Ralph McTell - Cambridge Folk Festival, BBC Sessions UK 1984 | Albums That Should Exist

 Ralph McTell - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: In Concert, Cambridge Folk Festival, Cherry Hinton Hall Grounds, Cambridge, Britain, 6-28-1984

Paul says: Here's another BBC album by British singer-songwriter Ralph McTell. This is a concert recorded at the annual Cambridge Folk Festival, in 1984.

To be honest, I'm still not very familiar with McTell's music, other than the two BBC albums I've posted from him so far. But I've enjoyed what I've heard, and I saw that musical friend Progsprog had this in his music collection, so I asked him to pass it on to me. This seems to be another case where this album hasn't been publicly available, or at least it's been so hard to find that I couldn't track it down anywhere. Hopefully that'll change now, because this is a nice acoustic performance with excellent sound quality. 

At the time of this concert, McTell hadn't put out a regular studio album since 1982. But he was getting a higher profile through TV and radio work, including hosting his own BBC radio show in 1983, and writing songs for British TV shows aimed at children, "Alphabet Zoo" and "Tickle on the Tum."

This album is 50 minutes long.

01 talk 
02 First Song 
03 talk 
04 Michael in the Garden
05 Mr. Connaughton
06 Water of Dreams 
07 talk 
08 From Clare to Here
09 Sweet Mystery
10 When Maddy Dances 
11 talk
12 Tequila Sunset 
13 talk 
14 Zimmerman Blues 
15 talk 
16 One Heart
17 talk 
18 Spiral Staircase
19 talk 
20 Streets of London

There is something always unavoidably wholesome about our Ralph and after everyone on earth had been struck by The Streets of London and despite being a more than competent guitar player his voice lent itself to even more wholesome pursuits and when my son was little we adored ‘Alphabet Zoo’ and watched it religiously together. I have always had a huge soft spot for him and ‘Streets . . ' never fails to get me . . . . . ending up my professional career of work working with the disadvantaged and homeless didn’t help avoiding this sentiment!  So there is something totally apposite about some Ralph on a chilled out Sunday

We looked at his collaboration with Richard Thompson and gang (Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks) 1991’s The GP's - Saturday Rolling Aroundover at the Voodoo Wagon’s The Adult Bookstore and Motel (sic!) so check that out too!