Sounding the Century: Vol.2 – Horizons for Some: 1956-62

09/04/2022 at 18:58

(As usual, the main text mysteriously didn’t post. Here it is…)

This is Mike Butler’s second volume in ‘Sounding the Century’, his planned ten-volume (!!!) Bill Leader (and co) story.

Bill Leader (91) is a humble legend – the man who almost single-handedly recorded the 50s, 60s, 70s folk revival, basically. He recorded people who otherwise may never have been heard, freelancing for Topic then Decca, Transatlantic and others, and from 1969-77 ran his own duo of labels: Leader (for pure traditional music/artists) and Trailer (for folk-club artists). His ability as a businessman is roughly in direct disproportion to his position in the pantheon of British folk legends.

I interviewed Bill in 1991 for my Bert Jansch (and co) biography ‘Dazzling Stranger’ (Bloomsbury, 2000), in 2002 or so for a huge Sweeney’s Men piece (eventually published in ‘Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret History’ (Collins Press, 2004)) and again in 2015 for chapters on Finbar & Eddie Furey, Seamus Ennis and Willie Clancy for ‘The Wheels of the World: 300 Years of Irish Uilleann Pipers (Jawbone, 2015). It is but a glimpse of the depth and breadth of Bill’s achievement that he made legendary recordings of all of these people.

I am, of course, no stranger to writing at great length about people of whom most others have never heard – but ten volumes on Bill seemed like madness to me. And then I took a punt and bought Vol.2 (just out), and it’s possible I may have been hasty… 🙂

Subtitled ‘Horizons for Some: 1956-62′, it covers the likes of Bert Lloyd, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, skiffle pioneers John Hasted and Russell Quaye, Suffolk siren Shirley Collins, Alan Lomax, immigrant Brooklyn cowboy Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Paul Robeson – Bill recording a transatlantic Robeson concert ‘at’ St Pancras Town Hall literally via a telephone line (Robeson being denied a passport by Senator McCarthy at the time) – and others, with cameos from the likes of Alfie Bass, Ivor Cutler and Uri Geller. Also covered in depth are extraordinary, marginal and/or eccentric individuals like Hylda Sims (recently departed) and John Foreman (still with us). The former went to Moscow in 1957 with Russell Quaye’s City Ramblers – for a World Youth Festival (and Mike paints vivid pictures of these strange things, which must have been great technicolour adventures for worldwide young participants in that monochrome age) – and appeared in a garish technicolour film in Russia, ‘Girl with a Guitar’. The latter is like a living, breathing character from one of Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May novels – a collector of ephemera, a conscientious objector jailed during peacetime in the 50s, a hawker of sheet music, a loremaster of London oddities, etc. There’s also a man who seems to be a Professor of Punch & Judy history.

Sal Shuel – an illustrator and wife of Brian Shuel, whose photography of 60s Britfolk did for the visual record what Bill Leader did for the aural one – also pops up in the book, and is among those quoted at the back in ‘praise for volume one’. Regarding Vol. 2, I agree entirely with her view of Vol.1: ‘I don’t think I have ever read a book quite like this before and it’s not easy to categorise it. It is totally fascinating from page one… It’s a singularly eccentric book and I loved every minute of it.’

I am in awe of Mike’s lightness of touch, his colourful, quirky, magazine-esque style, wit and research, the illustrations, the quality of the proofreading (hardly any typos throughout – in contrast, for instance, to a recent purchase of a similarly ‘self-published’ Tolkien Society publication – an educational charity, no less – which is riddled with the most basic errors on every page) and design – and, as ever, I am delighted by Bill Leader’s effortless mastery of the pithy one-liner. For instance, at one point, Bill mentions that Topic Records’ boss Gerry Sharpe was trying to put on an opera by an obscure composer ‘…because Gerry was a secret entrepreneur. Not a successful one, which is why nobody knows.’

Sharpe’s successor as Topic supremo (from 1972-2017), Tony Engle, also contributes to the ‘praise for volume one’ end matter: ‘I am, in turns, excited, delighted, informed, entertained and made to laugh out loud as I read your book … I am a fairly avid reader – mainly thrillers – and this has kept me gripped from the first page.’

Around 2001, I chatted to Tony Engle about the record business, and Topic’s then forays into bringing its long catalogue into the CD era. Somewhere in there I said, by way of a non sequitur, ‘Well, if you’re not in, you can’t win’. To which Tony said, ‘Yes, but if you’re not in you can’t *lose* either!’

