Unearthed: A Bounty of Flying Fish!

A devoted grapeviner has stumbled across and acquired a great buried treasure, in the form of dozens of Flying Fish and other old LPs, at a garage sale. Flying Fish, as many of my posts demonstrate, was one of the premier folk-and-beyond labels, along with Folkways and Folk Legacy (also represented here). Their early releases were universally good. I'm not sure about their later releases, which is the bulk of what you'll find here, but I'm betting there's some gems in the lot.

Anyways, she's offering these LPs to anyone who wants to digitize and post them. Fellow bloggers, devoted listeners, take note! Here's a great chance to make a contribution to the music blogosphere and get a collectible item to boot! Here's her letter & vinyl list:

Thanks for taking a look. The garage guy said he snapped these up for next to nothing when Flying Fish discontinued vinyl around 1989. Most of them were played once to make cassette copies. Some are still unopened. He considered ripping them for his iPod, but decided he's too old to spend the time. I thought I had a sure taker to rip these, but after a week of searching. I'm starting to wonder if I imagined this post. My equipment and skills just aren't up to the task.

Here's the list. If you need more info on anything, let me know. You're welcome to anything you promise to rip. Hopefully you'll share it in the blog. If not, send me copies and I'll find a blog home if I have to start one myself. You're getting first pick. I'll shop it around elsewhere after a week 

If you know of likely takers for the stuff that's not your line of country, thanks for any leads. I feel a karmic duty to keep the garage guy collection alive.

Flying Fish and Mountain Railroad

0323 Anne Romaine - Take a Stand

3084 Artie Traum - Take a Stand

3914 Artie Traum - Life on Earth

        Artie Traum and Pat Alger - From the Heart

0509 Aztec Two-Step - See, It Was Like This

        Becky Thompson - After All This Time

0400 Bell and Shore - Little Movies

0325 Blue Riddim Band - Live in Jamaica

0255 Blue Riddim Band - Restless Spirit

0437 Bonnie Koloc - With You on My Side

        Bonnie Koloc - Wild and Recluse

0242 Cathy Winter - Breath on My Fire

        Cherish the Ladies (first LP

0468 Critton Hollow - Great Dreams

0497 Dave Mallett - For a Lifetime

0060 Don Lange - Natural Born Heathen

0222 Don Lange - Live

0039 Ellipsis

8000 Emery Christiansen - Between Planes

0418 File - Cajun Dance Band

0457 The Flips - What's in the Bright Pink Box?

        Fred Small - No Limit 

        Fred Small - I Will Stand Fast

0436 Geof Morgan - Talk It Over

0277 Geof Morgan - Finally Letting It Go

0353 George Gritzbach - All American Song

0432 Glenda Faye - Flatpickin' Favorites

0391 Guy Carawan - The Land Knows You're There

        Happy Traum - Bright Morning Star

        VA: The Heartbeat of Soweto

0044 Howie Bursen - Building Boom

0482 Jan Marra - These Crazy Years

2782 Jim Kweskin - Lives Again

0365 Jim Page - Visions in My View

0331 John O'Connor - Songs for Our Times

0443 Jonathan Stevens - Creationland

0376 Laura Burns and Roger Rosen - Light This Night

1992 Lenny Anderson - Hot Off the Press

0458 Linda Allen - Women's Work

0439 Linda Waterfall - Body English

0308 Lorraine Duisit - Hawks and Herons

        Lorraine Lee and Bennett Hammond - Light as a Feather

0405 Mark Nelson - Southern Light

0485 Patricia Shih - Leap of Faith

0256 Peter Alsop - Uniforms

0078 Phil Rosenthal - Indian Summer

0324 Preston Reed - Playing By Ear

0428 Robin Flower - Babies With Glasses

0326 Robin Flower, First Dibs

0359 Robin and Linda Williams - Nine Till Midnight

0327 Robin and Linda Williams - Close As We Can Get

0499 Roy Forbes - Love Turns to Ice

0399 Ruth Pelham - Look to the People

3425 Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt - Closing the Distance

