25 Years of Greentrax Recordings
A concert at the Queens Hall, Edinburgh, on October 15th marked yet another milestone for Greentrax Recordings as they celebrated their 25th
Anniversary. The Greentrax story is well documented; what has been less explored has been the impact of Greentrax on the image of Scottish music around the world and the performance opportunities it opened up for a whole range of artists.
G
reentrax wasn’t formed out of a vacuum. London- based Topic Records and North of England-based Leader (and Trailer) Recordings were the primary folk labels in the earlier days of the modern folk revival. Topic’s coverage ranged the whole of the UK and Ireland and provided an early platform for Scottish musicians. Battlefield’s first major release, their ‘White Album’, was on Topic and Cilla & Artie and Dick Gaughan also gained recognition on that label. Bill Leader’s Trailer imprint featured many of the revival performers of that time including Nic Jones, Tory Rose, Pete & Chris Coe, Robin and Barry Dransfield etc, and although Leader tended to have a strong English and Irish focus there were exceptions; Trailer was home for the first of the Scottish-based supergroups, Boys of the Lough, and released the first commercial recording by Dick Gaughan.
Far, Far, From Ypres
Although the centre of gravity of the commercial labels was in London, the musical centre of gravity, as far as traditional music is concerned was out in the regions of England and in Ireland and Scotland. In England, Fellside Recordings founded a label more directly linked to activity in the folk clubs, pre-dating Greentrax by a few years.
Steele the Show
Representation of Scotland’s music in other parts of the world, including North America, was still in the hands of labels with a tartan fringe. Equally valid in musical terms and as relevant a part of Scotland’s musical history as any other, they nevertheless had a less direct connection with the singing traditions of Scotland resurgent in the folk revival in the folk clubs and festivals at that time.
The Living Tradition - Page 38
By the mid-80s, Ian Green had lived through and played a significant part in the structural development of the Scottish Folk Scene. Ian was the organizer of The Police Folk Club in Edinburgh, a co-founder of Sandy Bell’s Broadsheet and a leading light of the Edinburgh Folk Festival.
Against this background Ian was heading for retirement from the Police and was not yet ready for the green pastures of the golf course or the fishing rivers. Crucially he was also up for another challenge. In 1986 he retired from the police and Greentrax was born. To say that it was a successful second career is an understatement. Back in 1986, in the words of Ian Green “Tartan and Haggis reigned supreme and the Brigadoon factor was far too prevalent.” This spurred Ian on to change this perception.
There are few if any genuinely famous names in the field of traditional music; certainly if you compare it to the wider music business where the Sinatras, Streisands, Beatles and Michael Jacksons are recognized worldwide. Scottish music in general however is known throughout the world and the image of that music has been changed, or at least steered on a slightly different course, thanks to the efforts of Ian Green.
Although not a performer himself, neither for that matter a recording engineer, producer, designer or others of the specialities which you might associate with a record company executive, Ian is as well known as the artists gathered around him. Ian’s recently published autobiography, Fuzz to Folk, gives some clue as to why. The range of artists who came together for this celebration, both
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