Ronan Heenan, vocals, guitar;

Alison Marr, vocals, penny whistle;

Aiden McCroary, bass, keyboards;

Simon Ryan, drums

In 1986, a quartet from London scored their one and only hit with a clever cover version of a song associated with Elvis Presley, Can't Help Falling in Love. Presley's version sold a million and was a US top 3 hit in January 1962 and reached Number One in the UK. 24 years later, the exceptional cover version by Lick the Tins didn't do quite as well as that, although it spent two months in the UK singles chart, but then Lick the Tins were almost unknown before the single was released, and returned to anonymity not long afterwards.

Lick The Tins had two other minor singles, "Belle of Belfast City" and "In The Middle Of The Night" after which, Simon Ryan left the band, and was replaced by Martin Hughes, another Ulsterman. Lick The Tins played the college and club circuits for another year, before the band broke up.

http://lix.in/-684bb7

This album features (almost) their entire output.

Posted by Joski at 11:32 AM | 0 comments  
Labels: Lick the Tins

Martyn Wyndham-Read is an English folk singer, notable as a collector and singer of Australian folk songs. He lived and worked in Australia from 1960 to 1967 and has been a regular visitor to the country since then. He has produced over 30 albums and appeared at folk festivals in Australia, and around the world.

Martyn Wyndham-Read, vocals, acoustic guitar;

Dave Bland, banjo, concertina;

Tony Wynne, lagerphone;

Terry Potter, mouth organ, guitar

From “The Living Tradition”

“Martyn is one of our best known and respected singers, with a laid-back, hypnotic style which never fails to relax and enthrall his audiences; he is also an acknowledged expert on Australian song. Due to his grandfathers' involvement in bloodstock and horse racing Martyn went from a small farm in Sussex to work on a sheep station at Emu Springs in South Australia. "I went there as a jackaroo, a sort of trainee manager, learning all the different aspects of running a sheep station, but working as a station-hand." He went out there by boat in 1960, paying his own fare, not going as a 'ten pound pommie' on assisted passage, "If you went like that you had to stay a minimum of two years - they kept your passport!" Thirty-five days on the boat, landing in Australia with a small bag and a guitar as luggage, and eighteen years old! Tintinara, the nearest town to Emu Springs, was "a pub, a store, and a railway siding, you had to notify the conductor so he could tell the train-driver they needed to stop there!" But it made a big impression on the young Martyn Wyndham Read, "We got there at four in the morning and I got off the train, watched it disappear into the distance. It was a moonlit night and you could see the bush in the moonlight, and there was absolutely nothing else! Beautiful."

Posted by Joski at 10:56 AM | 0 comments  
Labels: Martyn Wyndham-Read

Peter Bellamy, vocals, guitar [7], flints [8], concertina [13];
Nic Jones, fiddle [1, 3, 6, 10, 12, 14], chorus vocals [8, 15];
Chris Birch, harmony vocals [2], bass harmony [9], violin [9];
Anthea Bellamy, harmony vocals [2];
Dik Cadbury, counter-tenor [5, 9];
Peter Hall, lute [5];
Dolly Collins, portative organ [5, 9];
Dave Arthur, bodhrán [7];
Mike Edmonds, Fred Woods, chorus vocals [8, 15];

Recorded at Decca Studios, London, June 1972 by Iain Churches;

All song lyrics by Rudyard Kipling from Puck of Pook’s Hill or Rewards and Fairies. All tunes Peter Bellamy, apart from those asterisked, which are traditional tunes arranged by Bellamy.

Peter Bellamy's second album of settings of Rudyard Kipling's verse, 1972's Merlin's Isle of Gramarye, is entirely based on Kipling's two children's books, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. These books are Kipling at his most playful, and Bellamy rises to the occasion with a puckish set of original tunes based on traditional British folk forms. Unlike the more spartan Oak, Ash and Thorn, Bellamy's first collection of Kipling settings, Merlin's Isle of Gramarye makes use of the talents of a wide variety of British folk luminaries, including Nic Jones, Dolly Collins, and Chris Birch, who add vocal and instrumental accompaniment to Bellamy's richly nuanced vocals. Among the highlights are the wry "Smugglers Song" and two of Kipling's portraits of military life, "The Queen's Men" and "Eddis Service," each given multi-layered performances that match the levels of irony in Kipling's verses.