Trying to stay afloat pervades Topic Records’ history. Back in the 50s/60s many of its records appearing in runs of less than 100 (to avoid a tax threshold). One entry in the Topic catalogue, ostensibly its second ever 12″ LP, a set of spirituals by baritone leider singer Aubrey Pankey, c.1956, is so obscure that the label itself – in its own printed history – believed it never to have been issued. The ones either side in the catalogue, TRL1 and TRL3, were a collection of (mostly) Ewan McColl 78s and McColl & Lloyd’s ‘The Singing Sailor’. ‘They didn’t consult me before they wrote that,’ says Bill, of the ‘probably not issued’ line in the Topic book, ‘because I paid good money for a copy. It was issued, yes… I’ve no idea what happened to it. I had all three of those LPs. I’ve seen it. I’ve played it. It’s not very good.’

Butler then devotes a splendid three pages to the tale of Aubrey Pankey and the tale of Mike Butler being on the trail of Aubrey Pankey. At one point, he is in the home of Helen Leader, the long-divorced second of Bill’s wives, who goes off to find something for him. Noticing a box of records (later learned to be ‘a belated restitution to Bill’), Mike rummages… and goes into paroxysms of joy at finding, yes, that all but mythical Aubrey Pankey record. He then has to pretend he hasn’t been rummaging ‘and feign composure… All I can think is “Aubrey Pankey, Aubrey Pankey…”‘

He subsequently tells Bill of the discovery, who ‘seems unmoved at the material evidence of a non-existent LP. All he says is, “She hasn’t got the other two, has she?”‘

(To be fair, I understand Mike’s absurd elation – I searched intensely for about five years for a copy of a sub-100-issued 1957 10” record involving Big Pete Deuchar on retailer Doug Dobell’s 77 label, missing from most 77 discographies. I eventually found one.)

This gives some of the flavour of the book – wonderful ‘episodes’ of quirky first-person adventures among superbly researched ‘normal’ history writing. In short, it’s a page-turner, full of wonderful information from the edges of the map, a patchwork portrait of a time and peppered with delightful characters who didn’t really fit into the norms of that time. It is remarkably easy to read. Mike is a canny observer of a lost world of lefties, anarchists and weirdos – and people trying to make post-war Britain a more fun, more humane place. And in a way, Bill is a canny observer of Mike’s observing – his quotes having the effect of the biography subject chipping in with a laconic aside every so often, having been reminded of something from 70 years back, or updated (from Mike having visited them) on the life of some curious character he recorded once, long ago and far away.

I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in music history, British folk music, interesting stories from pre-information-age Britain… or just great, offbeat non-fiction writing. There is a tremendous air of humanity and wisdom throughout. Mike may or may not be a lefty – I’ve no idea, and generally I’m not remotely interested in Red Flag stuff – but his skill is in not making the book feel like it’s full of tub-thumpers for any movement or cause. Even the people he documents, by and large, are less parts of movements than total, utter individuals. They all just huddled together for warmth, as it were, in those days of Aldermaston marches…

Mike’s relaxed marketing strategy seems to be ‘Email me if you want one…’ He does have a shop-window website, but he hasn’t got around to updating it with the second volume yet (which I heard about only in a Facebook group we’re both in). Trust me – this book (Vol.2) is a terrific read. I will now be buying Vol.1 – despite being generally not bothered by the bits in biographies about the subject’s schooldays etc. (I started Mark Lewisohn’s ‘Tune In’ about a third of the way in, for instance) – because Mike Butler’s writing is compelling. I’m signing up for the whole adventure with him – ten volumes or whatever it turns out to be! I commend it to you.

Comments

Colin H says

09/04/2022 at 18:58

(As usual, the main text mysteriously didn’t post. Here it is…)

This is Mike Butler’s second volume in ‘Sounding the Century’, his planned ten-volume (!!!) Bill Leader (and co) story.

Bill Leader (91) is a humble legend – the man who almost single-handedly recorded the 50s, 60s, 70s folk revival, basically. He recorded people who otherwise may never have been heard, freelancing for Topic then Decca, Transatlantic and others, and from 1969-77 ran his own duo of labels: Leader (for pure traditional music/artists) and Trailer (for folk-club artists). His ability as a businessman is roughly in direct disproportion to his position in the pantheon of British folk legends.