0202 Sam Chatmon and the Barbecue Boys

0312 Si Kahn - Unfinished Portraits

0479 Skyline - Fire of Grace

0388 Tony Trischka and Skyline - Skyline Drive

4015 VA - Songs for Peace

0306 Steve Lyon - There's No Place Like MArs

0498 Velma Frye - I Am to Someone

3065 Woodstock Mountains Revue - Back to Mud Acres

Folkways

Andrew Rowan Summers - Christmas Carols with Dulcimer

Doc Scott's Old-Time Medicine Show - World's Most Unusual Songs

George Davis, the Singing Miner - When Kentucky Had No Union Men

Gerry Axelrod and Robert Macklin - Songs of Nature and the Environment

Kevin Roth - After the Rain

Kevin Roth - Women

Kevin Roth - New Wind

Kevin Roth - The Other Side of the Mountain

Kevin Roth - The Living and Breathing Wind

Kevin Roth - The First Few WordsLiz Getz - How Can I Keep from Singing

Ron Turner - Self Titled

Tom Morgan - Bluegrass with Friends and Family

Tracy and Eloise Schwartz - Down Home With

VA - Hootenanny Tonight

Folk Legacy

Helen Schneyer - Ballads, Broadsides and Hymns

Ed Trickett - The Telling Takes Me Home

Miscellany

Red Clay Ramblers - Soundtrack to Sam Shepard's Far North

Doc and Merle Watson and the Texas Playboys - Soundtrack to Places in the Heart

Clam Chowder - For Here or To Go

Michael Tomlinson - Still Believe

Eric Bogle - Singing the Spirit Home

Alice Gerrard and Mike Seeger

Tom Paxton - Even a Gray Day

Mike Cross - Rock 'n' Rye

Mike Cross - Prodigal Son

Mike Cross - Born in the Country

Makem and Clancy - We've Come a Long Way

Kell Street Camp Meeting - Dinner and Joy on the Ground

The Star Accordion Band - Scottish Favorites Vol. 2

VA- The Greater Antilles Sampler

VA - Songs and Dances of Vandee

Mikron Theatre Company - Songs of the Canals and Waterways of Great Britain

Mary O'Hara - At the Toyal Festival Hall

David Philoe - Seychelles

Yulya - Sings Her Favorite Russian Songs

A fair number of these artists are probably forgotten for good reason. Tendentious movement and preachy new-agey song titles. Self-righteous liner notes. Smug faces on the covers. I'll eventually skim it all, and would be delighted to discover my cruel first impressions were wrong. But I'm sure there's somebody out there who loved the crusading union printer/songwriter  Lenny Anderson. It takes all kinds. And the web has a home for all of it, I'm sure. I just don't want to be the person who sent the last surviving copy of Patricia Shih's proudest gift to the landfill. 

anyone who would like to take on the task of ripping and posting some of these should contact

johannalapp at that yahoo place dot com

and then leave a comment in this post or email me and her once the file is uploaded. Or, if you have a blog of your own, post it there and leave a note in the comments.

and a word about ripping vinyl:

If you feel inclined to rip a vinyl and digitize it, and have the equipment and time to go through with the task, why settle for less than the best sound quality? I mean, pops & clicks have their charm, but they don't really add that much to the music. That said, I'd always rather have an album with pops & clicks than one that's been 'over-cleaned'. Most of the vinyl ripping programs out there have built-in 'de-clickers' which apply a single algorithm and wipe out all the high frequency sounds, resulting in a sound that is devoid of pops & crackles and also devoid of most of the musical excitement, sounding like a blanket has been draped over the speakers. If you listen on a laptop or built-in computer speakers, you may not be able to notice the difference. But if you listen on good speakers, these over-cleaned recordings sound HORRIBLE. Worse than cassettes. So please, if you do rip and share some of these, either leave the scratches as they are or use this excellent program: ClickRepair, which cleans without sacrificing the music or audio quality. Then, share mp3s of a high quality (192kbps and above). Photograph or scan the front & back covers, if you can, for an even better share.

Let the fish fly!!!