Box Sets #1 - Three Score & Ten

With record companies experiencing rapidly diminishing sales figures, the latest ploy to get us to stump up cash is via the format of CD box sets. Often this can mean us purchasing yet again something which we have already paid for several times over. First we bought the vinyl album, then the music cassette (though why we did that I'll never know), then the CD version and then the CD version with bonus tracks! Now they are wanting us to do it again either because the albums have been lumped together in one box or the package includes a booklet with never before seen photographs.

And, if you are like me, you invariably fall for it.

However, once in a while, something really special does come along and deserves our attention and our hard earned cash. One such package came along in 2009 to celebrate 70 years of Topic Records. The package is entitled 'Three Score & Ten' and comes in the form of a large hardbacked book with seven CD's enclosed within the front and back covers. It is truly wonderful and something I have been returning to read and listen to regularly since I purchased it three years ago.




Topic Records actually began in 1939 as a spin off from the communist Workers' Music Association, itself an offshoot of of the British Marxist Party. The original purpose was to sell left wing music by mail order.

After a period of releasing choral and orchestral music, the label then began its association with folk music via such luminaries as A. L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl. Separating from the Workers' Music Association in the early 1960's the label went on to release an LP (for that is how they were known back in those days - standing for Long Playing record), of industrial songs. The record was entitled 'The Iron Muse' and it featured a selection of factory and mining songs from the north of England. Subtitled 'A Panorama of Industrial Folk Music' the album was released in 1963 and I first recall seeing and hearing a copy in the school music room in or around 1967. It was totally at odds with everything else I was listening to at that time - remember that 1967 was the so called 'summer of love' and everything was in glorious technocolour.

Not so this album. I think it was the grey depiction of the grimy north on the front cover that first grabbed my attention. Living in the working class north east of England, the songs on the album certainly resonated with me.

From there, Topic went on to have an association not only with most of the main players on the British folk scene but also Americans such as Pete Seeger and Rambling Jack Elliott and subsequently with a number of up and coming artists on the so called World Music scene. The list of well known names is simply too great to recount here. Topic Records is now the oldest independent record label in Great Britain.

If you get the chance, check the package out and if your funds allow, buy it. If you've read this far, I suspect you will not be disappointed.