The First Album
CD Promotion
1 We have given a CD to the following callers who we will ask to support us for festivals, so just needs a letter (name in brackets will try to get postal address):
Rhod me@rhodri.net (Peter)
Liz e_calderbank@hotmail.com (Tom)
Dave Ball dc.ball@bluebottle.com (Howard) SENT
Sheila Mainwaring mainwaring@enta.net (Howard) SENT
Graham Smith grahamsmith988@btinternet.com (Steve)
Peter Bearon peter@bearon.org.uk (Tom)
Gordon Potts gordon.potts@blueyonder.co.uk (Tom)
John Brown calling@ceilidhcalling.co.uk (doesn't usually answer my emails - may need to ring 07017 418950)
(address not on website)
Dave Hunt daverhunt@aol.com SENT
74A King Street, Dawley, Telford, Shropshire, United Kingdom TF4 2AQ
2 We will send a CD to the following callers that we have worked with:
Martyn Harvey blackhat@ukf.net SENT
2, Airlie Villas, Gillinggate, Kendal, Cumbria LA9 4JD
Barrie Bullimore BBullimore@aol.com
(Steve)
Pete/Sue Coe petecoe@backshift.demon.co.uk SENT
103 Oldham Road, Ripponden, West Yorks HX6 4EB
Sid Calderbank (Tom)
3 We will send a CD to the following callers that we have not yet worked with:
Joey Oliver (Tom)
David Oliver dmomusic@hotmail.co.uk (Tom)
Barry Goodman barry.goodman1@ntlworld.com (Tom, can probably give him a CD at Shrewsbury)
Liam Robinson (Howard) SENT
Eddie Upton SENT
Folk South West have now moved office to:
Church Farm
Leigh
Sherborne
Dorset
DT9 6HL
Telephone: 01935 873889
E-mail: folksw@folksw.org.uk
Hugh Rippon (Howard) SENT c/o Haddenham Ceilidhs
Richard Mason (Peter)
Reg Battle (Steve, or maybe via Shirley at Adlington)
Cat Kelly cat@catkelly.co.uk (Howard)
Alice Little (Tom)
Fee Lock(Howard)
Howard has also sent copies to:
Brian Peters
Simon Mayor & Hilary James
Steve & Tish Morris (used to be involved with Chippenham Festival, may have contacts there)
John Howson (Veteran Records, EATMT) I "accidentally" forget to collect the CDs I left for him to sell at ECMW. I've told him to take one for himself.
Simon Ritchie
4. We have sent a CD for review/quote to
Shreds & Patches (Shropshire)- review published
Stirrings (Sth Yorks) via Mike Wild
Folk London (via Peter Crabb-Wyke at ECMW)
EFDSS (Derek Schofield?) Editor, English Dance and Song, EFDSS, Cecil Sharp House, 2 Regent’s Park Road, London, NW1 7AY. [SENT]
Living traditions
Folk North West (great big bloke)David Jones 5 May Avenue, Wallasey, Wirral CH44 9EP[SENT]
Emma Hartley 5 Bishops Way, Bethnal Green, London E2 9HB [SENT]
Tykes News (W Yorks) Carol Wood 408 Skipton Road, Utley, Keighley, West Yorks BD20 6HP
Telephone: 01535 606939
Email: editor@tykesnews.org.uk
Website: http://www.tykesnews.org.uk/ [SENT]
Folk News (E/N Yorks) Editor: Eric Storey [SENT]
133 Compass Road, Hull HU6 7AW
Telephone: 01482 804962
Essex Folk News [SENT]
Andy Stevens
4 Brierley Avenue
West Mersea
CO5 8HG
5. We will also send a CD for review to
Phil Brown
Sophie Parkes
David Kidman
Spiral Earth
•FolkTalk
Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire.
FolkTalk has now ceased print publication, but continues as a web-based resource.
Editor: Jim Hancock
57 Lloyds Avenue, Scunthorpe DN17 1BY
Telephone: 01724 844241
Email: jim@guestlist.freeserve.co.uk
Website: http://www.folktalk.co.uk/ [CONTACTED - NOT ACCEPTING CDS TO REVIEW]
6. Published Reviews
Shreds Patches.pdf
"Its absolutely terrific. What a great mix of tunes and great playing." Steve Davidson, BBC Radio Shetland
7. We will send for radio play (in early September)
John Adams (Pheonix FM) SENT played
BBC Radio Shropshire (Genevieve Tudor) SENT
2 at Radio Scotland (Sean)
Contact I have is:
Mary Ann Kennedy
Watercolour Music
Ardgour
Fort William
PH33 7AH
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/radioscotland/presenters/mary_ann_kennedy/)
I thought I had a second, but I can't seem to find it. It might be better if a mailing came from me (or at least had my name on it) as she's a mate of my parents.
