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FLED 3085CD
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After 25 years, the mighty Home Service return with a new live album taken from a recently-discovered 1986 tape. For many fans, the near legendary live Home Service shows were the high-point of British folk-rock. This remarkable recording captures the band at the height of their powers. With trumpeter Paul Archibald replacing the late Howard Evans, the band are reforming for a series of high profile festival appearances (and perhaps some new recording). Other members include: Jonathan Davie (electric bass), Howard Evans (trumpet), Andy Findon (saxophone, clarinet, flute), Michael Gregory (drums, percussion), Steve King (keyboards), John Tams (lead vocals, guitar), Graeme Taylor (lead guitar, vocals), Roger Williams and (trombone).
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FLED 3014CD
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Originally released in 1985 on Coda Records and reissued in 1998 on Fledg'ling, this was the second full-length by British rock/folk/big band greats, Home Service. This is an example of their fine soundtrack work from the Royal National Theatre cycle of Mystery Plays, with a special guest appearance from Linda Thompson. Captured on this disc are some remarkable performances from John Tams and Bill Caddick -- two leading lights of the British folk scene. Carefully remastered from the original tapes.
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FLED 3015CD
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Released by Fledg'ling in 1998. The Home Service that went into Raezor Studios in Wandsworth in December 1985 to make their third LP was a band with a pedigree second to none in its field of English music. That third LP was Alright Jack and it found the band on a creative streak. At the time of its release, critics hailed it as one of the seminal albums in its field, one to rival the best albums that Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span, The Albion Band or Richard Thompson had produced. The passage of time has borne out how perceptive those assessments were, for like those other classic albums, it proved more than a "genre album." In a quintessentially British tradition, Alright Jack proved a classic. They had decided that the album's centerpiece would be a setting of folk songs by Percy Grainger for large wind ensemble. Grainger, a highly complex character with enough quirks and eccentricities to fill the pages of a sizeable psychological study, had been regarded as one of the finest pianists of his day and the preserved evidence in the form of piano-rolls and recordings demonstrates a pianistic virtuosity on an Olympian scale. What is more, he had been a true visionary in the field of folk song collecting, for, in an era when many collectors allowed their preconceptions about the lower classes, good taste and musical orthodoxy to color and distort their results, Grainger's attitudes were positively revolutionary. For example, other collectors, it would seem, often bowlderized language which might offend or doctored or rejected as aberrations, modes or time signatures which failed to comply with scholarly expectations or theories.
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