I was digitising an inherited reel of tape with vintage off-air BBC radio recordings recently and while I can identify almost everything with a combination of arcane knowledge, guesswork (checked against known audio of the suspected artists) and reference to Ken Garner’s two books on Radio 1 sessions, this one eludes me.
The closest I can get is a guess at the seemingly otherwise unknown Patrick Dickinson – the name being listed in Garner’s ‘The Peel Sessions’ as a guest on Peel’s ‘Night Ride’ on 4/12/68 alongside John Renbourn & Terry Cox and the Sallyangie. Parts of both of those sessions are on the reel, close to the mystery one. (The reel in question is not necessarily in chronological order though – it is a reel comprising mostly session recordings that have been copied on to it from original source reels, presumably of whole programmes, near the time. That said, other sessions on it seem to follow more or less chronological order, spanning Dec 1968 to May 1969.)
While Ken’s book gives Dickinson’s name in his programme by programme list, it is absent from his subsequent detailed alphabetical list of sessions and their contents, so one cannot guess the song titles and compare them with anything.
There are three songs, the singer is clearly American and he plays 12-string guitar, a relative rarity among singer/songwriters then as now. All of which should be useful clues.
I’ve done a very quick Google search but can find no obvious ‘Patrick Dickinson’ contender.
So… any ideas?
https://soundcloud.com/colinh-1/top-gear-or-night-ride-circa-december-1968-unknown-us-singerguitarist-in-session
http://www.nightwings.org/files/Hollier-story.htm
Colin – Could it be Tim Hollier… although he ain’t an Amercan!
1968 l.p. MESSAGE TO A HARLEQUIN
side one:
Message To A Harlequin
Bird Of Paradise (peel track 1)
Hanne
Jimmy
Do You Remember When
Streets Of Gold
side two:
And Where Were You That Morning Mr. Carroll
Full Fathoms Five
And I
In The Light Of Sadness (peel track 3)
In Silence
J Peel Gigs – 1968 November 8th
Guildford, Civic Hall: Fairport Convention, Roy Harper, Barclay James Harvest, Bridget St. John, Third Ear Band, Ron Geesin, Tim Hollier, compere John Peel (benefit concert for The Whole, Guildford Arts Lab.)
Seriously impressed, Craig! You have it indeed – and (referring to Ken’s book) the middle track is titled ‘And I’ (one would have thought ‘Nigel And I’…)
Ken lists 5 tracks for the sesh:
Bird of Paradise
In Silence
Song To A Room
And I
Search For Small Distractions
So, unless he changed titles of things for hisv album, I would suggest (from the lyrics) what we have above are:
Bird of Paradise
[Nigel] And I
Search For Small Distractions
Anyway, well done! And if anyone knows where Tim Hollier may be, he is welcome to a WAV file of the above.
‘Search For Small Distractions’ a.k.a. ‘In The Light Of Sadness’
In 2015
Tim Hollier was/is
Chairman at Copyright Administration Services Limited
United Kingdom
TIM HOLLIER from http://www.atlanticscreengroup.com/team.php
Tim graduated in Fine Arts in 1968 and shortly afterwards signed to United Artists Records as a singer-songwriter, releasing albums featuring his music and the lyrics of co Director Rory Fellowes before moving into music publishing in 1973 and created the Songwriters Workshop a record label and music publishing company that uniquely concentrated on singer-songwriters including Peter Sarstedt.
In 1983, Tim jointly founded what was to become the largest fully independent British music publishing company, Filmtrax Plc. The Company grew to own such catalogues as the Abba Catalogue of Songs,Columbia Pictures Music Group, Novello and Co, and Belwin Mills . Filmtrax also financed the scores of many major British films including ‘Room with a View’ and ‘Withnail’.
Tim subsequently became Chairman and owner of Leosong Copyright Service Limited still recognised as one of the most innovative music publishers of its day and now part of Music Copyright Solutions Plc(Connexion Plc). He was Chairman of the Business development Group of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.
In 1999 he founded Screen Music Services a music publishing company designed to represent film music composers and to finance film and television music. In 2001 he founded Music Copyright Solutions Plc which was the first music publishing company to offer its stock on the OFEX market and is now a leading independent media music publishing company.
In 2008 Tim founded Copyright Administration Services Limited, now a leading independent world wide administration company,clients include Ealing Film Studios, The Recorded Picture Company, Metrodome Plc, Kintop Pictures, Voltage Pictures, Forecast Films and many independent film production companies . In January 2010 Tim began working with legendary songwriter Barry Mason on building up Barry’s own publishing company Barry Mason Music.
In 2008 Tim was joined by co-Director Simon Fawcett, and together they founded Atlantic Screen Music, which has now become one of the major independent financiers of Film Music Score in the World, with nearly 100 new films scores produced over the last 4 years.
In 2011 Tim created a unique music publishing company for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo, REMT music, managed by CAS it is now the largest catalogue of new original military music in Europe. Over fifty percent of the music performed each year at the Tattoo (and the Tattoos performed abroad) is published by REMT Music.
In 2015 together with Col. Simon Vandeleur, Regimental Adjutant of the Coldstream Guards, Tim created the British Military Music Archive, which has now a library of over 3,000 re-mastered historic military recordings going back to 1898.
Everything except the fellow’s email address. It all makes him sound like a man with a fat cigar, a tank of piranhas and a white cat on his lap! Alone amongst the musical artistes of the 1960s, verily, the one man who avoided being ripped off by the business appears to have been the one man who ended up buying it all: Tim Hollier. Who knew?
From TMFTL to Music Mogul..
Very interesting resume of a man with his fingers in many pies.
The only bit I question is legendary songwriter Barry Mason. Is this a case of someone being a legend in their own imagination? I do not know, but putting Barry Mason into YouTube brings up varied results: a reformed Hells’ Angel, a decorator with his tips and this; – can this song Rowbottom Square be by the legend that is Barry Mason?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwEaxPOSDWA
If Bazza’s a legend, let’s hope he Rowbottomed out on that one. There was a curious trend around that period for upbeat, romp-a-long very English songs about mundane streets. Here’s Lionel Morton with ‘Waterloo Road’ (1969):
Actually Barry Mason is a bit of a 60’s songwriting legend having provided lyrics for Englebert Humperdink’s The Last Waltz and the great Tom Jones murder ballad Delilah. There are many more but you can probably look them up faster than I can type them.
tim@casworldwide.com