Vision & Revision: The First 80 Years Of Topic Records
Topic Records – 31 May 2019
Eighty years on from their very first release – Paddy Bryan’s The Man That Waters The Workers’ Beer – Topic Records, the world’s oldest independent label, celebrates its fascinating history with the announcement of the double-disc compilation Vision & Revision: The First 80 Years of Topic Records.
Once nicknamed the ‘Little Red Label’, Topic’s socialist leanings and early origins in the Workers’ Music Association quickly set it apart in the company’s early days. Much like Moses Asch’s Folkways Records, their recording output defied racial barriers, held communist ties and proudly played a key role in the international peace movement. However, it wasn’t until the post-war boom of the 60s, after gaining financial backing that Topic really began to make a break towards becoming the bastion of British folk music, which it is considered today.
Again similar to Asch & co, Topic’s crack team of artists, engineers and producers (A. L Lloyd, Reg Hall, Ewan MacColl, Bill Leader and much later Tony Engel, to name but a few) acted almost as ‘cultural custodians’ over the subsequent years; set apart by the choice material they chose to record, distribute and sing. And it seems only right that this collection features many firm favourites from the repertoires of both Lloyd & MacColl. Music journalist Colin Irwin offers further insight into the label’s defining mission statement:
“(Topic) has continued to promote these singers and musicians – fishermen, gypsies, farmworkers, publicans, blacksmiths and the like – who carried the music when nobody wanted to know – and by doing so, provided light and insight into the lifestyles and attitudes that informed our culture.”
As I look over Vision & Revision’s liner notes I discover it’s a sentiment with which Billy Bragg certainly agrees, as he perceptively synopsises here:
“Folk music never goes away. You may not hear it, but it is always there, just over your cultural horizon. It lives in families, in communities, in the villages and towns and cities, and in the hearts of the people. Each generation takes what it needs and gives what it can to the tradition, each wave of newcomers turning another furrow, sowing new seeds. For eighty years, Topic Records has played a major role in this process…”
As Disc Two closes out the overriding influence that Topic mainstays such as Anne Briggs, Nic Jones, Shirley Collins, June Tabor and The Watersons have over this collection becomes quite apparent. If say some of the more recent names on the folk scene included here are new to you, these ballads and broadsides will still be quickly recognised. You might be able to recall when or where you first heard them or who it was that initially sung them into being for you. Perhaps you can even trace the developing arc of various interpretations back over the years. In the ghosts of Go Your Way or The Banks Of The Sweet Primroses – the former sung by Kitty Macfarlane and the latter performed by Josienne Clarke & Ben Walker – you can hear the faint call of Briggs & Collins among their subtle grace notes.
Martin Carthy and Peggy Seeger’s lasting impact goes without saying and it is wonderful to hear their inimitable voices here in context. Alongside ex-partner MacColl, Seeger (a political powerhouse in her own right) took folk clubs a-storm and devised the Radio-Ballads, challenging British broadcasting and giving airtime to everyone from miners to boxers. Her icy interpretation of Mike Waterson’s Jack Frost has a pensive, almost supernatural feel to it, stressed by Calum MacColl’s Marxophone flurries.
Carthy’s pioneering playing left a generation with their heads cocked inquisitively trying to uncover the secrets behind his techniques and tunings. Here he takes on Napoleon’s Dream (Roud 1538) recounting the statesman’s conquests and questioning the myths shrouding his name. Elsewhere the motion of motorcycles and overhead gulls blends with the distant concertina of the Oldham Tinkers. Formed over fifty years ago, this trio took their regionalised North West ditties and came upon a much wider audience under Topic’s wing. As their voices join in three-part harmony on Dirty Old Town, we’re reminded of their hearty charm on MacColl’s timeless ode to Salford. Richard Thompson, ‘the prince of doom and gloom himself’ (as Tabor once christened him) later sings a solemn declaration of love on The Light Bob’s Lassie (Roud 1645): “I know where I’m going and I know who’s going with me. I know who I love but the day knows who I’ll marry”.
Inspired by Jones’ take on Seven Gypsies (Roud 1; Child 200) the Oysterband lift away his vibrant fingerstyle canter and capture the spirited zeal of the tale through an arrangement rich in varied rhythmical textures and bellowed backing vocals. It sounds quite at odds with Ye Vagabonds recent take featured on The Hare’s Lament, which shares more in common with River Lea labelmate Lisa O’Neill’s brooding drawl. Ex-Oysterbandman Chris Wood shares his indebtedness to Martin Carthy, who once sang Keith Christmas’ Fable of the Wings on Brass Monkey’s self-titled debut. Wood’s staggering guitar playing (used in both senses of the word) pitches and unfolds with this curious account of veiled middle-class drug use.
Martin Simpson’s all-star triumph, Prodigal Son, was reissued by Topic back in March (which we reviewed here) and he opens this compilation in grand style with Beaulampkin (Roud 6; Child 93; G/D 2:187; Henry H735), which he originally aired on his debut Golden Vanity in 76’. Now accompanied on fiddle by Nancy Kerr, it bucks with bucolic pomp that seems to juxtapose the bloodcurdling actions of Beaulampkin, his seamless playing and expressive narrative phrasing as enticing as ever.
Come the mid-90s new Topic torchbearers were coming into the frame: enter Eliza Carthy & Kerr who debuted as a duo in 93’, though appear here separately. Kerr’s solo rendition of Searching for Lambs (Roud 576; Henry H548) recalls the cascading luring melody of Tabor’s Aqaba vocal performance, however here a dab-handed violin and guitar minor-key creep help fill it out. Eliza joins Olivia Chaney for a gallant duet on Nancy of Yarmouth (Roud 407) backed only by the deep draw of Carthy’s octave violin, closing out with the damnable toll:
“Oh, a ship in distress is a most dismal sight,
Like an army of soldiers, they are going to fight.
