Friday, June 29, 2007

Poddy Royly

I can't really be bothered to write very much right now so I'll just stick up the links.

Paddy Reilly is - or was, 30 years ago - pretty much the best of the Irish ballad singers. I saw him play live, once in Donegal Town and once somewhere else, when I was on tour in Ireland in 1977 - he was very good and I had a great respect for the man.

Later, he joined The Dubliners - haven't heard that lineup but I suspect it wasn't as good as these three little gems.

Paddy Reilly - The Life Of Paddy Reilly (1973)

The cover photo of this album was taken at the gates of Kilmainham gaol, which is where James Connelly was hanged. Funny (or not), when I was playing Irish music we weren't allowed to sing the words of that song. So we palyed it as an instrumental - we weren't alone in that.

01 - 01 - Spancil Hill
01 - 02 - Coming Of The Road
01 - 03 - Sam Hall
01 - 04 - Come To The Bower
01 - 05 - Deportees
01 - 06 - Dollymount Strand
01 - 07 - Irish Soldier Boy
01 - 08 - Matt Hyland
01 - 09 - Orange And The Green
01 - 10 - James Larkin
01 - 11 - James Connolly
01 - 12 - The Lark In The Morning

http://rapidshare.com/files/39897468/PR1.zip

Paddy Reilly - Paddy Reilly At Home (1974)

This isn't the original cover of this album - no idea why but they changed the photo just before I bought my copy.

02 - 01 - Come Out Ye Black And Tans
02 - 02 - Joe Hill
02 - 03 - The Limerick Rake
02 - 04 - Peggy Gordon
02 - 05 - The Foggy Dew
02 - 06 - Four Green Fields
02 - 07 - A Nation Once Again
02 - 08 - Blackwater Side
02 - 09 - Silver In The Stubble
02 - 10 - Kelly The Boy From Killane
02 - 11 - Annerchuain
02 - 12 - Salford Town

http://rapidshare.com/files/39897533/PR2.zip

Paddy Reilly - The Town I Loved So Well (1975)

Yes *that* song. Still the best version of it.

03 - 01 - The Flower Of Sweet Strabane
03 - 02 - The Cliffs Of Dooneen
03 - 03 - The Hills Of Kerry
03 - 04 - The Galway Races
03 - 05 - Rathcliff Highway
03 - 06 - Come Up The Stairs
03 - 07 - The Town I Loved So Well
03 - 08 - Arthur McBride
03 - 09 - Autumn Has Come
03 - 10 - I Once Loved A Lass
03 - 11 - Bold Tenant Farmer
03 - 12 - Sweet Carnlough Bay
03 - 13 - There Has To Be An End To It Someday
03 - 14 - The Movin' Along Song

http://rapidshare.com/files/39911066/PR3.zip

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Oh, no, not *more* bloody folk music...

Some requests before we start...

THE WATERSONS - I've recently bought the reissued CDs and the huge box set but am missing one track from the original 'Yorkshire Garland' album that was omitted from the re-release, no idea why. Would therefore like to get hold of The Plains Of Mexico.

SPUD - I'd love to get hold of the two Spud albums with Dermot O'Connor - when I was in Poteen there was talk of myself and Joe O'Donnell teaming up with him to form a new band, but it never happened. Pity. Anyway, all I have is an old cassette of 'A Silk Purse' and 'A Sow's Ear', neither of which play any more. I recently found a download link ('Grown So Ugly' that had a vinyl rip of one - does the other even exist?)

BERT JANSCH - several people have asked if I have 'L A Turnaround' - no I don't, and I don't know anyone who does. It seems to have vanished forever - even Bert himself couldn't find a copy when compiling a recent anthology. Posted over at Time Has Told Me.

If anyone has got a copy of any of these, *please* rip it & post it somewhere. I'll happily post them here if you dont have a blog of your own (and give you all the credit, of course). Also:

SHIRLEY COLLINS - I've been trying to get hold of the 'Within Sound' box set, but Fledg'ling have sold out - they're not planning to press any more - and the only copy I can see is going for £100 on Amazon. If anyone has a copy they'd be willing to sell me for a reasonable sum, please drop me a line. Alternatively, if you can let me have it in MP3 format that would be fine as well - I know that's a bit naughty but I *will* pay for it if I can find it at a reasonable price. Got the MP3s, now I need the CDS...

"And now, back to the records"...

More folky stuff this time I'm afraid. I get like this from time to time - obsessed with a particular artist or genre.

I can honestly say that, right now, I would happily spend the rest of my life listening to The Watersons, Shirley Collins, Anne Briggs and Spirogyra to the exclusion of anything else. And it's all down to Bazza Dransfield and his recent emails. Of course I've known most of that stuff for 30 years or more, but it's equally true that, apart from the odd Fairport, Steeleye or Trees album, most of it has been unlistened-to since CD took over as my medium of choice.