I interviewed Bill in 1991 for my Bert Jansch (and co) biography ‘Dazzling Stranger’ (Bloomsbury, 2000), in 2002 or so for a huge Sweeney’s Men piece (eventually published in ‘Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret History’ (Collins Press, 2004)) and again in 2015 for chapters on Finbar & Eddie Furey, Seamus Ennis and Willie Clancy for ‘The Wheels of the World: 300 Years of Irish Uilleann Pipers (Jawbone, 2015). It is but a glimpse of the depth and breadth of Bill’s achievement that he made legendary recordings of all of these people.

I am, of course, no stranger to writing at great length about people of whom most others have never heard – but ten volumes on Bill seemed like madness to me. And then I took a punt and bought Vol.2 (just out), and it’s possible I may have been hasty… 🙂

Subtitled ‘Horizons for Some: 1956-62′, it covers the likes of Bert Lloyd, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger, skiffle pioneers John Hasted and Russell Quaye, Suffolk siren Shirley Collins, Alan Lomax, immigrant Brooklyn cowboy Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Paul Robeson – Bill recording a transatlantic Robeson concert ‘at’ St Pancras Town Hall literally via a telephone line (Robeson being denied a passport by Senator McCarthy at the time) – and others, with cameos from the likes of Alfie Bass, Ivor Cutler and Uri Geller. Also covered in depth are extraordinary, marginal and/or eccentric individuals like Hylda Sims (recently departed) and John Foreman (still with us). The former went to Moscow in 1957 with Russell Quaye’s City Ramblers – for a World Youth Festival (and Mike paints vivid pictures of these strange things, which must have been great technicolour adventures for worldwide young participants in that monochrome age) – and appeared in a garish technicolour film in Russia, ‘Girl with a Guitar’. The latter is like a living, breathing character from one of Christopher Fowler’s Bryant & May novels – a collector of ephemera, a conscientious objector jailed during peacetime in the 50s, a hawker of sheet music, a loremaster of London oddities, etc. There’s also a man who seems to be a Professor of Punch & Judy history.

Sal Shuel – an illustrator and wife of Brian Shuel, whose photography of 60s Britfolk did for the visual record what Bill Leader did for the aural one – also pops up in the book, and is among those quoted at the back in ‘praise for volume one’. Regarding Vol. 2, I agree entirely with her view of Vol.1: ‘I don’t think I have ever read a book quite like this before and it’s not easy to categorise it. It is totally fascinating from page one… It’s a singularly eccentric book and I loved every minute of it.’

I am in awe of Mike’s lightness of touch, his colourful, quirky, magazine-esque style, wit and research, the illustrations, the quality of the proofreading (hardly any typos throughout – in contrast, for instance, to a recent purchase of a similarly ‘self-published’ Tolkien Society publication – an educational charity, no less – which is riddled with the most basic errors on every page) and design – and, as ever, I am delighted by Bill Leader’s effortless mastery of the pithy one-liner. For instance, at one point, Bill mentions that Topic Records’ boss Gerry Sharpe was trying to put on an opera by an obscure composer ‘…because Gerry was a secret entrepreneur. Not a successful one, which is why nobody knows.’

Sharpe’s successor as Topic supremo (from 1972-2017), Tony Engle, also contributes to the ‘praise for volume one’ end matter: ‘I am, in turns, excited, delighted, informed, entertained and made to laugh out loud as I read your book … I am a fairly avid reader – mainly thrillers – and this has kept me gripped from the first page.’

Around 2001, I chatted to Tony Engle about the record business, and Topic’s then forays into bringing its long catalogue into the CD era. Somewhere in there I said, by way of a non sequitur, ‘Well, if you’re not in, you can’t win’. To which Tony said, ‘Yes, but if you’re not in you can’t *lose* either!’

Trying to stay afloat pervades Topic Records’ history. Back in the 50s/60s many of its records appearing in runs of less than 100 (to avoid a tax threshold). One entry in the Topic catalogue, ostensibly its second ever 12″ LP, a set of spirituals by baritone leider singer Aubrey Pankey, c.1956, is so obscure that the label itself – in its own printed history – believed it never to have been issued. The ones either side in the catalogue, TRL1 and TRL3, were a collection of (mostly) Ewan McColl 78s and McColl & Lloyd’s ‘The Singing Sailor’. ‘They didn’t consult me before they wrote that,’ says Bill, of the ‘probably not issued’ line in the Topic book, ‘because I paid good money for a copy. It was issued, yes… I’ve no idea what happened to it. I had all three of those LPs. I’ve seen it. I’ve played it. It’s not very good.’

