29 October 2010 - RE-OPENING

Some of these albums were posted in parallel with Countess Vanessa's Castle, I know it's a bit confusing for everyone - me included - but sometimes a sprinkle of madness doesn't disturb... does it?


Your COUNTESS

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Thursday, 13 May 2010

LINDA COHEN - Leda (Poppy, 1971)

No words to define this magnificent instrumental album: classical guitar and reverb effects with incredible sounds...

Your COUNTESS

Wednesday, 5 May 2010

POLLY BOLTON BAND - Live in Cheltenham, 1992

POLLY BOLTON BAND:
Polly Bolton - vocals
John Shepherd - keyboards and vocals
Steve Dunachie - fiddle
A concert in two sets recorded at the Cheltenham Folk Club, 11 December 1992, very good audience recording. Polly was prey of a big cold that night, but luckily this didn't disturb her vocal rendition!
Not easy to detect each song title, I did my best to give names to as many as possible but some have no title at all, so far at least. 
Therefore, this is a partial list:
. 
 Intro/tuning
 Once I loved a lass 
Sally garden
Down in Yon Forest
John Shepherd's tunes
John Shepherd's song
Searching for lambs??
Died for love
Tunes
Tunes
Spencer the rover
The banks of the Bann
Jingle bang jingle
The lark in the morning
Bonny light horseman
Blackwater side

As usual, I have the habit to cut the spoken/introductory parts out of the real songs, and this concert is no exception.

Your COUNTESS





VIN GARBUTT - The valley of tees (Trailer, 1972) @320



On its way
This album comes from the collection of a great Friend,
thank you Manila!

LOVE
from your
COUNTESS

DUBLINERS - In concert (Transatlantic, 1964)





LACKEY & SWEENEY - Junk store songs for sale (Village Thing, 1973)

Billy Lackey with his fabulous Gibson J 200, probably  the 1965 issue

Monday, 3 May 2010

PENTANGLE - Live at the BBC, 12 June 1970 (Video, 29 minn.)



Shreds and SVCD rips of this concert have already surfaced here and there on some blogs and on utube, but this is the complete concert, and in perfect video quality.  And a high quality audio as well, recorded on June 12th 1970, the period of "Cruel sister", with great versions of "Light flight", of "Hunting song" (a "13th Century rock'n'roll song", as Bert Jansch describes it) and a splendid combination sitar-banjo on "House carpenter", among the other gems. Maybe not everybody knows that "I've got a feeling" is a song completely based on a piece by Miles Davis, "All blues", which you can find on some of his early CBS LPs, starting from "Kind of blue" (1959). In my opinion, all these songs sound better than the respective originals studio recordings. Shame that this film doesn't even reach a half-n-hour time...
Now, if you take some time to search a bit through the blogs, you'll see some bootlegs around (AUDIO ONLY!) reporting this same BBC concert as recorded in 1971, but the right year is 1970.  Also, you will see that their title list shows SIX songs, while actually we should also consider an incomplete "I got a woman" at the end of the film, which BBC used as a background for the coda titles, therefore we should reckon seven titles all together.
So, always be picking when looking for bootlegs. ;)

For technical reasons I had to split the .avi file in 2 parts.


Your COUNTESS

Thursday, 29 April 2010

NOEL MURPHY - Murf (Village Thing, 1973)



On its way

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

TUCKER ZIMMERMAN - same (Village Thing, 1972) @320



This album by Tucker Zimmerman, the second, was released in two different countries, years and labels (in Germany on Autogramm, 1971, and in UK on Village Thing one year later). For those who know his first LP, "Ten songs" (Regal Zonophone, 1969), it might be difficult to recognize the author. There we have some very nice acoustic songs ("Roadrunner" and "Alpha centauri" above all) drowned among others with rock arrangements.  Here, instead, all the electrical gear and equipment have disappeared, this is a real folk album and I personally prefer it this way.  TZ sings and plays his 12 string guitar and other instruments (with P. Chapelle's help on track 5) - but I fundamentally think that these songs would render at their best where no other instruments are employed, first of all this kind of "vibrato children organ" (how can I otherwise define it?), which I find rather disturbing, especially tracks 1 and 6. Often the voice is brought to the verge of "falsetto", like on track 2, and many melodies shine thanks to their "not resolving" harmonical solutions, especially "Left hand of Moses". My favourite is "Canary island rain". I personally find it great that TZ had M° Goffredo Petrassi as a teacher for composition.
The vinyl is in quite good conditions, the scan is 320 bitrate MP3
Your COUNTESS

Friday, 23 April 2010

PAUL SLADE - Dutchman (CBS, 1972)

Very good album, his second and best, many acoustic guitars and some too-electrical arrangement solutions, at times, but also a group of really beautiful songs, with "Train song" on top, for me....  Paul Slade recorded his first two LPs on CBS, the only ones with some real folky lymph in their veins; from 1974 he often recorded songs in French, not much common for an Englishman.  The title can be related to the (ghostly?) Vasseau drawing on the sleeve, from the legend of the cursed Flying Dutchman, which Heinrich Heine and Richard Wagner took inspiration from, about 150 - 170 years ago...

I'm also going to post his first album sometime soon - errands permitting.
Some good songs in it, but inferior to "Dutchman".

"Life of a man" (CBS, 1971)

Your COUNTESS VANESSA

Wednesday, 7 April 2010

SPIROGYRA - The return of SPIROGYRA on stage, June 2010!

THE RETURN OF
SPIROGYRA
LIVE IN CONCERT at the UNION CHAPEL,
London, 6 JUNE 2010

The cover of Spirogyra's marvellous live album, recorded 1974, coming soon on these columns for you!

