Busy Month Ahead For Topic Records.

Busy month ahead new releases from Topic October is scheduled to be very busy in the Topic office. We have several exciting new projects due for release. The splendid FULL ENGLISH album is released on Monday 7th October and LINDA THOMPSON's eagerly-awaited Won't Be Long Now on Monday 14th October. Our colleagues at Fledg'ling Records have just released a previously unheard live recording from 1968 by The YOUNG TRADITION and are to publish a hardback Book with CD of the late LAL WATERSON's lyrics, drawings and paintings on 21st October. All four projects have kept us very busy in recent months. You may have already spotted some of the many reviews and media mentions. The Full English is a groundbreaking project sponsored by the English Folk Dance and Song Society that draws together for the first time the early twentieth century folksong collections of Harry Albino, Lucy Broadwood, Clive Carey, Percy Grainger, Maud Karpeles, Frank Kidson, Thomas Fairman Ordish, Cecil Sharp, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Alfred Williams. The result is the most comprehensive searchable database of British folk songs, tunes, dances and customs in the world. To mark the launch of the project, folksong scholar and acclaimed singer Fay Hield has assembled The Full English band - inviting half a dozen of the top talents on the English folk music circuit to collaborate on songs drawn from these unique collections. The result is a tremendous album of material drawn from these historic collections. Rapidly becoming identified as a folk supergroup The Full English includes singer and fiddle player Seth Lakeman, who has successfully steered English folk into the musical mainstream with his high-energy performances and a series of best-selling albums. One of the world’s finest and most admired guitarists, Martin Simpson. Nancy Kerr, another fiddler/singer with a deep commitment to the English traditional repertoire, celebrated for her partnerships with Eliza Carthy and James Fagan. Sam Sweeney on fiddle and Rob Harbron on concertina, formidable instrumentalists who feature in Fay’s backing band The Hurricane Party as well as in Jon Boden’s Remnant Kings, and are two of the most in-demand session musicians on the scene. Nailing all this multi-instrumentality down is Ben Nicholls, double bassist of choice for artists as diverse as the Seth Lakeman Band, Martin Carthy and Jimmy Somerville. The FULL ENGLISH CD is available to buy at the special price of at £9.00 until 1st November Last weekend, BBC4 broadcast Michael Proudfoot's splendid and moving documentary The Enigma of Nic Jones - the return of Britain's lost folk hero. Nic Jones is a legend of British folk music. His 1980 record Penguin Eggs is widely regarded as a classic - in a poll by the Observer a few years ago, Penguin Eggs was rated number 79 of the 100 Best Records of All Time, just above Station to Station by David Bowie and just below Let It Bleed by The Rolling Stones - amazing for an LP that never actually charted. The programme is currently available to watch on the iPlayer Linda Thompson's first album in six years has been receiving some incredible press - "Folk-rock grande dame, still damned grand" in the view of Uncut. We'll have full details of Won't Be Long Now and the Lal Waterson book teach me to be a summer's morning in a newsletter soon. Fledg'ling Records have just released a previously unheard live recording of the mighty YOUNG TRADITION – Oberlin 1968 – FLED 3094 "Copious thanks to Fledg’ling for bringing us what is definitely the historical release of the year, no question." Living Tradition The live reputation of the mighty Young Tradition lives long in the memories of all who heard them during their brief career. Live recordings were thought not to exist until, 45 years later, an American fan remembered the reel-to-reel recording he’d made at Oberlin College on 17 November 1968. Carefully restored, these tapes are finally available for all to hear on CD and DL. Recently we added a few more designs to our range of Topic T-shirts. Full details can be found at: www.topicrecords.co.uk/category/t-shirts/ We have a handful of copies of the limited edition DAVY GRAHAM & ALEXIS KORNER 3/4 AD vinyl Record Store Day 2013 anniversary EP left to purchase from the Topic online shop. "Finger-style guitar maestro's signature tune, reissued on a 50th anniversary EP for Record Store Day 2013". MOJO