Children. Singing.

Wow. Has it really been four months since I last updated this blog? And there’s been so much Sentinel-related news! Actually, there hasn’t, of course, but that’s no excuse to not write entries more frequently. Having said that, I’ve not really found much in the way of interesting Sentinel LPs of late, so here’s a bit about the first album I owned on the label. And one on which I actually appear...

I guess it must have been July 1976, which means I was 10 years old. Just before we broke up for the long summer holiday, our primary school teacher Mrs Ellery told us an exciting piece of news: Brenda Wootton was going to be recording an LP with various children’s choirs in west Cornwall, and our school choir had been chosen as one of the participants. Teach then played a tape of a couple of the songs Brenda had demoed, and may have handed out Banda-duplicated lyric sheets too, but I don’t really remember. It didn’t really matter: we were going to be on a record! How thrilling!

So when we all returned after the summer holiday, suitably scorched from too many long days on Perran beach, the record was quite a hot topic, and we spent many Friday afternoons with Mrs Ellery, honing our craft. Or did we? It doesn’t really sound like it, judging from the rather under-arranged performances I’m listening to now. But that’s beside the point: it’s not supposed to be Bohemian Rhapsody. The five songs on which we appear were recorded in Sentinel’s Newlyn studio one Sunday morning: we were all done by lunchtime. I think we recorded no more than three takes of anything. One of us sneezed during “Thunder & Lightning”, a song celebrating clotted cream & pasties, wouldn’t you know? The sneeze is there on the LP, unedited. Some of the other recordings on the LP were made in the music room of Ludgvan School, rather than the studio, lending an even more rustic air to the album’s ambience.

Anyway, it was an unforgettable experience. I remember peeking into the studio control room and thinking, “well, this would be a fine way to earn a living”.... though actually it was probably more “wow look at all the buttons & knobs”.  Both Brenda & Richard Gendall (who wrote most of the numbers too) were welcoming, helpful & funny, and the guitarist on the album – Al Fenn – was a member of west country folk-rockers Decameron, my mum’s favourite band at the time. She was dead impressed. I don’t remember seeing much of Job. I really should have been paying more attention.

As for the record itself (Children Singing; SENS 1036), it plays the charm card quite heavily as you’d expect, but is all wonderfully evocative (that word again!), at least for me. And – I’d imagine – it would probably conjure up a few memories from some of my fellow “choristers” too. So: is anyone out there? Luke Shirley? Zora Trapp? Would love to hear from you.      

Here's "Opie, Davy, Foote, Trevithick & Bone", the opening number on the album, and a paean to five Cornish heroes.

Twin Reverb

Now, here’s a curiosity. The Twintones were a duo from Nanpean consisting of organist Kay Tucker & her twin brother, drummer Gary. They were each only eleven years old when they recorded this album, Eleven Plus Two (SENS 1025), which consists of –how I hate to use this word- cheesy instrumental versions of many top hits of the day (Solitaire, Remember You’re A Womble, Y Viva Espana, Popcorn), 60s revivals (These Boots Are Made For Walking, Peyton Place) and more trad fare (Ode To Joy, Amazing Grace, Theme from the Dambusters). There’s also a single self-composed number on the album, a quaint ditty entitled Melody Waltz. They even take to trombone & euphonium on Remember You’re A Womble, and vocalise on their interpretation of Banana Rock (what, two Wombles covers on the same LP?!).
It’s all pretty competent –remarkably so for a couple of eleven year olds- so rather lacks the charm you might expect from a record played by pre-teenagers. What it does have in its favour is a sleeve note from Dick Emery, for whom they opened during a season at Talk Of The West, St Agnes in 1974. “It was a very great pleasure for me to meet Kay & Gary in Cornwall”, he claims, “and I wish them every success with their new record.” They must have been thrilled.
We also get a colour cover photo of what I believe is the interior of the Riverbank Studio in Newlyn, but you don’t really see much beyond a few mics and a 13 amp socket. Lovely photo of the combo though.

More Singing at the Count House

And here's their LP, recorded circa 1965 live at the venue. Here's an (edited) review of the club from The Guardian, 14th October 1964, as reprinted in the sleeve notes...
"The Count House folk music club...north coast of Cornwall...derelict engine houses...strangest landscape in the country...end of a lonely track...cliff edge...constant roar of the sea...tin mine building...converted...whitewashed walls and fishing nets...somewhere for people to sing their kind of music...could think of more unlikely places to find a folk music club, but it is not easy to call them to mind..."

The download is a zip file, around 70MB.

http://www.divshare.com/download/17515746-be7

And here's a preview, from Mel & Miles, about whom I know nothing, apart from the fact that they "make frequent visits to the club and have spent the last two summers there as additional Residents" (again from the sleeve notes). Anyone...?

