The Blue Settee

The Blue Settee

Jez riley French

clouded

now memories arrive

like static simplicity

with thanks, always, to Pheobe, and to my mum, Maureen

The Blue Settee

Most days I sit on the blue settee that runs through the story of these years. Its age showing in the fabric wearing thinner and the cushion stuffing more easily forming ridges.

I keep returning to this writing, trying to find a balance between the personal and a more objective view of the music industry at the time. It has taken longer than I expected, but there is still so much detail to recall. Some of it stays in a fog;

I can’t remember much about the weeks we, myself and Julia, my then partner, spent preparing to step away from ADA, the specialist music distributor we founded and ran. I remember a few details from the weeks afterwards, and some of the legal processes, but the actual physical packing up of the office and warehouse eludes me. In the main office, at 36 Saturday Market, Beverley, East Yorkshire, there was a large, old wooden double desk. Large enough for myself and Julia to have three or so feet of space at either side. Despite its size and the difficulty it would have involved to move it, I can’t remember what we did with it. It has faded from my memory, along with so much else from those years. Much that could also perhaps contribute to the still to be written comprehensive history of independent, specialist music distribution.

That part of the industry is, inevitably, behind the scenes, yet it has helped shape music culture across all genres. Whilst its role has changed significantly in recent years, especially in terms of digital distribution, it used to be where you could find people who wanted to work hard for the music they were usually obsessed with themselves, but who accepted that even though it meant contributing significantly to the success of labels, artists and outlets, their efforts would go largely unnoticed, unrecognised.

If any of us pick up a favourite album from our collections we will know the history of the artist, any guest musicians, the label, the designers of the cover, the producer perhaps, but we are unlikely to know anything about the people who ran the networks that took it from the master tapes to our hands. Of course that is the same across most industries, where we separate service from product, from craft or creative. However, whilst there were certainly those in the industry that saw distribution as nothing more than a shipping process, specialist music distribution required creativity across multiple parts of the process. Mainstream music distributors were established as not much more than a processing hub, with a disconnect between the decisions of which products to ship when, and to where, and the music itself. It was in their design that a connection to the creative decisions of the labels was weak at best and even less so to the artists. Specialists however were started, almost always, by people actively involved in the music, and who could see ways to further its availability. For most the motivation wasn’t vast profits, and whilst they hoped for enough success to grow and advance their section of the industry, they wanted to do so only be maintaining their links to the scenes themselves. For me, that became complicated when we sold ADA, and in 2020, two decades later, pneumonia fogged my memories of that time further.

I spent a few days in hospital, in the midst of the first wave of covid, eventually diagnosed with ’normal’ viral pneumonia. An odd relief given what was happening in the wards around me. As I recovered I found my memory was sluggish. Often I would stare at books, records or music software knowing that I knew them well, but details wouldn’t fall easily into a coherent order, though an intuitive sense was still there. As a postponed project for an ambisonic installation I had been commissioned to create was given the go-ahead I found myself bewildered by the complexities of first and third order mixing, having to learn again almost from scratch every time I began another session. This fog, and conversations about my time in the music industry with Pheobe, my daughter, and friends over the years led me to decide to try to write this.

By the time we sold ADA, it had become the largest distributor of tradition-based and other specialist music genres in Europe, in terms of number and range of releases we handled. We worked hard, quietly, neither having the time or desire to use the business to promote ourselves as industry figures. We played a part in important shifts in the industry and music culture in general, but we also eventually found ourselves exhausted, drifting and dealing with loss.

The writing is more formal than I would like, or would represent all of the emotions through those years. There are such important personal experiences that I have found difficult to even start writing about, at times wanting to express freely the positive and the complex aspects of working with an art form one cares about, and at others caught in tangled nets of sensitivities. There is also an attempt to express my thanks to Julia.

What was, is important is contained in all of the minute details, far too vast to express here. I could lose myself in describing my mum’s voice, calling up the stairs to ask what music the teenage me was playing as she liked the sound of it, or Pheobe holding a grape in her tiny hand when newborn. A few years later we would sometimes place single grapes on branches, inventing new plants, laughing as she imagined people finding them.

