- Happy new Year

Fear not, I've got a fair few downloads for you coming up in the new year. Thanks to everyone who's supported this blog throughout 2007. Have a spectacular new year.

Don't forget to listen to the best of the best of the best posdcast over at the ever excellent Teenage Kicks blog.

- Peel's History of Traditional English Folk Music (PARTS 4 to 6)

As promised, here are the remaining three parts of the documentary series:


Part 4: Folk Rock (Fairport Convention et al)




Part 5: Celtic and Irish music




Part 6: Contemporary folk of the late 90s




Thanks once more to Chris for his efforts in mp3ifying these. If anyone has any more info on this series, don't hesitate to leave comments below.

- Free on the John Peel Sunday Show – 15th January, 1971

Free on the John Peel Sunday Show – 15th January, 1971


A few more belting tracks from the superb band Free, recorded a couple of years before I was born. The sound quality is fairly crappy, but I guess that’s not why you come to this blog anyway!




Tracks:

- The Hunter
- Woman
- Free Me
- Remember

If anyone has any more info on this concert, please leave a comment below…





Free performing All Right Now at the Isle of White Festival in 1970

All Right Now, incidentally, was recognized by ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) in 1990 for garnering 1,000,000 plus radio plays in the US by late 1989, and in 2000 an Award was given to Paul Rodgers by the British Music Industry when All Right Now passed 2,000,000 plus radio plays in the UK.

- Peel's History of Traditional English Folk Music (PARTS 1 to 3)

I confess, I’ve never been the biggest fan of folk music. Having said that, I’ve often lamented the fact that there isn’t a stronger base of traditional English music in contemporary culture. As many of the regular readers of my irregularly posted blog will know, I live and work in Turkey. One thing that constantly amazes me is the ease in which a group of Turks will break out into song and that everyone will know all of the words. This is something I only ever really experienced around the time that Oasis released ‘Don’t look back in anger’ and ‘Wonderwall’, hardly the same.

This series of Peel-narrated documentaries, originally aired in August & September 1999, are bloody good. Chris, who sent me the end of year ’77 show, was also responsible for making these documentaries public, as well as permanently changing my perspective of this musical genre, for which I'm very greatful:

Part 1: The late Victorian era and the First World War



Part 2: To the fifties and the American influence



Part 3: The boom years of the late sixties and early seventies




There are another 3 parts, which I’ll post on the blog after I’ve given them a listen.

Thanks again to Chris for these.