Love and gratitude to
MARTIN COCKERHAM
the great survivor of Progressive - Folk,
who leads the resurged group on stage for this concert
- more infos will follow -

Your COUNTESS





Monday, 22 March 2010

MIKE COOPER - Trout steel (Dawn, 1971)

MIKE COOPER - Do I know you? (Dawn, 1970)

MIKE COOPER - Oh really!? (PYE, 1969)




MAGNA CARTA - Live in Bergen 1978


At the time it came out, rumours said that it was practically only available in Northern Nations like Scandinavia,  it was nearly a ghostly album for many many collectors and music lovers. Personally, I only managed to see two copies of this, the other is in the hands of a Magna Carta specialized collector, in Florence, Mr. G.R., whom I say hello to :-)
Songs like "Idle wind" and "Midwinter" have such a power to feel the ice of Artica in your veins...

Wednesday, 10 March 2010

RALPH McTELL - panorama of a Folk Grand 1968-1979

Under construction










Monday, 8 March 2010

JIMMIE SPHEERIS - Isle of view (CBS, 1972)



The original USA covers, front and back, and the slightly different UK edition.

A MASTERPIECE












Friday, 5 March 2010

FRED WEDLOCK (1942-2010) - The folker (Village Thing, 1971)

Fred Wedlock died yesterday of a heart attack.
He was a folk singer, humorist, actor and more. To remember him, this is his first album he made
The title track is a funny re-elaboration of Simon & Garfunkel's hit "The boxer"




Sunday, 28 February 2010

DEAR FRIENDS - Communication for the LINKS

MY DEAR FRIENDS, HELLO EVERYBODY!

I must apologize, but I have received so many requests of download links in these days, that I really have lost track of so many of them.
So I ask you a favour:  I need that you write me again a new email where you tell me again which LPs you want, the exact list one by one.

Yes, this method of using single comments and emails for requests, is a bit annoying for you and me, I know, but it's giving me the results I was hoping to get!
So, finally one good new, at last!
Thank you for your closeness, it's beautiful to be a blogger! - LOL!

 your
COUNTESS

Friday, 26 February 2010

IRISH ROVERS - Live at CBC TV Center, Vancouver (Interfusion, 1972)

As you can see, the foto comes from UnmöglichFolk times ;)))

JOHNSTONS - same (Transatlantic, 1968)

JOHNSTONS - The travelling people [singles' compilation, 1966-69] (Hallmark/Marble Arch, 1969)

Chronologically, this compilation of singles stays between the LPs "The barley corn" and "Bitter green".

JOHNSTONS - "Give a damn" (Transatlantic, 1968) and "Both sides now" (Polydor, 1969)

The Johnstons started as a kind of sunshine-folk group, in 1966, they published a bunch of singles for the labels PYE (1966-67, most of which mono) and BigT (1968-70), and recorded their first LP for Transatlantic in  1968, "The Johnstons".  Their second album was this, "Give a damn" again in 1968, which included some of the original BIG T singles. 
Shortly after, for reason unknown to me, the labels Polydor (in UK) and Tetragrammaton (in the USA) republished the same tracks list of this Transatlantic album, including "My house" / "The wherefore and the why" (absent on the "Give a damn" LP), on a compilation entitled "Both sides now".
Therefore, practically, these two LPs contain the same songs, but "Give a damn" lacks the above mentioned single, while "Both sides now" lacks "Julia" and "Urge for going".  So, what I 'm going to post here is this: the complete "Give a damn" album with the songs "My house" / " The wherefore..." as bonus tracks.

****************************************
As to the Johnstons' early mono singles, the Marble Arch / Hallmark label packed them on a compilation album named "The travellin people" in 1969, where the songs are re-channeled into stereo. This LP will also soon appear.

XXX Your COUNTESS

JOHNSTONS - The barley corn (Transatlantic, 1969)

Again an album that Transatlantic reissued on CD, but excluding one song
Check what I wrote on my post of the Johnstons' "Bitter green" LP

The original album cover on Transatlantic.

This is a reprint, different cover, title and label, but the songs are exactly the same.
The album is named "Ye Jacobites by name", from the title of the opening track, and was reprinted shortly after the first issue in 1969, on the Contour label, a subsidiary of Philips records.
A similar things happened for Martin Carthy's LP "The bonny black hare...", which is a compilation.

JOHNSTONS - Bitter green (Transatlantic, 1970)

Recently Transatlantic Records (or whoever for them) has decided to make some "2 LPs on 1 CD" reprints.  I don't have any of them, but I gave a look online, and I see that for some Artists, and especially for the  Johnstons, reissues are not completely faithful to the originals...
This is not only a matter of being collectors, it's a problem of deleting materials making people believe in fatamorganas... Once more, I'm happy that I can stick to my glorious big pads of black plastic, what would I do without them?  
This (vinyl) album, "Bitter Green" presents two tracks more than the CD reissue.
They are maldestrously "substituted" with a version of "Streets of London", which appeared as an A-side single in 1970 for the Big T label.


Your COUNTESS

JOHNSTONS - Colours of the dawn (Transatlantic, 1971)



JOHNSTONS - If I sang my song (Transatlantic, 1972)






Thursday, 25 February 2010

BLOODWOOD - Still Battlin' (EMI Custom, 1982 or 84)


GREAT ALBUM OF THIS DOWNUNDER GROUP!!

MICHAEL CHAPMAN - The man who hated mornings (Decca, 1977)