Orkney: Traditional Dance Music from Orkney

Liner Note Author: Reg Hall .Recording information: Orkney, UK.Photographer: Peter Kennedy.Traditional Dance Music from Orkney is a collection of field recordings made in Northern Scotland's Orkney Islands in 1955. London's Peter Kennedy was a contemporary of well-known American field recordist and folklorist Alan Lomax, and spent nearly four decades documenting the rural traditional folk music of the British Isles. At the time he made these recordings, Kennedy was working part-time for the BBC, which had taken little interest in documenting these remote islands on the far edge of the U.K. Kennedy took it upon himself to travel north and capture the local traditions by recording musicians and singers in their own homes or other informal settings. Of the music he recorded, 33 tracks of instrumental traditional songs are featured on this disc, which is part of Topic Records' Voice of the People series. ~ Timothy Monger