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.
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
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