So I now have a 'folk' playlist on my iPod that consists of the following albums:

  • A Bed Of Roses
  • A Yorkshire Garland
  • Angel Delight
  • Anne Briggs
  • Anthems In Eden
  • Bandoggs
  • Battle Of The Field
  • Bells, Boots & Shambles
  • Bright Phoebus
  • Cruel Sister
  • Folk Roots, New Routes
  • For Pence And Spicy Ale
  • Lark Rise To Candleford
  • Love, Death And The Lady
  • Morris On
  • No Roses
  • No-One Stands Alone
  • Old Boot Wine
  • On The Shore
  • Once In A Blue Moon
  • Please To See The King
  • St Radiguns
  • Summer Solstice
  • Tam-Lin (see below)
  • The Garden Of Jane Delawney
  • The Power Of The True Love Knot
  • The Time Has Come

I really have no desire to hear anything else for now.

Oh - and I'm off to see Waterson Carthy tomorrow night. Still quality stuff, though IMHO not in the same league without Mike (or Lal). Oh - and I'm probably going to Hastings on Saturday, so may pop in to see the Dransfield

If Bazza's emails hadn't been enough of a spur, by coincidence BBC Radio 4 broacast a documentary on Bright Phoebus a few weeks ago. The actual transmission date was before my personal reawakening, and by the time I went to listen to it the programme had been taken down from the Listen Again pages of the BBC Web site. Luckily I'm a long time Usenet user, and a post to uk.music.folk turned up a couple of people who had recorded it and they sent me MP3s - thanks to you both.

Look, I'm not sure about the legality of posting a recent BBC broadcast - actually, yes I am, I shouldn't do it - but for my regular visitors you can download the programme here (no you can't, it's gone now). I hope the original recording person doesn't mind. Note: I'm going to delete that in a few days - I don't want the wrath of Aunty Beeb on me. Funny, you know, Dave Bulmer is on there... he doesn't *sound* like the antichrist...

Of course, Bright Phoebus is one of the albums that I *have* continued to play throughout these years - my god if you don't know how good it is and have the remotest interest in classy music than you owe it to yourself to download it from my previous post and listen. Fer Chissakes it's *free* - but if it's ever released in a format that results in Mike, or Lal's family getting any money I will immediately delete that file and will personally buy half a dozen copies for people. As The Guvnor said, you have a *duty* to hear that album.

Which is not to ignore the rest of the Watersons recorded output, but most of that *is* available and - as I mentioned above - I recently bought the 4CD box set. And if you really can't cope with unaccompanied traditional music, Lal's albums with Oliver Knight are essential. Really.

Anyway - two more obscure folk albums from days gone by...

Alastair McDonald - Tam Lin (1971)

I know absolutely squat about Scottish music so I've no idea if this is a lost classic or a pile of poo - but I like it a lot. Trivial info - it's on the Youngblood label, which is the same label as my copy of Roy Harper's "Return Of The Sophostocated Beggar".

01 - Tam Lin
02 - The Twa Corbies
03 - Bratach Bana (The Shining White Banner)
04 - Chairlie O Chairlie
05 - Donald MacGillavray
06 - Johnny O'Breadislea
07 - Song Of Clandonald
08 - Normond Braes
09 - McPhersons Rant
10 - Andro And His Cutty Gun

Download from here.

Farmstead - The Sheep And The Hay (1977)

A local amateur group from the Western Yorkshire dales. Only 500 copies were made, I've got one - so where are the others? Trivial info: I used to sing 'Lord George' with my band Brahms & Liszt around the London pub circuit in the late 70s.

01 - The Sheep And The Hay
02 - Chickens In The Garden
03 - Three Airs
04 - Lord George
05 - Western Breeze
06 - The Three Peaks
07 - Sleeping Lion
08 - The Huntsman's Chorus
09 - Line O'er The Fell
10 - Turning Of The Year & Morris Jig
11 - The Roving Fiddler
12 - Song Of The Yorkshire Dales

Download from here.

Post script: Yesterday I received the CD of 'Shining Bright' that I bought last week over the web. I played it this morning.

Don't bother.

Sorry - I really wanted to like it, I really did. But apart from Dayteller (who he?), Eliza Carthy (no surprise there, she grew up with her auntie Elaine's incredible music) and Maddy Prior (jeez, she can't half still crack it vocally) the rest of it is pretty average. Not the songs, mind you, I mean the singers & performances. Oh, OK, a grudging approval for Christy Moore.

