Off The Beaten Tracks 20th January 2025

This week's show includes tracks by a number of Scottish singers, musicians and bands as it is Burns Night on Saturday the 25th of January. Listen now on Mixcloud or from Monday on Ginger Feather FM.

Ewan MacColl's real name was James Henry Miller. He was born in 1915 in Salford to Scottish parents. He was father to Kirsty MacColl and as well as being a folk singer he was a folk song collector, labour activist and actor.

Read more about him at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ewan_MacColl

Martin Stephenson - Little Red Bottle
Megson - Working Town (live)
Track Dogs - Amor De Mi Vida
The Low Countries - Don't Let It Be You
Deep Cabaret - Real Reality
Eddi Reader - Wild Mountainside
Kris Drever, Eamonn Coyne & Megan Henderson - Parcel of Rogues
Reg Meuross - I Ain't Dead
GNOSS - Dirt & Bone
Kate Rusby - Friday I'm In Love
Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas - The 3-Stringed Uke
Jim Causley & Miranda Sykes - Blackingstone Ravens
Smith & McLennan - Long Way Down
Peatbog Faeries - Jakes on a Plane
Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger - Mormond Braes 

Off The Beaten Tracks 13 January 2025

My first radio show of the year after a break over Xmas and New Year. It includes tracks from albums I've recently downloaded by Martyn Joseph and Morag Brown & Lewis Powell-Reid along with some Fairport \ Thompson family numbers at the end. 

As ever you can listen at any time on Mixcloud or wait until next week when the show will be going out from Monday on Ginger Feather FM at 1pm and 8pm. 

Equation - He Loves Me
Morag Brown & Lewis Powell-Reid - Tide Time
Oisin Leech - October Sun
The Magpie Arc - Wassail
Show of Hands w/ Track Dogs - Company Town (live)
Martyn Joseph - Chapel Porth Beach (acoustic)
Rhiannon Giddens - Hey Bebe
Pokey LaFarge - It's Not Over
Fierce Flowers - Scene De Danse
Sunjay - Mail Order Mystics
Fairport Convention - Fotheringay (2012 version)
Fotheringay - Nothing More (Live In Rotterdam - 1970)
Richard Thompson - Johnny's Far Away
Linda Thompson featuring Teddy Thompson - Those Damn Roches 

Xmas Mix on Ginger Feather FM 2024

Some Christmas tunes and other winter-related music for my final Off The Beaten Tracks show/mix of this year. You can listen to it now on Mixcloud or on Ginger Feather from Monday. 

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - Deck The Hall With Boughs Of Holly
Emily Smith - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen 
Cat Stevens - Morning Has Broken 
Faustus - Oh To Be A King 
Skipinnish - December 
Seth Lakeman - Garden of Grace 
Eliza Carthy & Jon Boden - I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
Simon & Garfunkel - Seven O'Clock News \ Silent Night 
Ben Nicholls w/ Martin Simpson - Flash Company 
Emily Smith - Heard From Heaven Today 
Kathryn Tickell - Carols 
Cara - The Spell of Winter 
Richard Thompson - Happy Days and Auld Lang Syne 
Breabach - Winter Winds 
Eliza Carthy & Jon Boden - Fairytale of New York 
John Lennon - Imagine 
Ukulele Orchestra of GB - We Wish You A Merry Christmas 

The Stranglers - MenInBlack

This album would sit nicely in whatever the opposite of Easy Listening is. I first bought this on vinyl after seeing The Stranglers on the Feline tour. In the years leading up to that I had bought Rattus and a compilation called The Collection along with the Feline album, but nothing prepared me for the post-punk of the MenInBlack album. The only track I knew was Waltzinblack. I gave it a couple of listens but decided that this was not for me and took it to a second-hand record shop on Cockburn Street in Edinburgh. Shame, as it was in a nice gatefold sleeve. If I'd heard the preceding albums - Black and White and The Raven - then this might not have been such a challenging listen but most of the MIB album seemed a world away from Duchess and the like.

