Summer Comes Rolling Around - Again!!
- 4 days ago
- 2 min read
It is shameful to see that we haven’t posted any updates here since last December – I blame the lack of heatwaves until the last few months!
On the gigging front, Wynford and I thoroughly enjoyed our first visit to the wonderfully refurbished Y Muni in Pontypridd back in January, a shared gig with our great musical friends The Blessed Crow at Blackwood Miners Institute at the end of May, and just last weekend, our first appearance at Caerleon Festival – it was HOT!
Anyway, we have not been idle over the past few months. Since we remastered and reissued The Chartists second album “Cause for Complaint” in September 2024 we have been delighted by the critical and popular reactions and the sales! It started us thinking as to whether we could do a similar process on the very first Chartists album. That came out as the first Steam Pie Records release in May 1982 – nearly three years after the premiere of the song cycle at Islwyn Folk Club on November 2nd 1979.
Back in April we gathered once more our super talented creative partners – Tony Williams on remastering duties and Hayley Jenney as designer. We went back to the original record, and we also spent some time listening to other Chartists recordings found on cassettes. We decided that four songs the band contributed to the BBC Radio 4 series “Folk For The Job”, and not heard since those programmes were broadcast in 1984, were worthy for inclusion in this forthcoming expanded version being made available on CD / DL. The release date is set for Friday 18th September – you can pre-order the digital version now :- https://steampierecords.lnk.to/TheChartists
