Not sure what "early recordings" you're referring to, Bugsy.

If you mean the material in some of the "grey" albums and others which would have been transcribed from cylinder, wire or early tape or acetate recordings, the originals might well be in the public domain, but any extant examples are likely to be in the hands of libraries or private collections who can still require licencing fees for reproduction. The transcribed recordings which went to make up those albums may or may not have been copyright to Bill Leader at the time of production, and in any case would not themselves become public domain for many years.

If you mean Bill Leader's own earliest recordings, even they would still be a long way from becoming public domain. If I'm reading the article right, anything recorded after 1961 would be covered by the extension of copyright (proposed 2011 - was it enacted?) from fifty years to seventy years, ie 1961 to 2031 and so on. The Leader/Trailer output as dated in the Musical Traditions discography spans the years 1969-1977, so all would now be in the seventy-year bracket.

I did wonder what the situation would be for any recordings Bill Leader made prior to 1961, or before setting up his own label, but those would have been made for other labels who would presumably have held the original copyrights in the material they published.

Ross