Between The Cages
A11 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– The Collier's Daughter
B1 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– The Weavers' March
B2 A. L. Lloyd– The Weaver And The Factory Maid
B3 Ray Fisher– The Spinner's Wedding
B4 A. L. Lloyd– The Poor Cotton Wayver
B5 Anne Briggs– The Doffing Mistress
B6 Matt McGinn – The Swan Necked Valve
B7 Ray Fisher– The Dundee Lassie
B8 Matt McGinn – The Foreman O'Rourke
B9 Louis Killen– Farewell To The Monty
B10 The Celebrated Working Man's Band– Miner's Dance Tunes

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