Strict Tempo: Scottish Country Dance Music From The 1950’s, Volume 1

“Strict Tempo: Scottish Country Dance Music from 1950’s”
Adam Rennie SCD Quartet - Volume One
Legacy 01CD

20 tracks remastered from the original EMI tapes recorded in the 1950s, between 1952 & 56.

Adam Rennie - fiddle
Bobby Brown - button accordion
George Robertson - piano
Jock White & Ed Robb - bass

More on the man, musician, band leader and composer

“Box and Fiddle”
http://www.boxandfiddle.com/adam_rennie.htm

Volume1 features Parlophone label recordings from the 1950s…

http://www.allcelticmusic.com/

“Another Measure: Scottish Country Dance Music From The 1950’s”

https://thesession.org/recordings/2552

Yes, I’ve had another week, this time dedicated to Adam Rennie, with a tune of his transcribed and added here daily. While in the swing of that I wrote the following in the comments for one of his tunes, “Reverend Peter Fenton’s” ~

Hey, a whole week, and it’s not over yet. I’m no fan of the RSCDS, and I have been known to tell horror stories about Miss Milligan and her cronies. That said, while I’m no fan, I wouldna deny another their choice of pleasures. But for me, and my wife in agreement, while we’ve enjoyed a dance now and then, there’s just too much starch for our comfort. I’m especially ill at ease when someone is looking at my feet instead of being social in the dance, and neither of us like iron-on transfer smiles… Sorry, we have met nice folks in the stiff of it, but we prefer Irish and country, the rural take on it all, not citified or ‘balls’…and definitely not ‘Royal’…

But, after getting that off my chest ~ I really like the Adam Rennie Quartet. It has a spark and lift much RSCDS music tends to lack. Maybe in part it is Bobby Brown’s button accordion. I am also partial to Jimmy Shand, memories of youth. There seems to be a humour in the band and in the tunes Adam Rennie is given credit for, like this one. It makes me smile. It hasn’t the irritation of starch that much of what the RSCDS seems to create. I can recognize the musicianship, but it generally doesn’t speak to my heart. It doesn’t make me smile. Adam Rennie’s music does…

a.) The Fidget Reel
b.) Bill Sutherland ~ by Adam Rennie
c.) Pat Donald ~ by Adam Rennie

“Superb Sound Quality” is on the front of these CDs, but there is a problem with this claim. While the digital may be fine, and I am glad to have these tracks, the discs are ‘home-burns’, not professional ~ meaning they use lower quality CD media and burning, what most of us have built into our computers ~ and are consequently less robust than what is generally produced commercially…

For those that might remember tape, these might be considered the ‘ferric oxide’ to the much better quality ‘chrome oxide’… 😏

This growing home industry is similar to the worst productions of the pirates, and, sadly, some of them have access to and use the better media and processes…

That disappointment aside, I’m glad to have these to listen to for as long as they might survive, which will be lesser than with the more robust and better quality commercial processing…

I’ve started a discussion on the Discussions forum (https://thesession.org/discussions/13783) so that these issues of the reliability of CDs can be discussed more widely.

Excellent!