VA - Before The Day Is Done, The Story Of Folk Heritage Records 1968-1975 (3 x CD's)

 

BRITISH FOLK

VA - Before The Day Is Done, The Story Of Folk Heritage Records 1968-1975 (3 x CD's)

The first anthology of Alan Green’s small but prolific cottage-industry empire since a 1973 budget label vinyl LP, ‘Before The Day Is Done’ is the definitive overview of a much-loved but little- documented label. 

A small but prolific operation servicing Britain's northwest folk club scene, the Folk Heritage label was launched in 1968 by Alan Green, a former chemist-turned-record producer. Rather than focusing on the folk boom's increasing national popularity, Green chose to champion smaller regional acts, issuing limited-edition runs by respected but little-known artists like Parke, Penny Wager, and the Pendlefolk. Sessions were initially run out of his small D.I.Y. home studio in the Manchester suburbs, then later at a specially built studio in the Welsh countryside that he shared with business partner Gordon Davies. What Folk Heritage and its various subsidiaries (Westwood, Sweet Folk & Country, Midas, and Real) lacked in star power, they more than made up for in quality, and in subsequent decades, many of their releases have become near-mythic grail quests for discerning record collectors. Green died in 2000, and somehow his company's legacy had been allowed to languish in obscurity for much of the digital age. To the rescue comes Grapefruit Records with Before the Day Is Done: The Story of Folk Heritage Records 1968-1975, the beloved imprint's first comprehensive anthology. Amid its generous 68-song playlist are obscure delights like Michael Donald's charmingly rough-hewn "Visions of Cambria," Saga's "Ballad of a Falmouth Man," and Stuart Marson's expansive "Christmas and Tchaikovsky." Compiled and curated with great care, it's a worthy tribute to Green's vision and an appropriate final chapter for Grapefruit's marvelous U.K. folk trilogy, which began with 2015's Dust on the Nettles and 2020's Sumer Is Icumen In. (AllMusic review by Timothy Monger)

==========================================================

Pt.1    Pt.2  

Also

VA - Dust on The Nettles, British Underground Folk Scene 1967-72 [2015] (3 x CD's)

https://butterboycompilations.blogspot.com/2021/06/va-dust-on-nettles-british-underground.html

VA - Sumer Is Icumen In The Pagan Sound Of British And Irish Folk [2020] (3 x CD's)

https://butterboycompilations.blogspot.com/2021/05/va-sumer-is-icumen-in-pagan-sound-of.html

==========================================================

Track lists

CD1

01 Music Box Songs Of Sunshine 4:16

02 Christie Hennessy High In The Trees 2:44

03 Joan Mills Death And The Lady 4:29

04 Penny Wager Marcie 4:05

05 Folkal Point Sweet Sir Galahad 3:37

06 Mike Donald Visions Of Cumbria 2:48

07 Blue Horizon Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye 3:36

08 Porter Cunningham Photographs 2:27

09 Peregrine Lazy Day 4:08

10 Harvesters She Moved Through The Fair 1:51

11 Yardarm Cold Haily Rainy Night 2:49

12 Janet Jones The Old Woman's Lament 3:47

13 Spinning Jenny Butcher Boy 3:16

14 Oldest Proffession Anathea 3:32

15 Combine Harvester Fanny Blair 3:26

16 Gallery Queen Of Hearts 3:47

17 Jovial Crew The Two Butchers 2:34

18 Young Folk You Keep Going Your Way 3:52

19 Margaret And Ian You Were There 3:38

20 Drowsy Maggie Three Drunkem Maidens 1:45

21 Saraband Retrospect 3:44

22 Geoff Smedley Hedgehog's Song 4:06

23 John & Christine Oats And Beans/Turkey Rhubarb 1:13

24 The Taverners Folk Group The Hard Times Of Old England 3:28

CD2

01 Wayfarers Matty Groves 5:03

02 Parke Dancers Of Stanton Drew 2:54

03 Minor Birds Lord Lovell 4:02

04 Paul & Glen January Man 2:50

05 Pendlefolk Old Pendle 2:22

06 Mabel Joy Geraldine 3:48

07 Saga Yesterday's Rain 4:21

08 Blue Water Folk Lark In The Morning 2:55

09 Macdonald Folk Group April Come She Will 2:07

10 Stained Glass Wild And Free 3:38

11 Rosemary Hardman Pretty Saro 4:28

12 Horden Raikes The Two Magicians 3:40

13 Mike Donald Land Of The Old And Grey 3:05

14 Bards Blackleg Miner 2:01

15 Yardarm Summer Comes October 3:10

16 Joan Mills Twenty Years 3:49

17 Young Folk Travelling People 4:17

18 Hugh Trethowan Mice And Old Clocks 3:28

19 Jack Hudson 4 + 20 2:16

20 Folkways Cannily Cannily 1:43

21 Oldest Proffession The Female Drummer 3:51

22 Peregrine All Through The Night 4:16

23 Gallery Ice Acres 5:02

CD3

01 Saraband Close To It All 4:59

02 Raggerty Take Me For Your Friend 3:06

03 Spinning Jenny Connemara Cradle Song 3:54

04 Minor Birds Grey October 4:30

05 Parke The Trees They Do Grow High 4:04

06 Saga Ballad Of A Falmouth Man 4:27

07 Harvesters False Bride 3:44

08 Rod Neep Heading For The Sun 3:07

09 Oddsocks Oh So Nice 3:00

10 Stuart Marson Christmas And Tchaikovsky 6:30

11 Dave Lewry All I Wanna Do Is Play Guitar 2:51

12 Jancis Harvey A Week Before Easter 3:39

13 Steve Rostron Snail 3:27

14 Mug Band What's The Point 2:59

15 Brian Dewhurst The White Hare Of Oldham 2:24

16 The Bards Elizabethan 2:37

17 Stained Glass Poll Miles 5:20

18 Macdonald Folk Group Cruel War 2:58

19 Folkal Point Once I Knew A Pretty Girl 3:57

20 Penny Wager I'll Keep It With Mine 4:20

21 Blue Water Folk All The Good Times 3:27

=============================================================

=============================================================