high quality sound engineering, and proper notes.

I've still got four or five Seamus Ennis FolkTrax tapes featuring all manner of pipe tunes, songs, stories (Sean Aerach - the ultimate odd-couple road-trip involving a hilarious dispute with St Peter over the heart of a lamb...), with some fiddle / whistle as well. As far as Folk Product goes they were something else - duplicated on low-grade unbranded cassette tapes with near-illegible photocopied covers with minimal info (at best) all served up in pastel pinks and blues. I just wish I'd bought more of them when I had the chance really - I've had them since around 1984 and one of these days might even get round to doing a digital transfer. Hoary artefacts of genuine Folkloric significance which are worth cherishing I would have thought, along with all the contentions and controversies that went with them...

I must admit (as I often do) I'm not a huge fan of VOTP (even though I own most of it), feeling that such material deserves open access on-line with the emphasis being on the singers themselves (as in the old Topic collections), rather than further merry mix-ups of song taxonomy.