Dave Eyre SheffieldLive 43 Storrs Hall Road, Sheffield S6 5AW
Telephone: 0114 234 4044
Email: dave@deyre.plus.com
Website: http://www.collectorsfolk.co.uk/
Folk Radio UK Submissions
If you are an artist and want to be considered for airplay please contact us at: submissions [at] folkradio.co.uk Please make sure you include website details of where we can hear your tunes but please don’t send any mp3 files. We try to listen to all artists and if your music is suitable for the playlist we’ll be in touch.
Radio Gloucester
Alister Anderson
BBC Shetland
Steve Davidson
20 Hayfield Lane, Lerwick, Shetland, ZE1 0PL.
SENT
8. Initial list of festival bookers in early October
Chipenham - Mike Courthold mjdc@courthold-family.com (Steve)[SENT]
Sidmouth - now Alan Bearman, however they won't book unsolicited acts, who can we get to recommend us?
Fylde - Alan Bell
Cleckheaton
Broadstairs [SENT]
Whitby [SENT]
Intervarsity (via John Brown - Steve?)
Bromyard [SENT]
Upton [SENT]
Shepley [SENT]
Shrewsbury [SENT]
Warwick [SENT]
Cheltenham FF [SENT]
Mrs Casey (Towersey etc) [SENT]
Cheltenham FF [SENT]
Doncaster [SENT]
Bromsgrove [SENT]
Furness [SENT]
Moira Furness [SENT]
Priddy [SENT]
9. Ceilidh series
Haddenham Ceilidhs
Unicorn Ceilidhs (Hitchin)
Oxfolk Ceilidhs
Bath Ceilidhs
Chiltern Ceilidhs
Knees up Cecil Sharp
Name suggestions
Cygnus
Swan with Two Necks
The Difficult First Album
Shoot for the Stars
Terra Firma
Terra Incognita
Stargazing
Five Go To A Recording Studio
Us
Maccbeat
Taking Flight
Samarkand
sticking your neck out
up before the beak
cygnet burns (image of swan vestas?)
silk moth
Treacle Town
Cygnificant
Cygnificant Other
Cygnifier
Starry Eyed
Hole in the Wall
Cover suggestions
If we use "Hole in the Wall" as a title, a photo of the band queued up at a cashpoint
Photo of a swan
Abstract image of a swan
Photo of the Silk Road street sign (if we use Samarkand as the title)
Sleeve notes
Albireo is the name of a star (Beta Cygni) in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan): the band first met to rehearse in a Stockport pub called 'The Swan with Two Necks'.
Cygnus is also known as the Northern Cross.
Alfaz del Pi
Steve Hodgskiss
Alfaz del Pi, a small town near Benidorm, is one of Steve's favourite places.
Arkansas Traveller / Bill Cheatham's Reel / The Kitchen Girl
AT is one of the most famous American fiddle tunes. Its origin is obscure but it dates back to at least the early C19
Sometime about the year 1850 the American musical myth
known as "The Arkansas Traveler" came into vogue among
fiddlers. It is a quick reel tune with a backwoods story
talked to it while played, that caught the ear at sideshows
and circuses, and sounded over the trodden turf of fair
grounds. Bands and foreign-bred musicians were above
noticing it, but the people loved it, and kept time to it,
while tramps and sailors carried it across the seas to vie
merrily in Irish cabins with The Wind that Shakes the Barley
and The Soldier's Joy.
BC is widely known, probably originated in Southern US, first noted in 1899.
KG Collected in 1966 from influential Glen Lyn, Virginia, fiddler Henry Reed by fiddler and folklorist Alan Jabbour, who popularized the melody along with the Hollow Rock String Band (through their 1967 recording). Reed’s tune has become so wide-spread it is sometimes played in Europe as a representative American old-time tune. Fiddler Bill Hicks points out that "kitchen girl" was often a term used for a female slave who worked in the kitchen.
More than you ever wanted to know about these tunes on Fiddlers Companion website http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/index.html
Black Nag
The Brazilian
'Roseira do Norte'(Rose of the North) by Pedro Sertanejo and Zé Gonzaga. From NE Brazil, a type of music known as forró (until we got our hands on it).
Elzic's Farewell
ELZIC'S FAREWELL [1]. Old‑Time, Breakdown. USA, W.Va. A Dorian (Am). AEae or Standard tunings. ABB (Phillips, Reiner & Anick): AABB (Phillips). AABBCC (Brody, Songer): ABCBABC (Krassen). This tune has been described as “an old bagpipe tune” from the repertoire of W.Va. fiddler French Carpenter who stated his ancestor (the Elzic or Elzick of the title) played the melody as a farewell before marching off to fight in the Civil War. Elzic went missing in the conflict and never returned, but the tune survived and entered local tradition as "Elzic's Farewell." Wilson Douglas, a younger fiddler distantly related to his mentor French Carpenter (his grandfather and Carpenter’s father Saul were half-brothers), thought that Elzic was from Wood County, W.Va. In fact, this is a bit of fanciful embroidery on the part of Douglas and/or Carpenter. The tune’s origins have been researched by Jim Comstock of Richwood, W.Va., and were published by him in the West Virginia Songbag (1974). The tune was actually written by one Harvey G. Elswick who was born in Pike County, Kentucky in 1838, and who did serve in a unit from that state during the Civil War. After that conflict Elswick returned to Pike County, but in 1875 he and his family removed to Kanawha County, West Virginia, to live on 80 acres in Malden and Elk districts, and it was there that he wrote the melody now known as “Elsic’s Farewell” in April, 1889. Harvey lived on until 1915 and was buried at the Elswick Cemetary at Quick, Kanawha County. Comstock cites the researches of a descendent, the Rev. Albert Elswick of Wallkill, New York, into the Elswick family and finds that Harvey Elswick played the tune at the request of his mother, who was on her deathbed. Complying with her request to "play his fiddle for her once more before she died," Elswick was inspired to play the tune as his farewell.