Count House Match Book

Again, this is a bit tangential to the purpose of this blog, but here's a matchbook from the Count House Folk Club in Botallack, '60s home to Brenda Wootton, John the Fish et al. The "Bought our LP record yet?" refers to the "More Singing at the Count House" LP, a privately issued LP, which I really should get round to uploading here.

The Modern Antiquarians

I have to admit to a slight bending of the rules for this one, as the subject of this entry appears on the VRC label (cat no VRC 1: Video Recording Company, apparently), though to all intents & purposes it’s a Penwith-based private pressing. But enough of the pedantry. The Pipers Folk album appeared in 1968, emanating from the Pipers Folk Club of St Buryan. The club, named after the Pipers standing stones in nearby Boleigh, was inaugurated in May 1967 in the village hall, following the sudden closure of John Wood’s & Ian Todd’s seminal Count House Folk Club in Botallack (more of which some other time, perhaps). Among the resident singers at The Count House were Brenda Wootton & John the Fish, and upon moving to St Buryan, they soon built up a large enough following to have this album pressed up & distributed at the club.  

There’s some jazz & blues amongst the more trad folk on this LP though it’s all bare-bones acoustic stuff, and all the better for it. As befits a folk LP, there aren’t many originals herein, but I’ve selected a wonderfully haunting and atmospheric tune entitled Stars. Just the sound of Brenda's breathing before her vocal entrance is enough to transport you to some place...elsewhere... 
It was written by a 22-year-old Mike Sagar-Fenton, one of the club regulars, and later co-manager of legendary Penzance record shop Chy An Stylus. (Later still, of course, he became a famed local historian, and still writes a column for the local paper...but that’s another story...)

Though some of the titles on this LP were apparently recorded at the label’s own studio facility in Stourbridge (of all places), many of the recordings were laid to tape in the Newlyn Meadery, barely a stone’s throw from (what was to be) the Sentinel studio on The Strand. So that counts for something, surely?

More about the Pipers standing stones here: http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/237/pipers.html

Folk me - the Axminster School Folk Group EP

A copy of an early Sentinel EP by The Axminster School Folk Group recently appeared on ebay, with a starting bid of 99p (thanks to Richard for alerting me to the auction). My curiosity was piqued, even more so when the price started escalating....and escalating.... until the record finally sold earlier this week for £113.11. Astonishing. (It goes without saying that I backed out well before it reached this price...) So what's the story? Was there a future rock legend in the Axminster School Folk Group? Does a former pupil want to relive a slice of their past? There's a story here, I think. I could only find one other mention of this EP on the web, when it sold on ebay a few years back for under a fiver...and even that entry seems to have disappeared now. Is there anyone out there who performed on this record? Is the lucky winner reading this right now? Do tell! Titles are Pack Up Your Sorrows, Swansea Town, Dark As A Dungeon & The Water Is Wide/O Waly Waly. It was issued on the Private Record Division of Sentinel, cat no SENP EP 001. Thanks to ebay seller cdsandrecs (in advance) for the photos.

Seagulls, lambs & old women.

I’ve recently received a large missive from Job, detailing the early days of Sentinel, which I'm currently editing into a blog entry to hopefully follow later. In the meantime, here are a few recordings from a couple of the label’s popular “Sounds Like West Cornwall” and “Sounds Like North Cornwall” collections (the West Cornwall volume SENS 1001 was Sentinel’s inaugural release in 1970, while the North Cornwall album SENS 1011 followed in 1972). Both these albums are splendidly edited encapsulations of Cornish life, not only including music & spoken word, but also incorporating sound effects & field recordings from key locations such as Newlyn Fish Market, Land’s End and the Padstow May Day celebrations (see entry elsewhere). The perfect holiday souvenir!

“The Seagulls Scream” is a fantastically evocative solo guitar & vocal piece from Christine Quayle, aged 17 at the time of recording. Christine was a regular at the Mermaid Folk Club (she was known as “The Mermaid Of Zennor”), and also sang with Clive Palmer’s Temple Creatures. Later still she was a member of RCA-signed folk rockers Daylight. Their full story can be found here:
http://rprest.adsl24.co.uk/kernowbeat/daylight.html

“Searching For Lambs” is performed by husband-and-wife duo Christopher & Janet Ridley, also known as Warm Gold. They also issued at least two EPs on Hurler Records (where’s their blog?!), both called “A Taste Of Cornwall”. “Searching For Lambs” is pretty twee, I grant you, but still embodies that strange, sinister air that’s unique to the folk music of this era. Rather jarringly, “Searching For Lambs” is followed by the sound of Launceston Pig Market (that’s a field recording, not the name of a prog rock band). To spare your ears, I've removed these effects from this edit.

Finally, if you’ll forgive the indulgence, here’s “The Old Woman” sung by my uncle, Douglas Williams, “one of Cornwall’s finest tenors”, according to the sleeve notes. The recording begins with the sound of the listener entering the church where the performance is taking place...

Thanks once again to Richard Prest at Kernowbeat.



The Seagulls Scream


Searching For Lambs


The Old Woman