As I then worked my way backwards buying the earlier Stranglers albums, as well as subsequent releases like Aural Sculpture, I came to realise that maybe I should have kept hold of the MIB album. I did buy it again, this time on tape, and then when the band released The Old Testament boxed set, I also had it on CD. 

As I type this I am playing the cassette and it is an essential part of the Hugh Cornwell era Stranglers back catalogue. 

I didn't get to see the band on their 50th anniversary tour but saw that they started their sets with two song from the MenInBlack album. Despite the sad passings of Dave Greenfield and Jet Black it was good to see JJ Burnel and, now long time guitarist, Baz Warne carrying on the unpredictable nature of the Stranglers. Come to hear the hits? You'll have to f--king wait!

Off The Beaten Tracks 16 December 2024

Some seasonal songs on this week's show including three from the new album by Janice Burns and John Doran. Listen now on Mixcloud or from Monday at 1pm or 8pm on Ginger Feather FM.

Janice Burns & Jon Doran - Derby Ram 
Pentangle - Sally Go Round The Roses
Tom Kitching - A Long Time Between Sunsets 
Katherine Priddy - Third House on the Left 
The Young 'Uns - Ghafoor's Bus 
Eliza Carthy & Jon Boden - In The Bleak Midwinter 
Lindisfarne - Lady Eleanor 
Linda Thompson - Weary Life 
Janice Burns & Jon Doran - The Trees Are All Bare 
Peter Knight & Jon Spiers - Isadora's Reel 
Banter - Eve Of New Year Merry 
The Albion Christmas Band - Winter Song 
Jez Lowe and the Bad Pennies - The Ex-Pitmen's Pot-Holing Pub Quiz Team 
Kate Bush - Under The Ivy 
Janice Burns & Jon Doran - Green Grows The Holly  
John Renbourn - Judy 

Recommended releases 2024

Another year of presenting my Off The Beaten Tracks show on Ginger Feather FM and another list of new music released since January. Thanks as ever to Citizen K at GF FM for uploading our shows so they can be broadcast on an unsuspecting public on internet-radio.com. A mostly folk music Top 15 but some other stuff by the likes of Pokey LaFarge, Errol Linton and The Staves all of whom I saw at the last ever Towersey Festival back in August. 

So thanks for listening or just checking out the playlists posted on here. Here are the albums I've most enjoyed listening to this year, in alphabetic order.

Wishing you all a Merry Festive Season and a Happy New Year!

Colin 

https://www.mixcloud.com/cmbertram/ 

Jack Badcock - Cosmography 

Banter - Heroes 

Janice Burns & Jon Doran - Great Joy to the New 

Charlotte Carrivick - Sensible or Otherwise 

Jake Xerxes Fussell - When I'm Called 

Tom Kitching w/ Marit Falt - Where There's Brass 

Pokey LaFarge - Rhumba Country 

Errol Linton - Love Gone Cold 

Lassi Logrén - Jouhikko 

Ben Nicholls - Duets 

Grace Petrie - Build Something Better 

Katherine Priddy - The Pendulum Swing 

The Staves - All Now 

Miranda Sykes - Out of the Woods 

Linda Thompson - Proxy Music 

Off The Beaten Tracks 9 December 2024

You can listen to this week's show on Mixcloud or on Ginger Feather FM from Monday.

Simon and Garfunkel - Hazy Shade of Winter
Cat Stevens - Wild World
Luke Jackson - Who Knows Where The Time Goes
Grace Petrie - Tom Paine's Bones
Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas - Emerson
The Proclaimers - Cap in Hand (live)
Claire Hastings - Let Ramensky Go
Gilmore & Roberts - Fleetwood Fair (live)
Steeleye Span - All Around My Hat
The Carrivick Sisters - Sweet Baby James
James Taylor - Sunny Skies
Errol Linton - Bo Diddit
Jerry Lee Lewis - House of Blue Lights
Rosanne Cash - My Baby Thinks He's A Train
Hayseed Dixie - Summer of 69
The Proclaimers - Sky Takes the Soul (live)