Bellamy was one of the English folk revival's greatest voices. He was born in Norfolk in 1944. In the early days of 1965 he moved to London, where he met up with Royston Wood and Heather Wood, and the three got a regular gig at a club whose name they would eventually adopt -- The Young Tradition. In flamboyant costumes, with witty presentation, and with the startling power of Bellamy's voice backed by his companions, they entertained a lot of audiences, recorded a pair of albums, gained a reputation for excellence, and were still unable to make a living as performers. So, in 1969, they broke up. As Bellamy would later point out, they became important and influential, even legendary, after they had ceased to exist.

In 1970 the idea first struck Bellamy to set the poems of Kipling to music. This fascination with Kipling continued until Bellamy's death, resulting in no fewer than five albums of Kipling songs. Also in the '70s, Bellamy composed The Transports, a ballad opera in the mold of Ewan MacColl's work, and recruited such people as Martin Carthy, Nic Jones, A. L. Lloyd, and Cyril Tawney to record it. It was released as an album in 1977 and also had several stage runs in England. During the '70s and '80s, Bellamy was trying to find an audience wider than the traditional folk crowd, so he cut back on the traditional songs in his shows, turning them into multimedia historical presentations. But traditional singing was in Bellamy's blood, and the beginning of the '90s found him back to performing mostly a traditional repertoire once again, with the exuberant enthusiasm he has always been known for. Bellamy felt there was a lack of appreciation for the music to which he had devoted his life. More than once he has commented on how countless performers have ditched traditional music for other forms of "folk" music. Some, he felt, did it for money, something he no doubt understood but regretted. More often, though, he expressed regret that interest in traditional song was simply on the wane, not only with audiences, but with performers as well. He always acknowledged that his own unwillingness or perhaps his inability to compromise had led to the demise of The Young Tradition. Perhaps, some 22 years later, it helped lead to his own; in September 1991, Peter Bellamy took his own life.

Posted by Joski at 7:10 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Peter Bellamy

Posted by Joski at 6:22 PM | 1 comments  
Labels: Young Tradition

Here are two wonderful French EP’s from my hero Donovan

The first one – Summer day Reflection Song – has songs mostly from the “Fairytale” LP

This EP contains some great songs such as To Try For The Sun and the Ballad Of Geraldine (sung in the first person). Shawn Phillips plays guitar on some of the tracks.

This is Donovan at his very best, not the pale imitation of Bob Dylan, but Poetry set on Music.

I love it.


The second one is the famous Donna Donna EP

Enjoy this glimpse into the past

Posted by Joski at 6:24 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Donovan

Posted by Joski at 6:17 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Seekers

Alan Lomax, vocals, guitar;
Ewan MacColl, vocals;
Peggy Seeger, banjo, vocals;
Shirley Collins, backing vocals [3];
Sandy Brown, clarinet;
John Cole, harmonica;
Bryan Daley, guitar;
Jim Bray, bass;
Alan Sutton, washboard

Recorded August 2, 1956 in London :

Track 1 Zora Neale Hurston, Alan Lomax;
Track 2 Alan Lomax;
Track 3 Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger
Track 4 Ewan MacColl and the Ramblers

This is one of the most sought after EP’s of all time : Alan Lomax and the Ramblers, a group that didn’t even exist.
The Ramblers were none else than the soulmates of Alan Lomax who accompanied him on a field trip through Europe and the Southern States of the US.


Here is the EP http://lix.in/-662c0a

Posted by Joski at 6:08 PM | 0 comments  
Labels: Alan Lomax, Ewan Maccoll