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JOHN RENBOURN’S SHIP OF FOOLS - LONDON 1988

December 14, 2022 – 6:39 am

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JOHN RENBOURN’S SHIP OF FOOLS
London 1988 [no label, 1CD]
Nightride. BBC Studios, London, UK; July 1988. Very good BBC Radio Two FM broadcast.

Thanks to Les_Mountain for sharing the show at Dime.

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English guitarist and songwriter John Renbourn was best known for his collaboration with guitarist Bert Jansch as well as his work with the folk group Pentangle, although he maintained a solo career before, during and after that band’s existence (1967–1973). While most commonly labelled a folk musician, Renbourn’s musical tastes and interests took in early music, classical music, jazz, blues and world music. His most influential album, Sir John Alot [1968], featured his take on tunes from the medieval period.

In 1988, Renbourn briefly formed a group called Ship of Fools with Tony Roberts (flute), Maggie Boyle (lyrics, miscellaneous instruments) and Steve Tilston (guitar). They recorded one eponymous album together. After practising by mailing tapes to each other in England, they held their first concert, comprising two sold-out shows, at Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club Theater. Regrettably, the soundboard tape was not saved due to a dispute between the concert promoter and the audio engineer. - wikipedia

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- EXC wonderful/warm, clear, stereo studio recording.
- Warts (almost NONE): Repaired dullspots & dropouts but surely missed a few. Some bits of DJ voiceover.
- NOT the same as Ship Of Fools 1987-12-02 “Folk On 2″ session/versions, tho’ they play 3 of same 4 songs here.
- NOT the same as Ship Of Fools 1989-11-18 “Nightride” session & none of the songs played are the same.
- “Week starting 1988-07-09″. 1-3 trax per each of 5 nites. 2 DJ’s - Jim Lloyd, &Alan Dedicoat or Charles Nove.
- Tracked out the DJs where it made sense, but there is some voiceover, as noted above.
- “John Renbourn’s Ship Of Fools”sole LP release (self-titled) had likely just been issued (6 of 10 songs played here).
- All songs but #02 are live in-studio versions of songs that also appeared on the band’s only album.
- December 1987 BBC session clearly closer in time to actual LP recording dates as versions are more similar than these.

Knees

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~*~

Lineage:
BBC2 stereo FM radio broadcasts > unknown reel recorder > master off-air FM 10″(?) reel > 1st generation reel(?) (tracks excerpted & compiled from 5 shows/nights) > 2nd generation Maxell XLII-90 cassette Dolby B on

Playback 2021-02-xx: 2nd generation Maxell XLII-90 cassette on Nakamichi 680ZX cassette deck, Dolby B on, azimuth adjusted for individual tape, heads cleaned & demagnetized > Sony Linear PCM Recorder PCM-M10 (48kHz/24bit wav file) > computer > Audacity [normalisation to remove DC offset (NOT to normalize volume), channel/phase alignment, fades, manual one-at-a-time glitch, bump, clap, pop, click, dropout & dullspot repairs, volume adjustments, -1.6% single averaged fix pitch (speed) fix with single pass after frequency analysis & with CD pitch verification, NO equalisation or noise reduction, dithered to 44.1kHz/16 bit wav] > CD Wave (track splits) > flacs (Trader’s Little Helper)
Carefully remastered fixing various issues, without EQ or NR

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Click on the highlighted tracks to download the MP3s (320 kbps). As far as we can ascertain, these tracks have never been officially released on CD.

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Track 01. Ship Of Fools 5:35
Track 02. Death & The Lady 4:13
Track 03. I Live Not Where I Love 4:31
Track 04. DJ talk 0:12
Track 05. Cobbler’s Jig/Maltese Brawl 3:12
Track 06. DJ talk 0:10
Track 07. Searching For Lambs 3:07
Track 08. DJ talk 0:14
Track 09. The Verdant Braes of Screen 4:23
Track 10. DJ talk 0:12
Track 11. Sandwood Down To Kyle 4:04
Track 12. DJ talk and outro 0:09
30 mins

Lineup:
John Renbourn (†R.I.P. 2015†) - acoustic guitar, vocals
Steve Tilston - acoustic guitar, mandolin, vocals
Maggie Boyle (†R.I.P. 2014†) - flute, bhodran, whistle, vocals
Tony Roberts - wind instruments of all colours - flute, pipes, recorder

   Click here to order John Renbourn releases.