A small but prolific operation servicing Britain's northwest folk club scene, the Folk Heritage label was launched in 1968 by Alan Green, a former chemist-turned-record producer. Rather than focusing on the folk boom's increasing national popularity, Green chose to champion smaller regional acts, issuing limited-edition runs by respected but little-known artists like Parke, Penny Wager, and the Pendlefolk. Sessions were initially run out of his small D.I.Y. home studio in the Manchester suburbs, then later at a specially ...
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A small but prolific operation servicing Britain's northwest folk club scene, the Folk Heritage label was launched in 1968 by Alan Green, a former chemist-turned-record producer. Rather than focusing on the folk boom's increasing national popularity, Green chose to champion smaller regional acts, issuing limited-edition runs by respected but little-known artists like Parke, Penny Wager, and the Pendlefolk. Sessions were initially run out of his small D.I.Y. home studio in the Manchester suburbs, then later at a specially built studio in the Welsh countryside that he shared with business partner Gordon Davies. What Folk Heritage and its various subsidiaries (Westwood, Sweet Folk & Country, Midas, and Real) lacked in star power, they more than made up for in quality, and in subsequent decades, many of their releases have become near-mythic grail quests for discerning record collectors. Green died in 2000, and somehow his company's legacy had been allowed to languish in obscurity for much of the digital age. To the rescue comes Grapefruit Records with Before the Day Is Done: The Story of Folk Heritage Records 1968-1975, the beloved imprint's first comprehensive anthology. Amid its generous 68-song playlist are obscure delights like Michael Donald's charmingly rough-hewn "Visions of Cambria," Saga's "Ballad of a Falmouth Man," and Stuart Marson's expansive "Christmas and Tchaikovsky." Compiled and curated with great care, it's a worthy tribute to Green's vision and an appropriate final chapter for Grapefruit's marvelous U.K. folk trilogy, which began with 2015's Dust on the Nettles and 2020's Sumer Is Icumen In. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi
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