Butler then devotes a splendid three pages to the tale of Aubrey Pankey and the tale of Mike Butler being on the trail of Aubrey Pankey. At one point, he is in the home of Helen Leader, the long-divorced second of Bill’s wives, who goes off to find something for him. Noticing a box of records (later learned to be ‘a belated restitution to Bill’), Mike rummages… and goes into paroxysms of joy at finding, yes, that all but mythical Aubrey Pankey record. He then has to pretend he hasn’t been rummaging ‘and feign composure… All I can think is “Aubrey Pankey, Aubrey Pankey…”‘

He subsequently tells Bill of the discovery, who ‘seems unmoved at the material evidence of a non-existent LP. All he says is, “She hasn’t got the other two, has she?”‘

(To be fair, I understand Mike’s absurd elation – I searched intensely for about five years for a copy of a sub-100-issued 1957 10” record involving Big Pete Deuchar on retailer Doug Dobell’s 77 label, missing from most 77 discographies. I eventually found one.)

This gives some of the flavour of the book – wonderful ‘episodes’ of quirky first-person adventures among superbly researched ‘normal’ history writing. In short, it’s a page-turner, full of wonderful information from the edges of the map, a patchwork portrait of a time and peppered with delightful characters who didn’t really fit into the norms of that time. It is remarkably easy to read. Mike is a canny observer of a lost world of lefties, anarchists and weirdos – and people trying to make post-war Britain a more fun, more humane place. And in a way, Bill is a canny observer of Mike’s observing – his quotes having the effect of the biography subject chipping in with a laconic aside every so often, having been reminded of something from 70 years back, or updated (from Mike having visited them) on the life of some curious character he recorded once, long ago and far away.

I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in music history, British folk music, interesting stories from pre-information-age Britain… or just great, offbeat non-fiction writing. There is a tremendous air of humanity and wisdom throughout. Mike may or may not be a lefty – I’ve no idea, and generally I’m not remotely interested in Red Flag stuff – but his skill is in not making the book feel like it’s full of tub-thumpers for any movement or cause. Even the people he documents, by and large, are less parts of movements than total, utter individuals. They all just huddled together for warmth, as it were, in those days of Aldermaston marches…

Mike’s relaxed marketing strategy seems to be ‘Email me if you want one…’ He does have a shop-window website, but he hasn’t got around to updating it with the second volume yet (which I heard about only in a Facebook group we’re both in). Trust me – this book (Vol.2) is a terrific read. I will now be buying Vol.1 – despite being generally not bothered by the bits in biographies about the subject’s schooldays etc. (I started Mark Lewisohn’s ‘Tune In’ about a third of the way in, for instance) – because Mike Butler’s writing is compelling. I’m signing up for the whole adventure with him – ten volumes or whatever it turns out to be! I commend it to you.

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Colin H says

09/04/2022 at 19:02

And here is Mike’s website for the series (with Vol.2 content yet to be added). Using Mike’s email on the home page is the way to acquire a copy (£20 all-in): https://www.soundingthecentury.com/home

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bang em in bingham says

11/04/2022 at 17:20

I’ll deffo be checking that out Colin, Ta! …….BY THE WAY AFTERWORDERS COLIN’S “DAZZLING STRANGER” IS A MUST READ AS WELL. THE BEST BOOK I HAVE READ ON BERT JANSCH AND THE BRITISH FOLK SCENE ON ALL THINGS BERT RELATED, Cheers Colin

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- Colin H says
  
  11/04/2022 at 17:36
  
  That’s very kind indeed, Bingmeister – though there’s no need to shout! 😀
  
  Log in to Reply
  - Mike_H says
    
    12/04/2022 at 00:02
    
    His secret love.
    “NOW i SHOUT IT FROM THE HIGHEST HILL..”
    
    Log in to Reply
deramdaze says

12/04/2022 at 06:53

Yes, I started Lewisohn’s book when I first saw the words “Donegan” and “skiffle.”

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