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| Celtic Music | |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1978 |
| Genre | Celtic, folk |
| Country of origin | England |
| Location | Leeds and Harrogate, Yorkshire |
| Official website | celtic-music.co.uk |
Celtic Music is a British, Yorkshire-based publishing, distribution and record label, which specialized in folk and Celtic music recordings released between the 1970s to the early 2000s. As at 2018, the company still exists but its last release of original music was in 2007.
Celtic Music began as a publishing outlet for four books of Irish session tunes compiled by Dave Bulmer and Neil Sharpley in the 1970s, with the term first appearing on "Music from Ireland Volume 2" from 1976. [1] It evolved into a record distribution company (CM Distribution) for other labels and then into a recording and record production operation from 1978 to around 2007 that was owned by Dave Bulmer in Leeds and Harrogate in Yorkshire, England. [2] As well as issuing its own recordings, Celtic Music also acquired the back catalogue of other folk music record labels when the latter were on-sold, including Leader, Trailer, Rubber Records, Black Crow, Dambuster, Highway, Sweet Folk and Country, Greenwich Village, Mulligan, Broadside, Folk Heritage, and Making Waves, the majority of which, however, have not been re-issued. [3]
The first release on Celtic Music was the eponymous album by the band Iona in 1978, while the last was Tich Frier's Shanghaied in 2007. For many years, the registered company address was in Louth, Lincolnshire.
The following list includes all releases credited to "Celtic Music" about which information is presently available. Item numbers marked "??" are presently untraced and may never have been issued.
The Boys of the Lough is a Scottish-Irish Celtic music band active since the 1970s.
Richard Peter Gaughan is a Scottish musician, singer and songwriter, particularly of folk and social protest songs. He is regarded as one of Scotland's leading singer-songwriters.
Greentrax Recordings are a Scottish record label that specialises in Scottish traditional music.
Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.
Wolfstone are a Scottish musical group founded in 1989, who play Celtic rock. Their repertoire consists of both original songs and traditional folk pieces. They have released seven studio albums, the latest, Terra Firma, in 2007. The band record on their own label, Once Bitten Records. The group are named after the "Wolfstone", a Pictish stone originally sited at Ardross, Easter Ross, close to where the band initially recorded.
Joanne Hogg is a Northern Irish musician, best known for her work as the lead singer and songwriter with the Celtic Christian progressive rock and pop band Iona.
Five Hand Reel was a Scottish/English/Irish Celtic rock band of the late 1970s, that combined experiences of traditional Scottish and Irish folk music with electric rock arrangements. The members of the band were Dick Gaughan, Bobby Eaglesham (1942–2004), Tom Hickland (1948–2020), Barry Lyons, Dave Tulloch and later Sam Bracken.
Leader Records was a British folk music record label, started by Bill Leader. Between 1969 and 1978, Leader released many important releases of both traditional and folk revival performers, the latter category including Nic Jones, Martin Simpson and Dick Gaughan. Among the field recordings released on the label, often with gatefold sleeves and extensive notes, were 'The Border Minstrel' by Billy Pigg, and 'Unto Brigg Fair' which featured cylinder recordings from the early 1900s made by Percy Grainger of Joseph Taylor and other traditional Lincolnshire singers. The 4 LP boxed set 'A Song for Every Season' by the Copper Family was also recorded by Bill Leader and released on his label.
Seven is the fifth studio album by the Scottish Celtic rock band Wolfstone. After the release of the band's previous album The Half Tail in 1996, numerous members left the band, and due to poor management, the band "split up" in 1998 after the band's label Green Linnet Records released an unrelated side-project as the Wolfstone album This Strange Place in early 1998. However, still contractually obliged to record another album for Green Linnet Records, the remaining members of the band regrouped chose to write and record the required album with full attention, rather than make a "half-hearted" album. Bassist Wayne Mackenzie said "we could have just gone through the motions and made a half-hearted attempt at an album, but we didn’t. The band and our fans mean far too much to us to do that." Titling the album Seven after where the album sits in the band's canonical album sequence, the album style was described as a particularly rock-edged variation of Celtic rock, although it does feature some mellower tracks. The album contains a mix between songs and instrumentals and diverse subject matter.
Ivan Drever is a Scottish folk singer, songwriter and guitarist. He often tours with fiddler Duncan Chisholm who founded the Celtic rock band Wolfstone which Drever joined in 1990 but left in later years. Drever has mixed traditional folk with some rock and roll sounds.
The Paul McKenna Band are a five piece folk musical group from Glasgow, Scotland.
Bongshang are a Scottish band from Shetland, who fuse traditional Shetland and folk styles with rock, funk, electronica and contemporary production techniques. They have been likened to Celtic fusion artists such as Shooglenifty and Martyn Bennett.
Geoff Heslop is an English record producer and musician.
Redesdale Studios was a Northumberland recording studio founded in 1996. It was situated in Elsdon in North Northumberland. It began as a partnership between Rubber and Black Crow Records manager Geoff Heslop, Scottish singer and songwriter Dick Gaughan, and the two partners in CM records, Dave Bulmer and Neil Sharpley. In the years between 1986 and 1995 it was the main studio in the county, recording many albums for its own labels, Black Crow Records, Acoustic Radio, Delta and Rede, as well for other labels.
Loudest Whisper are an Irish folk rock/progressive folk group formed in the early 1970s and led by songwriter and guitarist Brian O'Reilly. They are best known for their 1974 debut album, The Children of Lir, a folk opera based on the Irish legend of the same name. The original LP release of the album became one of the most sought after records in Ireland, and ranks among the top 100 rarest records in the world.
The Wakes are a folk rock band from Glasgow, Scotland. The band's sound is a mixture of Celtic traditional music fused with punk rock and funk. The band's lyrics embrace their culture, heritage and surroundings. They cover all manner of subjects from anti-fascist politics, immigration and unemployment to uprising and rebellion in Scotland, Ireland and beyond. Musical influences include The Pogues, Dick Gaughan, The Clash, Dropkick Murphys and Bob Dylan.
"Don't Get Married" is a song written by Leon Rosselson, which is best known for being covered in a single by The Dubliners, released in June 1987 and charting at No.24 in the Irish Charts. This is the only single to be released where Sean Cannon takes lead vocals.
Danny Kyle was a Scottish folk singer-songwriter. He was a passionate supporter of traditional music and a constant campaigner for its revival in Scotland. Kyle was an important figure in the Scottish Folk Revival of the sixties.
Parallel Lines is a one-off album by Dick Gaughan and Andy Irvine, recorded in August 1981 at Günter Pauler's Tonstudio in St Blasien/Herrenhaus, Northeim, Germany, and released in 1982 on the German FolkFreak-Platten label.
Handful of Earth is the fifth solo studio album by Scottish folk musician and singer Dick Gaughan, released in 1981 by Topic Records. The album was Gaughan's first after spending several years largely avoiding playing music while regaining his health following a mental breakdown in 1979. Containing an array of traditional and contemporary folk songs performed on guitar with open tunings, Handful of Earth was by far Gaughan's most political album to that point, and was inspired by the political turmoil in Scotland following the Conservative Party victory at the 1979 general election.
