A look back at recordings I made over my career.
Part 22 GIRLS & BOYS COME OUT TO PLAY Steel Carpet Music MATS016
folk songs for younger children
THE GOLDEN VANITEE Steel Carpet Music MATS017
Folk songs for older children
With Sue Castle, vocals; and Lucy
Castle, fiddle. Both on cassette 1997 and then on CD
I’ll treat these two albums
together because they were intended as a set. They came with optional A4
booklets of words and music which I also
sold separately.
By 1997 I was still doing a lot
of work in schools. I could, in fact, have given everything else up and
concentrated on that, and probably made more money, but it wasn’t what I wanted
to do. It was a very useful supplement to what I thought of as my ‘proper’ work and I enjoyed it but
I didn’t want to become known as a ’children’s entertainer’ so I deliberately
played it down and gave it a low profile. That turned out to be a good decision
because within 10 years the whole bottom had dropped out of schools work with
the affects of the National Curriculum and testing etc. There was still some
available but I wasn’t willing to do it under the conditions they demanded—far
too restrictive and unimaginative.
I had sold out of the previous
‘children’s album’ (Open the Door & Let Us In) so I thought I’d make
another one. In order to achieve what I wanted this turned out to be two
albums. I tried to get as good a variety of songs as I could—some well known and
some unknown. They included many of those on Open the Door… My main aim was to
make children’s albums with the same values and quality as my adults’ albums. I
believe firmly that we downplay what children are capable of doing and
appreciating. I’ve always treated them in the same way as I treat an adult
audience.
The albums turned out well and
sold well on cassette at first and then on CD. They sold out a few years ago.
There are 27 tracks on one and 19
on the other so I won’t list them all but you can listen to Girls & Boys
Come Out to Play from the Younger album https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PPRDhDBBzg
And Perri Merri Dixie Domini from
the older one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7E37BP4bUs
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