The Village Thing

Last updated

The Village Thing
Village Thing Logo.jpeg
Parent company Saydisc
Founded1970
Founder Ian A. Anderson
Distributor(s) Transatlantic Records
Genreguitar-oriented, singer-songwriter, folk, blues
Country of origin Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom
Location Badminton, Gloucestershire

The Village Thing was an independent record label in the United Kingdom which published folk rock, blues and acoustic music between 1970 and 1973, under the tag of "The Alternative Folk Label".

Contents

History

The company, based at The Barton, Inglestone Common, Badminton, Gloucestershire, rose from the thriving Bristol contemporary folk scene based around the Clifton area and centred on the Bristol Troubadour Club. Specialising in local acts, it took the music to a wider audience and was highly influential in the development of British folk and blues based music in the 1970s and after. [1] Records were pressed in relatively small numbers and a cult following has resulted in them becoming highly collectable. [2] [3] Typical pressings were about 2,000 copies, but their best seller, "The Folker" by Fred Wedlock sold some 20,000. Village Thing was founded by Gef Lucena, Ian A. Anderson and John Turner. Lucena was already running a local indie label, Saydisc, which had already gained a reputation for publishing low-run pressings by local folk/comedy artists including Fred Wedlock; Saydisc was the "parent" company and continues to trade today. Anderson had become well known for his part in the "White Blues Boom" of the late 1960s and had recorded for Fontana both solo and with Mike Cooper. turn, The Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra. Village Thing records were distributed by Transatlantic Records. The company logo was design [4] ed by Rodney Matthews, as were some of the album covers; Matthews later became very well known for his fantasy art and produced album covers for major artists including Thin Lizzy, Magnum and Rick Wakeman.

Availability

Some of The Village Thing albums have been reissued as CDs on labels including Scenesof (US); Castle, The Weekend Beatnik, Saydisc and Sunbeam (UK); Riverman (Korea); and Vinyl Japan.

Discography

Albums (12 inch vinyl)

Singles / Extended Play (7 inch vinyl)

VTS7, VTS17 and VTS18 were also released on cassette and 8-track cartridge

Related Research Articles

Fred Wedlock Musical artist

Fred Wedlock was an English folk singer best known for his UK hit single "The Oldest Swinger In Town", which was covered by German comedian Karl Dall as "Der älteste Popper der Stadt". He performed at many venues in Britain and Europe, presented programmes for West Country TV and acted with the Bristol Old Vic, as well as undertaking after-dinner speaking engagements.

Peg o My Heart 1913 song

"Peg o' My Heart" is a popular song written by Alfred Bryan (words) and Fred Fisher (music). It was published on March 15, 1913 and it featured in the 1913 musical Ziegfeld Follies.

The story of Tennessee's contribution to American music is essentially the story of three cities: Nashville, Memphis, and Bristol. While Nashville is most famous for its status as the long-time capital of country music, Bristol is recognized as the "Birthplace of Country Music". Memphis musicians have had an enormous influence on blues, early rock and roll, R&B, and soul music, as well as an increasing presence in rap.

Transatlantic Records was a British independent record label. The company was established in 1961, primarily as an importer of American folk, blues and jazz records by many of the artists who influenced the burgeoning British folk and blues boom. Within a few years, the company had started recording British artists. The company's philosophy was intentionally eclectic.

Discography is the study and cataloging of published sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified music genres. The exact information included varies depending on the type and scope of the discography, but a discography entry for a specific recording will often list such details as the names of the artists involved, the time and place of the recording, the title of the piece performed, release dates, chart positions, and sales figures.

Scrumpy and Western

Scrumpy and Western refers humorously to music from England's West Country that fuses comical folk-style songs, often full of double entendre, with affectionate parodies of more mainstream musical genres, all delivered in the local accent/dialect. The name, taken from the title of the 1967 Scrumpy & Western EP by Adge Cutler and the Wurzels, refers to scrumpy, strongly alcoholic cider produced in the West Country; it is a play on the American genre of country and western music.

Rodney Matthews British artist

Rodney Matthews is a British illustrator and conceptual designer of fantasy and science fiction.

Wizz Jones British musician (born 1939)

Raymond Ronald Jones, better-known as Wizz Jones, is an English acoustic guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was born in Thornton Heath, Surrey. England and has been performing since the late 1950s and recording from 1965 to the present. He has worked with many of the notable guitarists of the British folk revival, such as John Renbourn and Bert Jansch.

<i>The Legendary Me</i> 1970 studio album by Wizz Jones

The Legendary Me is the 1970 album by the pioneer British folk musician Wizz Jones. The album contains eight cover tunes written by songwriter and Jones' friend Alan Tunbridge. Sunbeam Records has reissued this album on vinyl and on CD.

Ian A. Anderson English magazine editor, folk musician and broadcaster

Ian A. Anderson is an English magazine editor, folk musician and broadcaster.

Steve Tilston Musical artist

Steve Tilston is an English folk singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Al Jones (English musician) Musical artist

Alun Ashworth-Jones, known as Al Jones, was an influential English folk and blues songwriter, guitarist and singer, noted for his distinctive and original folk-rock guitar style and his often darkly humorous lyrics.

The Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra were an eccentric band of British musicians, who joined together in early 1968 to play a fusion of comedy, jazz, and folk music, in a unique style which has been compared with The Temperance Seven and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band. Much of their repertoire consisted of songs from the 1920s or 1930s. Other influences included music hall, blues and jug band music. Their eccentricity arose, not only from their characters and choice of music, but from an eclectic mix of instruments, some of them home-made, such as the 'egg-cupaphone' and the 'ballcockaphone' - a wind instrument in which the supply of air to the reed was controlled by a toilet cistern chain connected to a ballcock.

"So Rare" is a popular song published in 1937 by composer Jerry Herst and lyricist Jack Sharpe. It became a hit for Jimmy Dorsey in 1957.

The Sun Also Rises were a Welsh, Cardiff-based folk duo, comprising Graham Hemingway and Anne Hemingway who performed in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

The Bristol Troubadour Club was a short lived but influentialclub in the thriving contemporary folk music scene in Bristol in the late 1960s and early 1970s, It was located in Clifton village, the student quarter above the city centre. The club was considered by some as the liveliest and most creative outside London.

This is the discography of Ian A. Anderson, an English musician.

Michael Cooper is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Initially coming to attention as a country blues performer, his later work also straddles jazz, Polynesian, ambient, and various experimental and improvisational styles.

References

  1. Clinton), Jones, Mark (Mark (2011). Bristol folk : a discographical history of Bristol folk music in the 1960s & 1970s. Badminton: Saydisc. ISBN   9780956353108. OCLC   751581262.
  2. "Sun Also Rises - Sun Also Rises | Light In The Attic Records". Light In The Attic Records. Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  3. "Sun Also Rises at Rockin' World". 9 May 2008. Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 4 January 2018.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. "Bristol Troubadour: discover the legendary folk music club". Ian Anderson. Retrieved 4 January 2018.