John Penhallow says ...

http://sandydennylist.blogspot.com/2009/12/bbc-sessions-1971-73.html

"The BBC's policy during the '60's and '70's was to include a quota of BBC studio recorded songs to meet a Musicians Union requirement about work and exposure for British artists otherwise Britain would be overrun by those damned Americans and the rock & roll and Boogie Woogie Music! So there is a legacy of recordings that has included the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Pentangle and of course Fairport, Fotheringay & Sandy. They all trouped into the BBC's Studios around London and laid down 4-5 tracks per session, in one take mono originally, without overdubs and with minimal production gizmo's on hand. So it was a great learning curve for the bands that went through the routine, you had to have a disciplined approach for the Beeb. Once the recordings were done then the 4 tracks would be sprinkled in to the playlist of a 2 or 3 hour music radio show on Radio On. They then got passed around to other shows, got played on the BBC World Service Short Wave Folk Programmes and had acetates (short life 12" records) made that were shipped out to the "Colonies" national broadcasters like Australia's ABC, NZBC, Canada's CBC, Hong Kong's HKBC and a few others who had agreements to play them whenever and destroy them after 8 years. The Folk Song Cellar tracks on our Attic Tracks Vol. 3 cassette come from an acetate NOT destroyed but kept in the archives at the ABC in Perth, WA, and copied for me in their studios by a Fairport Friendly presenter, producer and penfriend who also sent me some Ralph McTell, ISB and John Martyn shows from the Cambridge Folk Festivals in the early 80's - damm good stuff."