From Fiddlers Companion
The Gallery / The Venus of Levenshulme
Simon Heywood
Peter remembers the band practice for a student band in about 1990 when Simon Heywood brought in two tunes he'd composed - The Venus of Levenshulme had taken second place in a tune competition run by Blowzabella, and Simon had written The Gallery to celebrate. The band stuck them together to see what would happen, and the tunes have never been separated since. Peter brought the set to Albireo; the bass line is frozen in time, almost unchanged in 20 years. It doesn't use the bottom string of the bass, because Peter only had a 4-string bass when he first devised it.
Suggested dance: Mister Heywood's Success, by Rhodri Davies.
Gathering Peascods
Graemsay Jig / Star Above the Garter
Trad. / Trad
Howard learned Graemsay Jig from the playing of Colin Cater.
I've always understood SATG to be by Julia Clifford (1914-1997) who was an All-Ireland fiddle champion and exponent of the Sliabh Luachra style of playing. She was the sister of the noted fiddler Denis Murphy. However I've checked it on the PRS website and all the versions show it as "Trad". It was popularised by Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford on their LP of the same name. Despite its Irish origins it adapts well to a more rumbustuous English style of playing.
Gypsy's Hornpipe / Gloucester Hornpipe
Gypsy's comes from the Thomas Hardy collection. Howard brought this set from the Electropathics.
Hole in the Wall
A 3/2 hornpipe written by Henry Purcell (1659-1695) and published in the 1698 edition of Playford's Dancing Master
Hudscales / Cat's Cradle / Treacle Town
Steve Hodgskiss
Hudscales is farm cottage near Hesket Newmarket in the lake District, where Steve was doodling on the piano and this reel popped out.
There are at least two Treacle Towns. Nuneaton simply had a treacle factory. Macclesfield, on the other hand, had a momentous event over a hundred years ago when a treacle wagon overturned on Hibel Road. The poor people rushed out of their cottages and scooped the treacle up from the cobbles, and to this day it remains a treasured memory in the rich and varied history of Macclesfield [following words added by Howard]which just goes to show how little excitement we get around here (..........er - but the joke is supposed to be that we simple Macclesfield people do really find this very exciting indeed, unlike the sophisticated folk of Rainow who are much more worldly wise)
Kempshott Hunt
Morning Star / Three Jolly Black Sheepskins
Two lumpy English 16-bar hornpipes. Morning Star appears in numerous collections. Sheepskins comes from the playing of Shropshire fiddler John Locke, via John Kirkpatrick.
The Railway / The Rogues March
Another Electropathics set. "Rogues March" was supposedly played when soldiers were marched up to be 'disciplined' ie flogged
Weavers March
Howard learned this from the playing of melodeon maestro Tony Hall.
Acknowledgements
John and Alison Crowther for introducing Peter to the world in general and folk music in particular.
Sarah Crowther, for allowing Peter to indulge his strange passion for folk music (but only at evenings and weekends).
Howard: I think we need to keep acknowledgements brief or they'll take up too much space. I suggest something along these lines:
Thanks to our long-suffering families, all the callers and guest players who've worked with us, our friends and supporters, and all Albireans past and present.
Rehearsal recordings
Black Nag 1.mp3
STE-000 Gathering Peascods.mp3
STE-001 Weavers.mp3
STE-003 Elzics.mp3
STE-005 Hole in Wall 2.mp3
STE-006 Brazilian.mp3
STE-007 Peascods 2.mp3
STE-008 Kempshott.mp3
STE-007 Peascods 2.mp3
STE-009 Gallery 2.mp3
Arrangement cheat sheets
Alfaz.doc
Bangy Ones.doc
Black Nag.doc
Brazilian.doc
Chords Morning Star Train Set.doc
Elzics.doc
Gallery Venus of Levenshulme.doc
Gathering Peascods.doc
Gypsy's.doc
Graemsay.doc
Hole in the Wall with chords.doc
Hudscales.doc
Kempshott Hunt.doc
Morning Star.doc
Parsons Farewell.doc
RAILWAY.doc
Weavers.doc