I have been looking at Cyril Tawney's website recently and found out that Rosemary is looking for recordings that people have made of Cyril over the years. I made a recording of a concert that Cyril did at the Bothy in 1983 (Sept 25th) and after remastering it to CD sent it off to Rosemary who has told me that it contains three songs that Cyril never recorded commercially.

I asked Rosemary if it would be OK to put a request for recordings on Mudcat and so below from the site www.cyriltawney.co.uk are the details of what she is looking for. If you have anything that might be of interest please contact Rosemary directly through the address or email on the website

Cheers
Mark



"Many of you have already sent me recordings and videos of Cyril's club and concert appearances, all of which will be carefully listened to with a view to including them in the Archive. They give me immense pleasure. However, there are some gaps; I'm particularly keen to have examples of his more quirky items, for my own benefit and for the Archive - here are some examples to jog your memories:

Music-hall songs - Married on Pension Day, With Me Little Bit Of Hair On The Top etc.

Popular songs - She Wears Red Feathers (yes, the Guy Mitchell hit), also the Andrews Sisters songs Her Bathing Suit Never Got Wet and Three Little Sisters - that's the one with the (slightly adapted) punchline:

"You can tell it to the soldier, tell it to the sailor, but don't tell it to the marine",

which audiences always joined in with great gusto, especially in Plymouth and Portsmouth.

Most of all in this category I would love to have a recording of Baltimore Oriole, a beautiful, bluesy Hoagy Carmichael song which Cyril very rarely sang - I only heard him do it a few times. Here's a reminder of the opening lines:

'Baltimore Oriole, took one look at that mercury, forty below, no life for a lady, to be draggin' her feathers around in the snow'

We will also be looking for any recordings Cyril may have made in his early Royal Navy days, before he got into folk music. He sang with a group called The Four Aways and in those days the general public could make records in music shop booths. The earliest I have so far was done in 1958 with a long-standing Navy friend, who gave me the original acetate and a CD copy at "Celebrating Cyril". The Burl Ives influence is very pronounced.

Even if the songs are covered elsewhere, Cyril's intros. were very much a part of his performances and the live sessions will help to complete the record of his career.

Thank you very much"

Rosemary