A soldier he can fight, my boys, by the sound of his gun,
Whilst a sailor is committed to a watery tomb.”
With Bragg’s quote again close in mind, Chaney leads us on nicely to our current crop of featured budding talent. Polly Vaughan (Roud 166; Laws O36; Henry H114) seems a natural choice for Chaney an enigmatic artist able to eke the intimacy – and in this case the eeriness – out of a song. Once overlooked and sidelined as a ‘silly ditty’, the ballad, in fact, has a veiled history all of its own: one steeped in folklore, dusted with delicate imagery of swan maidens. “Her beauty would outshine them like a fountain of snow” she sings, he voice settling softly, the austere instrumental backing at times reminiscent of a Sufjan Stevens’ Seven Swans outtake. Lisa Knapp treads out a similar stark path on I Wish My Love Was a Cherry (Roud 8738). There’s a delightful purity in her delivery and something of Meg Baird in the quiver of her vibrato.
In case you hadn’t had your fill of silken-voiced six-stringed maestros, John Smith’s handling of She Moves Through the Fair (Roud 861; Henry H141) on Disc One should please listeners. From Davy Graham’s raga-inspired instrumental through to recordings by Collins, Margaret Barry and Sandy Denny, the tune is well loved, and here Smith masterfully reworks it with grace and skilled restraint that recalls ex-gigging partner John Martyn. Sam Kelly & The Lost Boys (well solely Kelly and banjo wiz Jamie Francis in this case) give a dynamic display on Shawnee Town, Kelly’s vocals sharing a smooth finesse similar to that of Blair Dunlop; again it is dedicated to Simpson. It’s followed by an exposed and wistful interpretation of The Bay of Biscay (Roud 22567) beautifully suited to Emily Portman’s voice and Rob Harbron’s concertina accompaniment.
“But if I had my own home and my sweet liberty, I’d no more go a-soldiering by land or by sea” swears Sam Lee in a grand rise on The Deserter (Roud 493; G/D 1:83). Met by reverberant electric lines and the dramatic ivories of Suede’s Bernard Butler, Lee works the song in such a way that the melody seems to flutter between rhapsodic bursts and moody downturns. Dick Gaughan’s Handful Of Earth (set to be reissued as a ‘Topic Treasures Edition’ later this month) made an impression on a generation of folk fans, not to mention Rachel McShane & The Cartographers who’s rousing rendition of the Union anthem Workers’ Song seems to capture the label’s radical ethos here marvellously:
“We’re the first ones to starve the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat’s about
All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We’ve been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can.”
Lastly, there are two tracks that stand out here in my mind for their sheer raw intensity alone. Lisa O’Neill’s wounded Irish lament on As I Roved Out (Roud 3479; G/D 6:1165) – inspired by an immortal Planxty live recording featuring the sweet voice of Andy Irvine’s (set against the peel of a hurdy-gurdy and whistle) – is the first. Able to pick her way down to the gristle and bare bones of a tune like no one else I have stumbled across recently, there is a sincerity to her chasmal tone that stays with you long after the air has finally settled.
Secondly is the fatal foghorn of Lankum’s four-part harmonies on The Sea Captain (Roud 3376). Adapted from traveller John Reilly’s Once There Lived A Captain, our martyr upon hearing the fate of his late lover chooses death by his own hand, which feels like a cruel twist on the ‘Captain’s Law’. By the time we hit the 3.40min midway-mark where the bayan and harmonium come in for the chorus, you find yourself fighting for air beneath their dense chord changes. Like an anchor dredging up the ocean floor, the sunken groan almost drowns out the Lynch brother’s vocals entirely. Great waves of grief crash hard as the group end with an acapella round of: “Oh green it grows the laurel and soft it falls the dew. I’m sorry my true lover, forever parted from you.”
So, re: vision. In a way, The Sea Captain neatly summarises what this compilation is all about and essentially does best. Reilly’s unaccompanied murder ballad fleshed out by Lankum is an example of just one of the rare and exciting ways folk music is evolving in 2019, as subtle undercurrents of drone and black metal merge with gruesome traditional storytelling.
Whether down the pub, out in the field or recording up in Bill Leader’s bedroom, Topic have always been at the forefront of bringing traditional song to a wider audiences attention. As Irwin, Bragg and the artists featured on this collection go to prove: folk may dip in and out of fashion as a marketable genre, but in the end, by its very nature, it defies narrow classification and fickle fashion (so you can go easy on the Aran jumpers/socks-and-sandals wisecracks). Keeping the faith and sticking to their guns, it would seem Topic Records have always relied on the strength of the material and talent on their rostra to pull them through and as a result, we now have them to thank for much of the musical heritage we enjoy today. Ultimately, Vision & Revision serves as a reminder of the various enriching ways folk song lends itself to reinvention, and the idealists, innovators and romantics that have passed through their ranks. And in doing so, it is yet another testament to label’s enduring legacy.
Vision & Revision: The First 80 Years Of Topic Records is released on 31st May 2019 as a double CD/Vinyl via Topic Records.
Pre-Order: http://smarturl.it/visionrevision
Topic Records are celebrating their 80th Anniversary with a special Concert on Friday, 7 June, at the Barbican in London, featuring Eliza Carthy, Sam Lee, Martin Carthy, Lisa Knapp, Olivia Chaney, Alasdair Roberts and more.
Buy Tickets here: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2019/event/topic-records-80th-anniversary
Also, visit Mainly Norfolk for more information on the songs played.