the Ian Campbell Folk Group
This is the Ian Campbel Folk Group & Across The Hills
1996 Castle ESM ED 357 CD
This is The Ian Campbell Folk Group
Track list:
Twa Recruiting Sergeants - Ian and the Group
The Keel Row - Lorna and the Group
The Unquiet Grave - Ian
To Hear the Nightingale Sing - Ian and the Group
The Drover's Dream - Brian
Traditional Medley (instrumental)
Rockin' the Cradle - Brian and the Group
The Jute Mill Song - Lorna and the Group
Johnny Lad - The Group
Blow Boys Blow - Brian and the Group
Down in the Coal Mine - Ian and the Group
Carton Mother's Lullaby - Lorna
The Bells of Rhymney - The Group
The Apprentice's Song - Brian
Rocky Road to Dublin and Drops of Brandy (instrumental)
Homeward Bound - Ian and the Group
The Waters of Tyne - Lorna
The Wee Cooper of Fyfe - Ian and the Group
Across The Hills
Track list:
Across the Hills - Ian and Lorna
Come kiss me love - Lorna and Group
The blind man he could see - Ian and Group
I know my Love - Lorna and Group
Derby Ram - Brian and Group
Mary Mild - Lorna
Remember Me - Lorna and Group
The Cockfight - Ian and Group
Gypsy Rover - Lorna and Group
Cho Cho Losa - Ian and Group
The Keeper - Ian and Group
Instrumental - Dave, John and Brian
The Collier Laddie - Ian
We're nae Awa to Bide Awa - Ian and Group
Credits
Ian Campbell: lead vocals
Lorna Campbell: lead vocals
Brian Clark: lead vocals, guitar and autoharp
Dave Swarbrick: fiddle and mandola
John Dunkerley: banjo, guitar and melodica
(on "This is…") with the additional participation of:
Dave Phillips: bass
Brian Brocklehurst: bass
Sleeve Notes
It seems like only yesterday, and a hundred years ago...but it was the fifties. First there was the trad jazz boom, out of which flowered the skiffle craze - small vocal groups singing American folk blues to a chugging rhythm accompaniment on guitars, washboard, tea-chest bass. When the craze died, those thousands of amateur youngsters who sweated on the three-chord trick and created the basic pop line-up went on to discover rock'n'roll, rhythm'n'blues, whatever; and some stuck to their roots and started the British folksong revival.
Launched in 1956 as the Clarion Skiffle Group, by the time we turned professional in 1963 the Ian Campbell Folk Group had topped the bill at the Royal Albert Hall, were a familiar presence on TV and radio, were working on our second album and running Britain's biggest folksong club. We were blazing a trail: the skiffle group that uniquely found its repertoire in the British folk tradition became the first folk group of the revival, first to feature a fiddler and present traditional instrumentals among their songs and followed on with the first live club recording and the first folk series on British TV.
Throughout the sixties and seventies, the folk scene bloomed and in our travels from venue to venue it was easy to identify the numberless groups that were modeled on us, eagerly awaiting our annual album as a source of material. We were conscious that insofar as we had influenced and shaped the folk revival we had affected the development of popular music in our time.
So it is with pleasure and pride that I welcome this re-issue of our first two Transatlantic albums. To those younger people born too late to be there I say: this is how it was.
IAN CAMPBELL
In the early sixties the Aberdeen singer Ian Campbell and his sister Lorna Campbell ran the phenomenally successful Jug of Punch club in Birmingham, and their group attracted a large following around the country as they were one of the first to develop a predominantly British repertoire, when most folk groups were still imitating their American cousins.
In retrospect, these and the later albums they made for Transatlantic were enormously influential on the new generation of singers and players who came through the folk revival of the sixties, many performers using the Campbell's versions of rediscovered traditional songs. The original line-up of the Ian Campbell Folk Group included fiddler Dave Swarbrick, later to become one of the driving forces in Fairport Convention. This is the first time these two LPs, originally released in 1963 and 1964, have been re-issued on CD.
Laurence Aston
…Balladeers Notes
This is first of 4 CD releases of vintage "Ian Campbell Folk Group" material. This CD represents the Campbell Group's first two Transatlantic albums. It's a good place to start, if you're interested in the Campbell Group, but not vinyl collecting. This is a song for song re-re-release — nothing missing, nothing extra.