Christine Collister epitomises, for me, a bland & overproduced modern professional singer. Why is modern music so soulless? Why don't I like anything Richard Thompson has done since Pour Down Like Silver, or REM since Pageant, or Pink Floyd since Meddle (don't get me started on that) - is it to do with knowing what you're doing? When bass players learn what bass players are supposed to do they nearly always become uninteresting. And the same goes for singers & songwriters. And bands.

In my opinion.

L7ers...

Monday, June 18, 2007

Line Twine The Willow Dee

Hmm - having said I was going to post all the Leader & Trailer stuff I could find, a trawl through my albums reveals that I don't have that many any more. But here are two that I do have - and soon there will be more folk oddities.

Here's an oddity though.

I bought this album because 'Alison Gross' was on it and I liked the Steeleye version on Parcel Of Rogues (although, with hindsight, it ain't that great - in fact I really don't rate Steeleye after the first 2 or 3 albums). I wasn't prepared for what I got, though - a pretty uncompromising and stark album with no attempt to pretty anything up, I found this album pretty hard going and I didn't play it much. I will though, now, maybe I underestimate it. Maybe not. Dave plays squeezebox on track 6, Kevin Burke plays fiddle on track 3, Packie Byrne plays whistle on track 4 and Nic Jones plays fiddle on tracks 5 & 8, but otherwise it's Dave & Toni singing unaccompanied, mostly in unison an octave apart (if that makes sense). Toni Arthur, of course, went on to present Play Away with the mighty Brian Cant.

BTW - no, I don't have any of the Nic Jones albums. Unfortunately I never really liked his solo stuff that much - my loss, I'm sure - and so all I have is the Bandoggs album on which he sings & plays. 'Penguin Eggs' is supposed to be his best album, and that *is* still available, along with some live & previously unreleased stuff on compilations, but despite listening again I'm afraid I'm still not a huge fan of his.

Dave & Toni Arthur - Hearken To The Witches Rune (1970)

01 - Alison Gross
02 - Tam Lin
03 - A Fairy Tale
04 - The Fairy Child
05 - Broomfield Hill
06 - The Standing Stones
07 - The Cruel Mother
08 - Alice Brand

http://rapidshare.com/files/37931070/rune.zip

Dick Gaughan - No More Forever (1972)

If you don't know Dick Gaughan, shame on you. This is his first solo album, the last of my great lost 'Bulmerised' Trailer albums for now.

01 - Rattlin' Roarin' Willie & The Friar's Britches
02 - MacCrimmon's Lament & Mistress Jamieson's favourite
03 - Jock O'Hazeldean
04 - Cam' Ye Ower Frae France
05 - The Bonnie Banks O' Fordie
06 - The Thatchers O' Glenrae
07 - The Fair Flower Of Northumberland
08 - The Teatotaller & Da Tushker
09 - The Three Healths
10 - The John MacLean March
11 - The Green Linnet

http://rapidshare.com/files/37925060/Nomore.zip

 

 

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Cheap Red Wine In My Drunken Brain

The other day I uploaded some albums by the Dransfield brothers and, since I used to know Barry quite well, emailed him to check that it was OK to do so.

His reply included the comment that "our stuff...is all mainly still in the hands of Dave Bulmer and he never pays us anything anyway". I thought nothing much of that but a few days later, on a whim, I googled "Dave Bulmer"... and what a can of worms I discovered.

I'm not going to say much more than that right now, because I don't know the truth, except that there is a heck of a lot of vitally important, and extremely good, folk music that is unlikely to see the light of day in the near future. Hence the uploading of this album. I'm going to post all the Leader and Trailer stuff I can and hope that somehow he's convinced to re-release them and let the artists have their just desserts. Sadly, for Tony Rose it's too late, and Nic Jones could probably have used some royalties... Read more here...

If you don't know this album, do yourself a favour and listen - then go and buy some other Watersons stuff. Norma you probably know about, the family band is almost all unaccompanied traditional folk song (though among the very best of its genre), and the two albums that Lal made with her son Oliver Knight (Once In A Blue Moon and A Bed Of Roses) are absolutely wonderful. Go buy them, ay least!!! Also, the songs on Bright Phoebus have been recorded by an array of folk stars for an album called 'Shining Bright' which I've ordered from Amazon but haven't heard yet.

Lal & Mike Waterson - Bright Phoebus (1972)

Interesting thing - somewhere down the line I seem to have obtained MP3s of Bright Phoebus. I *have* ripped my vinyl, and I thought I'd posted the mp3s somewhere, but these rips are definitely *not* from my vinyl. I know that because there's an irrepairable jump in 'Danny Rose' on the album, and it misses the words "...his original gun...", so it sounds like "...this is h*nn, never been shown...". If anyone has an MP3 of that track that skips there, it's *my* rip from *my* vinyl. The version posted below doesn't do that, so it ain't my rip. Thanks to wherever I got it from!

