Never The Same [coll] – [Honest Jon’s]

ArtCrimes   9/18/2007   12-inch, International

collection: Never The Same: Leave-Taking from the British Folk Revival 1970-1977

Hats off to Honest Jons for shedding some light on a pretty obscure corner of British folk. Folk enthusiast Bill Leader was luckily situated in the right place at the right time when he started recording British folk acts in the early 60s like Bert Jansch, Davy Graham and Anne Briggs. However, none of *those* artists are present here, except in the liner notes photos included with this 2 LP collection, as their work was instead licensed to other labels for release…what we have instead is music Bill Leader recorded for one of the two labels he launched, Trailer. It’s probably accurate to say that much of the British folk momentum had changed to more eclectic, electric fare by the time Leader did these sessions in a decidedly old-school style, with most of these tracks being solo performances of purely traditional song rather than rocked-up updates like what Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention were doing at the same time. So it’s not surprising these tracks were overlooked in the market…it also seems that Leader’s fortunes in the music business were constantly beset with difficulties, as one can read in the liner notes provided. So most of this music has gone unheard since Trailer’s releases went out of print ages ago. Nice to have them here now, although one might wish for slightly greater variety given that some artists here have 2 tracks apiece, while other Trailer acts aren’t represented at all.