Barbara Dickson - B4 The Folkclub Tapes

Long before Barbara found fame in the theatre and as a pop singer, she spent many years as a folk singer on the folk circuit, playing in the clubs and pubs of Scotland and England. These forty recordings over two discs gather together many rare recordings taken of Barbara performing in the folk clubs of the late '60's and early '70's. The songs have been taken from a variety of sources and as a result the sound quality does vary, but they represent a fascinating snapshot of Barbara from the very earliest days of her career. 'There's a song by Gallagher and Lyle, there's James Taylor, there's a lot of songs that I chose to sing at that time, because I was never entirely committed to singing traditional music," Barbara says. "A lot of people I knew only sang traditional music, but I didn't feel that way. I just had a fairly Catholic taste in music and I think it comes over in the choices of the songs on this double CD. I'm very proud of the choices I made and the songs that I chose to sing." Included are the original versions of many favourites in Barbara's repertoire which she has chosen to revisit in recent years including 'Jamie Raeburn', 'The January Man' and 'O'er the Water tae Charlie'. "Barbara Dickson [is] a folk-scene phenomenon. This raw double set of reel-to-reel recordings from 1969-73 finds her precision-engineered phrasing and perfectly poised voice, an egoless vessel that contains the old songs' sentiments, set against her stark acoustic guitar in audibly rapt back rooms. This alternate-earth Barbara Dickson is a shadowy legend, ripe for rediscovery." (The Sunday Times)