back menu
Log in or Sign up

English Melodeon Players

By Martin Ellison, Tony Hall, Dave Roberts, Roger Watson, Edward II & The Red Hot Polkas

Search for Martin Ellison, Tony Hall, Dave Roberts, Roger Watson, Edward II, The Red Hot Polkas.

  1. A Small Fee
    Crying Jenny And Laughing Joan
  2. Young Collins
    The Princess Royal
  3. The Rose Tree
  4. The Old Favourite
  5. Johnny Mickey Barry’s
    The Freedom Of Ireland
  6. 100 Pipers
  7. The Sussex
    The Essex Bazurka
  8. The Flowers Of Edinburgh
  9. Small Wonder
    Fred’s Tune
  10. Moll In The Wood
    A Trip To Knaresboro’
  11. Another Fine Mess
  12. The Children’s Crusade

Two comments

“English Melodeon Players”

Plant Life Records Limited, 1986
PLR073

http://folkmonster.co.uk/
“English Melodeon Players”
http://folkmonster.co.uk/pages/compilations.html
http://folkmonster.co.uk/albums/compilations/english_melodeon_players_front.jpg
http://folkmonster.co.uk/albums/compilations/english_melodeon_players_back.jpg

Side One
1. A Small Fee / Crying Jenny and Laughing Joan - Martin Ellison
2. Young Collins / The Princess Royal - Roger Watson
3. The Rose Tree - Tony Hall, Dave Roberts & Roger Watson
4. The Old Favourite - Tony Hall
5. Johnny Mickey Barry’s / The Freedom Of Ireland - Edward II & The Red Hot Polkas
6. 100 Pipers - Tony Hall

Side Two
1. The Sussex Mazurka / The Essex Bazurka - Dave Roberts
2. The Flowers of Edinburgh - Tony Hall
3. Small Wonder (for Kitty) / Fred’s Tune - Martin Ellison
4. Moll in the Wood / A Trip to Knaresboro’ - Dave Roberts
5. Another Fine Mess - Edward II & The Red Hot Polkas
6. The Children’s Crusade - Roger Watson

Sadly this is one I don’t have and haven’t heard, but having added two tunes from it to the tunes database here, “The Sussex Mazurka” & “The Essex Bazurka”, I thought I’d best add this recording as well. Hopefully someone who is more familiar with it will give comment.

Plenty of good playing on this, but as a sampler of its era (1980s) it could have been better.

Wholly dispensible, IMO, are the slipshod song The Children’s Crusade (not Watson’s - no criticism of his performance here…) and the irritating, spaffy track by Edward II & The Red Hot Polkas. Why couldn’t the album have had a track by The Oyster Band instead of the latter? They were - still are, AFAIK - the real deal when it came to punk folk, attitude, capability both as a ceilidh band and a gig / pub-rock-type band, really rousing songs, and indeed using melodeon in all this.

Another missed chance was that of including one or more recordings of Tony Hall playing medium- to slow-paced tunes and creating in these music that would make many a listener say, “I never realised a melodeon could *do* this..!” This music is rich, spellbinding and beautiful, and Hall’s considerable technique is always at its service: never the other way round. There are a few Hall tracks on this album, but they are all fairly straightforward runs-through of ordinary ceilidh tunes: nothing wrong with them, but they’re not his music at its most poetic and distinctive.