01 - Rubber Band
02 - The Scarecrow
03 - Fine Horsemen
04 - Winifer Odd
05 - Danny Rose
06 - Child Among The Weeds
07 - The Magical Man
08 - Never the Same
09 - To Make You Stay
10 - Shady Lady
11 - Red Wine And Promises
12 - Bright Phoebus

http://rapidshare.com/files/36658855/phoebus.zip

BTW a similar situation exists with Green Linnet - the label that released many of the best Irish albums on CD (including Andy Irvine Paul Brady) but never paid the artists any royalties...

Green On Red - Gravity Talks (1983)

Another album that has, inexplicably, never been released on CD as far as I'm aware.

01 - Gravity Talks
02 - Old Chief
03 - 5 Easy Pieces
04 - Deliverance
05 - Over My Head
06 - Snake Bit
07 - Blue Parade
08 - That's What You're Here For
09 - Brave Generation
10 - Abigail's Ghost
11 - Cheap Wine
12 - Narcolepsy

http://rapidshare.com/files/36658847/Green_On_Red.zip

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Ghengis Smith, Lonesome Cowboy Burt, and more re-ups

Somewhere on the Web, recently, I saw a post that mentioned somebody's two favourite albums weren't available on CD. I coulnda believe it, so I checked, and it's true!

So here, without further adon't, are said albums.

Also a few more requested re-ups.

Come Out Fighting Ghengis Smith - Roy Harper (1967)

Apparently this is Roy Harper's least favourite of all his albums - don't know why, I think it's one of his best. Mind you, it was also one of the first of his that I owned (I saw it 2nd hand in a local WHSmith the day I bought Flat Baroque), around the same time that I bought Love Chronicles (and that *is* available).

  1. Freak Sweet
  2. You Don't Need Money
  3. Ageing Raver
  4. In a Beautiful Rambling Mess
  5. All You Need Is
  6. What You Have
  7. Circle
  8. Highgate Cemetery
  9. Come Out Fighting Genghis Smith

http://rapidshare.com/files/34951782/ghengis.zip

 

200 Motels - Frank Zappa (1970)

Well you'll either like this or you won't I guess. For full info about it go here.

No idea why it's not available - it's *far* from his worst album. It's also far from his best, though.

01 - Semi-Fraudulent Direct-From-Hollywood Overture
02 - Mystery Roach
03 - Dance Of The Rock & Roll Interviewers
04 - This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Prologue)
05 - Tuna Fish Promenade
06 - Dance Of The Just Plain Folks
07 - This Town Is A Sealed Tuna Sandwich (Reprise)
08 - The Sealed Tuna Bolero
09 - Lonesome Cowboy Burt
10 - Touring Can Make You Crazy
11 - Would You Like A Snack
12 - Redneck Eats
13 - Centerville
14 - She Painted Up Her Face
15 - Janet's Big Dance Number
16 - Half A Dozen Provocative Squats
17 - Mysterioso
18 - Shove It Right In
19 - Lucy's Seduction Of A Bored Violinist & Postlude
20 - I'm Stealing The Towels
21 - Dental Hygiene Dilemma
22 - Does This Kind Of Life Look Interesting To You
23 - Daddy, Daddy, Daddy
24 - Penis Dimension
25 - What Will This Evening Bring Me This Morning
26 - A Nun Suit Painted On Some Old Boxes
27 - Magic Fingers
28 - Motorhead's Midnight Ranch
29 - Dew On The Newts We Got
30 - The Lad Searches The Night For His Newts
31 - The Girl Wants To Fix Him Some Broth
32 - The Girl's Dream
33 - Little Green Scratchy Sweaters & Corduroy Ponce
34 - Strictly Genteel (The Finale)

 

http://rapidshare.com/files/34954654/motels.zip

 

Re-ups

Clancy - Seriously Speaking & Every Day

First posted in Jeka Jose Da Da Oh (June 2006) - download HERE.

Miracle Legion - Live At The George Robey

First posted in Stay Where You Are, Little Man (June 2006) - download HERE.

Miracle Legion - Demos

First posted in Stay Where You Are, Little Man (June 2006) - download HERE.

Martyn Bates - Love Smashed On A Rock

First posted in I'll Wrap Your Hopes Up (Sept 2006) - download HERE.

Bandoggs - Bandoggs

First posted in When I Was A Freeport And You Were A Folk Supergroup (June 2006) - download HERE.

This is particularly relevant now - following an email conversation with Barry Dransfield and a subsequent Web trawl for Dave Bulmer I'm going to post all the Leader and Trailer stuff I can and hope that somehow he's convinced to re-release them and let the artists have their just desserts. Sadly, for Tony Rose it's too late, and Nic Jones could probably have used some royalties...