Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs

Subject: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:23 AM

Fellside Records has just pulled off a major scoop with a pair of double CD reissues of Bert Lloyd and Hedy West. The Fellside blurbs can be viewed here . But here's my opinion of both of them.

BRAMBLE BRIARS & BEAMS OF THE SUN, FECD240, comprises Bert's contribution to the legendary 10 LP set, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, which he and Ewan MacColl recorded for Riverside in 1956. When I wrote the booklet for the Topic reissue of MacColl's recordings for this set, I was working from some very rough transfers and dismissed Bert's singing there as being considerably inferior to that of MacColl. Having heard this release in clean remastered sound, I am forced to amend my opinion. BTW., it comes with a large, first class booklet written by Vic Gammon.

HEDY WEST. BALLADS & SONGS FROM THE APPALACHIANS. FECD241. These are the three LPs which Hedy cut for Topic in the 1960s; Old Times and Hard Times, Pretty Saro, and Ballads. They are issued in order of release, complete with the original notes, and every single track sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it was cut. I regard all three Hedy West Topic LPs as being among the greatest unmissables in my collection. So this must surely be among the greatest unmissable reissues of recent years.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:54 AM

Excellent news Fred, particularly the Hedy West. If anyone at Camden Libraries wanted to borrow Old Times and Hard Times they had to prise it back from me first as I seem to recall having it on almost constant loan when at school.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 10:00 AM

Hedy West was undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of the folk revival! Buy these albums and hear why!

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Reinhard
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 10:33 AM

Hold Times & Hard Times and Ballads are already available as digital downloads from Topic and the former one as a CD from Folk Legacy. But it is great to have all three albums in one package. And I'm even more glad to finally see Bert Lloyd's songs on CD. Nitpicking detail, Fred: Which is the 10th LP? I can find 9 albums only.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: RoyH (Burl)
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 11:43 AM

Great news Fred. And Tunesmith, your opinion of Hedy West is spot on. I recommend these albums wholeheartedly.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 01:27 PM

All can be ordered from CAMSCO

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 01:42 PM

"Serves'em Fine" was another great album by Hedy which I don't think has had a cd release. It was recorded in the UK ( with Martin Carthy playing guitar).
It included a number of fine contemporary songs.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:05 PM

for those who are interested in the details of the original LP's:

Riverside RLP 12-621 - 629 4 2LP sets, 1 single LP 1956
REISSUED on WASHINGTON WLP 715-723      9 single LPs Riverside albums had bound in notes, texts, glossary full album size
Wasington albums had smaller booklet inserted in record jacket

Ewan MacColl and A.L.Lloyd
RLP 12-621/22 English and Scots Popular Ballads, Volume 1
RLP 12-623/24 English and Scots Popular Ballads, Volume 2
RLP 12-625/26 English and Scots Popular Ballads, Volume 3
RLP 12-627/28 English and Scots Popular Ballads, Volume 4
RLP 12-629    Great Britain Ballads NOT Included in the
             Child Collection
WLP 715-723 designated Vol.1 through 9.

MOST of the Ewan MacColl tracks from these albums
were re-issued on 2-CD's early last year:
   TOPIC 576 BALLADS: Murder Intrigue Love Discord

Best wishes, Thomas.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 11:30 AM

Thomas Stern. "MOST of the Ewan MacColl tracks from these albums
were re-issued on 2-CD's early last year: TOPIC 576 BALLADS: Murder Intrigue Love Discord"

Which leaves me wondering what we should do with the outstanding MacColl tracks, and the Lloyds if there are any.

To explain. When I originally conceived the idea of a reissue of the entire Riverside set, I tackled Tony Engle of Topic Records, suggesting they would fit nicely onto about 5 CDs. Tony was very taken with the idea but objected that a 5 CD set wouldn't sell in sufficient numbers to recoup the cost. We therefore agreed on a double CD selective reissue of the best of the material. Also, as both of us felt that the ballad was MacColl's patch per se, the logical thing to do would be to limit the reissue to his contributions.

When I came to work on project, I became glad that Tony Engle had set a limit of 2 CDs. That is because, as fine a singer as MacColl undoubtedly was, his mastery of the ballad art was in the mid 1950s, still very uneven.

The upshot was that several of the ballads which went on that release are complete masterpieces. In my opinion they are as good as anything he recorded at any later stage in his career. Others are a little less surefooted, although they are still far better than an awful lot of the other stuff which was around then, or is around now.

That leaves about a CD's worth of material we didn't use. Of these there were two tracks I would very much liked to have used, had we had room to squeeze them in. They were Thomas the Rhymer and The Heir of Lynne.

The others are I suspect the ones which caused MacColl to say that the Riverside series was an embarressment to him. All I can say is that he re-recorded most of those self same ballads for Folkways some eight years later, and the performances there show him absolutely at the top of his game.

Nevertheless, the fact is that, even with the Lloyd reissue, there is still a big hole in this very important series. In my opinion, the two ballads I just mentioned apart, I don't think most of it is worth issuing on commercial CD, or does justice to MacColl's memory. Even so, I feel that it should be publicly available, for historical reasons if nothing else.

If anybody has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Reinhard
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 01:03 PM

Wasn't there a discussion in late 2008 whether CAMSCO would issue the remaining 20 tracks?

