Customer Reviews

Finest Collection

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It is heart warming that EMI have chosen to issue another Fivepenny Piece CD. On the downside, and no criticism of the group, eight of the 23 tracks are repeats from the earlier "Very Best of..." CD, while the title Brown Photographs, in one form or another, appears 3 times in this Collection. Still, it's all great. Buy both releases. You will certainly enjoy them but, for those who know, this is only a taste, a tease as it were, of the material that should be available. It is high time EMI offered the entire collected works of The Fivepenny Piece on CD as an anthology boxed set - everything from the early LP's, the two "On Stage" performances from the Broadoak, onto the later classic King Cotton and more. Through song and poem, these recordings not only entertain but recall the habits, the happiness, the hardships and importantly the humour of life throughout the industrial North, especially Lancashire, while Britain transformed from ruling an Empire to more modern times. Far too good to be left gathering dust in the recording vaults of EMI.

I was surprised to learn that the Fivepenny Piece never became full time professionals, all of them maintaining their day jobs. This makes their success all the more remarkable. While their music was rooted in folk, specifically in the area of Lancashire from which they came, they did not stick rigidly within that genre and dedicated folk fans didn't always appreciate their music, especially as they recorded plenty of comedic material.

At the serious end of their repertoire, King Cotton reminds us of how the Lancashire cotton weaving industry grew, flourished and declined. However, many of their songs are more light-hearted, as exemplified in such songs as Hear all say all say nowt, Paddle your own canoe, Fred Fanackapan, Big Jim, Ee by gum and Weight watchers.

This compilation contains several tracks that were also included on what I think is the only previous CD release of their music, but those were among their mo0st popular tracks. One day, maybe we'll get a lot more of their music on CD, but I won't hold my breath.