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ARTIST
TITLE
Tattoo: The Unreleased Music from the 1975 John Samson Documentary
FORMAT
10"
LABEL
CATALOG #
JBH 098LP
JBH 098LP
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
4/19/2024
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Incredible jazz/prog/folk score to groundbreaking film Tattoo by maverick filmmaker John Samson, unreleased until now. John Samson (1946 - 2004) was a documentary filmmaker. He was educated first at Glasgow School Of Art (circa 1963) and in the art of film making at The National Film And Television School in Beaconsfield. It was at the NFTS that Samson met Mike Wallington, who was to become his right-hand man and eventual producer; together they made a handful of inspiring, entertaining and hugely prescient films about important, overlooked, unseen and marginal fringes in society. Tattoo (1975) explored the rather clandestine world of tattooing in the UK. Samson managed to navigate his way with compassion, interest and subtlety, immersing himself in the chosen scene and producing moving, fascinating and sometimes darkly amusing situations. His documentaries did not rely on traditional voiceovers, with stories, facts and narrative threads being dictated by the subjects. This score was written by Steve Jolliffe, who met Samson at the NFTS. Joliffe was the resident composer and had a room at the college complex where he could work on scores for the fledgling film makers. Jolliffe was and still is a multi-instrumentalist and prolific composer who had met Edgar Froese at the Berlin Konservatorium in the late 1960s and played in an early incarnation of Tangerine Dream. He toured with blues rock outfit Steamhammer, before hanging out at the NFTS, making this recording (and many others) and eventually rejoining Tangerine Dream in the late 1970s. Musically, this score is charming, slightly folky, and a touch baroque, with a whiff of prog. The images for this vinyl release were all found in Mike Wallington's Tattoo documentary research folder from 1974, and were photos sent in to Mike and John by people who wanted to feature in the film.
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