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 01:58 PM

Fred

I wonder if Tony at Topic would consider making then available as single downloads. The complete LPS/CDs that are available for download at the Amazon store (for example the Hedy West LPs) can also be downloaded as individual tracks so it's not a technical issue.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 04:42 PM

On e-music.com you can buy individual tracks from the Topic albums. Does anyone know if Topic are in a position to re-release albums from the defunct Riverside label. All the albums on Riverside contain extra tracks than those on similiar Topic releases, for instance, there are 6 extra tracks on the Riverside collection of MacColl/Lloyd Child Ballads. Topic licensed the others to Riverside but do they still have the extra tracks?

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 04:53 PM

Guest

I think that's what the whole thread is referring to

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 06:26 PM

CAMSCO has received permission from both Topic and FEllside to re-issue the entire original Riverside set. It will happen, though the recnt Topic and Fellside re-issues makes the project considerably less urgent.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 11:45 AM

I am not sure that either Topic or Fellside are in a position to give permission. The trouble is that the copyright issue here is even more complicated than usual.

To recap from memory. Riverside originally commissioned the LPs via Kenneth Goldstein. He then engaged MacColl and Lloyd to make the recordings. These were done by Topic in London and, although the masters were shipped off to Riverside, Topic retained the copyrights.

The LPs were released in 1956, so they are clearly out of copyright in Britain, but not in America. What nobody seems to know is whether Topic retained copyright in America or whether it was ceded to Riverside, and thus eventually to Concord, who nowadays own Riverside.

I discussed Dick's proposal with Tony Engle and Dick at the time of the Topic MacColl release, when there was still a need to get Lloyd's contribution back in the public domain. Tony was perfectly happy for Camsco to issue the balance of the recordings once the MacColl was airborne, but not the entire set. He may of course have changed his mind since, especially as the MacColl CDs have been out for about two years now.

However, any complete reissue in the near future would now come slap up against the Fellside release, which is truly magnificent and very affordable, and which deserves a decent sales run if ever anything did.

In any event, we now have a situation where about 4/5 of the set is available remastered and on CD. As I said earlier, most of the rest doesn't in my opinion justify CD reissue, and I was thinking more of making it available via the Internet for free; possibly via Soundcloud or some similar host.

A couple of other points to bear in mind.

Firstly, although the Fellside booklet acknowledges my assistance, as far as I remember all I did was to copy the Lloyd tracks onto CDR and send them to Paul Adams. In other words I want to make it clear that I have no vested interest in this project, beyond being glad that it's out there and wishing it every success, and hoping that similar goodies will come from Fellside in the future.

Secondly, I am a ballad enthusiast rather than a scholar and, when I took the Topic project on, I felt that Kenny Goldstein's original notes would be adequate for reprinting in the reissue booklet. Having seen the magnificent job which Vic Gammon has done in terms of writing new notes for the Fellside, I'm now wishing I'd thought otherwise.

In any event, Goldstein's notes are not included with the Fellside. Moreover, since neither the National Sound Archive nor the Vaughan Williams Memorial library has a complete set of the Riversides, they have become virtually inaccessible.

It would be useful therefore, if these could be made available via the Internet also.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 03 Jul 11 - 12:47 PM

I'm really not sure that either Topic or Fellside "owns" the original set. Riverside, along with too many others, has been absorbed by a series of ever-larger companies, who seem to have no interest at all in licensing nor re-releasing.
    The fact that they're legally out of copyright in the UK, but not in the US doesn't seem to have precluded their sale in the US (see also the JSP boxed sets)
   As far as "most of the rest "...not   "justifying CD reissue",
That's clearly a matter of opinion. As one who would like to have as much as possible available, my feeling is that the existence of such tracks provides all the justification that's required.
Releasing the entire set is enough of a time-consumer and money-loser that I'd love to see someone else take it on. And I'm very grateful to both Topic and Fellside for what they've done, even if I might have chosen to do it a bit differently

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 08:58 AM

As someone who has the 9 Washington LPs, with missing booklets in some cases, I wonder if it's possible to download copies of these booklets anywhere?
Always a bugbear getting the LP but not the insert. In fact over the year I acquired quite a few Ewan MacColl LPs like that- whether inserts maybe weren't produced for reissues I don't know.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 09:23 AM

"In any event, we now have a situation where about 4/5 of the set is available remastered and on CD. As I said earlier, most of the rest doesn't in my opinion justify CD reissue, and I was thinking more of making it available via the Internet for free; possibly via Soundcloud or some similar host."

One thing that I'd urge record labels that find themselves in this sort of situation to consider is Bandcamp, rather than SoundCloud.

Let's assume, for the sake of making this point, that copyright-ownership is unproblematic for the label (or artist). Placing a handful of extra tracks on Bandcamp allows them to be downloaded for free - OR FOR DONATIONS - in any digital format you wish to.

Personally, I think that, if you're going to give music out for free, it's always worth pointing out that, just because something's free, doesn't stop a listener paying for it. Musicians are far too reticent in making this point. If nothing else, donations could be given to charity.

In fact, soliciting donations for charity on sites such as bandcamp ought to be adopted more often, as it is a useful reminder to the punter that time and effort and work COSTS; it has a VALUE.

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 11:55 AM

Also an extended version of the Collector 'Penguin Book of English Folk Songs' album now available as 'England and her Traditional Songs'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Oct 11 - 12:00 PM

Whoops
Fellside FECD173
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Reissued AL Lloyd and Hedy West LPs
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 19 Oct 11 - 08:38 AM

Hmm - I'm looking for new performance material, and might have to give some of that a digging...