MY BACK CATALOGUE part 12

A look back at recordings I made over my career.

Part 12. THE COTTAGE BY THE SHORE  cassette   Steel Carpet Music  MATS006   1992

Pete Castle, guitar and vocals; Lucy Castle, fiddle and viola; Bing Lyle, accordion; The Leakey Band (Robin Crandell, Tim Scopes, Chris Pulham, Colin Whyles;) plus Marie Garrison, Madge Spencer and Sharon Makatele vocals on Shallow Brown. 

 Another album recorded by Colin Whyles at Felixstowe with some additional work by Doug Porter at VOR in Derby. Doug was also responsible for all my cassette duplication around that time.

This was a good one, it took what we did on One Morning to another level. Apart from Mr Leakey from the Tale of a Village tape all the tracks were traditional. Willie’s Lady was a story which frightened a few people! The Lakes of Ponchartrain was an excuse to use the Leakey Band again. That track didn't work as well as I wanted but it was OK. 

This was the first time Bing Lyle had been on one of my albums. He was to be on many more over the next decade or so and we worked together a lot in clubs and concerts and especially in schools. He was introduced to me by Gail Duff to work together on a schools project in Kent and we immediately hit it off. He was (is!) one of the most musical people I’ve ever met and the interplay between his accordion and Lucy’s fiddle is perfect.

Reviews were generally positive but it was interesting to see how individual tracks divided people being praised to the roof by some and slammed by others.

“In a field which can be said to be sparing of innovation by its very nature, Pete constantly slips in a little something new; seldom, if ever, could these efforts be accused of being ‘change-for-changes-sake’.”  Nigel Hamster: Folk On

 Tracks:

Banks of Green Willow

The Bold Fisherman

The Young & Single Sailor

The Lakes of Ponchartrain

Willie’s Lady

Brigg Fair

Lord Thomas & Fair Eleanor

Two Brothers

Johnny Barden

The Ballad of Mr Leakey

Shallow Brown/Over the Ocean

 Listen to Brigg Fair, one of my top tracks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbGtV0AF1pw 

The picture shows the tape cover and a booklet containing words, music and notes. I did one for several of the albums around that time, mainly because you can’t get many notes on a cassette cover!

6 of the tracks were on the ‘best of’ CD Xtracted in 2000 and I still sing about half of them.