(1972) The Druids – Pastime with good company
Argo issue number: ZFB 39
Produced by: Kevin Daly
Recorded by: Iain Churches, Peter van Biene
Recorded at: Paramount Organ Works, Bolton, 4th and 5th March 1972
Availability: long deleted, never issued on CD
Musicians
The Druids:
Keith Kendrick – English concertina, guitar, vocal
John Adams – accordeon, fiddle, bells, vocal
Judi Longden – drum, guitar, recorder, vocal
Mick Hennessy – bass, vocal
Dave Broughton – fiddle, chorus vocal
with
Derek Hale – concertina
Derek Pearce – mandolin
Tracks
Side One
1 To Drive Cold Winter Away/Father Kelly’s Jig/The Rollicking Irishman
2 Congleton Bear (Tams)
3 Three Merry Men of Kent – group unaccompanied
4 All’s Dear but Poor Men’s Labour (tune Druids) – concertina DH
5 Marquis of Lorne/Locomotive Hornpipe
6 The Digger’s Song – group unaccompanied
7 The Leaves of Life (The Seven Virgins)
Side Two
1 Oddjob’s Polka/Sally Gardens
2 Three Jolly Sportsmen – group unaccompanied
3 The Pick and the Maltshovel (Roger Watson) – DP mandolin
4 The Irish Girl (tune Druids)
5 The White Cockade – group unaccompanied
6 Marrowbones
7 Flowers of Edinburgh/Come Let Us Dance and Sing/Kate Dalrymple
All words and tunes trad arr Druids, apart from where indicated
Notes to follow…
…but worth mentioning in the meantime that the song which gives the album its name (Pastime with Good Company) doesn’t appear on this album but on Giles Farnaby’s Dream Band, the Druids’ 1973 collaboration with Trevor Crozier’s Broken Consort, St George’s Canzona and jazzmen Trevor Tomkins, Jeff Clyne and Dave MacRae.
The Paramount Organ Works
John Adams, who went on to teach recording at Salford University, says he learnt a lot from Argo producer Kevin Daly about production and from Iain Churches about mixing and noise reduction – some of it presumably at the sessions for this album at the Paramount Organ Works in Bolton.
Where?
The Paramount Organ Works (or Paramount Organ Studio) in Bolton was in fact the home of a first cousin of Daly, theatre organist extraordinaire Ron Curtis (known as The Happy Wanderer – Bolton? Wanderer? Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha…).
Curtis, who was also a wizz on the Hammond, had rescued a Compton theatre organ from the Paramount Cinema in Liverpool and had it installed – console and all – at his home in Bolton. He got the local gravedigger to dig out 170 tonnes of earth and then had the Compton put in, complete with lift, so the console would rise into view just like it did at the pictures.
It was at the ‘Studio’ in Bolton that Daly and engineer Martin Haskell carried out an experiment of ‘unprecedented historical import’ when they transposed 14 vintage Fats Waller piano rolls onto Curtis’s Compton. The result, ‘Fats at the Organ’, was released on the ASV label that Daly and Argo boss Harley Usill set up when Argo and parent label Decca sank.
At least one LP of Curtis playing his Compton was recorded at the ‘Studio’ by cousin Daly and released on Decca Argo-Eclipse (Puttin’ On the Ritz – Argo Eclipse ECS2121).
So now you know.