This writing also isn’t complete; memories keep coming back and others are there slightly out of focus but I can’t quite find a way to take hold of them. However, not giving in to that included starting this process, beginning with a brief summery of how my connection to music and sound developed. It can be difficult to explain such connections, based as they always are, on myriad chance experiences and attempts to find expression whilst every aspect of who we are is forming, shifting, settling and sometimes thrown into tender confusion.

Chapter One - Soundtracking

There were important reasons we decided to sell ADA, in 1999, which I will detail later, and since then I’ve continued a direct, active involvement in the arts. Here are a few of the paths found that led me through listening and towards the music industry, soundtracked constantly.

I have a colour-wash-like memory of music in the house growing up in the late sixties and seventies. Voices like those of Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond, ABBA, Glen Campbell, and the weekly dose of pastel fringed pop that was the staple of British TV, on shows such as Top of the Pops. In my early teens I would listen to Radio Luxembourg, late night BBC Radio One, and some of the other TV programmes that were starting to reflect other strands of music culture, those pastels starting to mix into louder, more vivid tones.

Years earlier I spent some time as a young ballroom dancer, at a time when it was definitely not fashionable. Music was obviously involved but I didn’t connect to it. Mostly because this diversion wasn’t part of my life with my mother. That music was stuck very much in the past, both creatively and in the personal situation around it. My mum had left my ‘father’ when I was about five years old, needing to find a less restrictive life for herself. He was much older than my mum, yet seemed to come from an even earlier era in terms of his approach to women and children. I’ve decided not to write too much about this part of our lives, for several reasons. It was my mum who had an influence on my life, and my connections to listening. There perhaps were conversation to have about that time that, simply, weren’t given the time and space they no doubt required. We lived for a while in my nana’s house, on Mayfield Street, Hull. I can’t remember for how long but I recall some details such as holding jumble sales on the pavement, selling comics and enhancing their appeal by sellotaping bouncy balls or toy water-spraying rings to their covers. Each week the ‘fizzy pop’ van would drive down the street and I’d be given the job of exchanging the empty bottles for full ones. Near the top of the street was a house whose door was always open to us children. This commune of women always seemed to have music drifting into the street, predominantly by female artists whose songs seemed to offer more than the light pop of evening TV. There was Joni Mitchell of course, but also folk and protest songs from others that are harder for me to draw out now.

For a year or so, aged ten, I was a chorister at Holy Trinity, Hull, further developing my early interest in listening to architecture and, by singing in Latin, which I didn’t understand, to language as a more-than-narrative element of music. I didn’t fit in. Back then most church choirs, especially in England, were all male, but I remember on a trip to Scotland, staying near Newton Stewart, we sang with some local, mixed choirs. Back at our camp I didn’t fit in again, the older boys discussing which of the girls they ‘fancied’, me thinking about how the female voices changed the ambience of the small churches, and how there were certain lines of harmony that seemed to charge the air as I listened.

Eventually we moved to the suburbs, but at home there was loudness from one source for a while. My mum though always found a way to create space for quietude, allowing me to begin understanding the power of shifting ones listening. Below my bedroom window, the clothes line was connected to the house wall. Sometimes at night, if I laid in bed as still as possible and listened until my ears adjusted, I could hear the slight drone as the wind resonated the line slightly.

For my generation 1977 was the year that music fractured beyond the major cities, and for a brief few months seemed to energise possibilities. At least it did for some of us. The first hints of New Wave had already started to catch my attention, to hint at something more than pop. To collide with my growing sense of not fitting in.

I was young, a little chubby and already uninterested in conventional ideas of male culture at the time. Partly because I’d already seen, close up, some of the negative effects, but I think it’s fair to say I just always found questions more interesting than conformity. This marked me out to the school bullies, who give me the nickname of Nancy (boy) shorthand at the time for anyone who wasn’t a ‘lad’. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t gay, to them if someone wasn’t blatantly acting out standard behaviours that was enough. I did wear skirts outside of school, never understanding why gender was applied to clothing, and doing the same at school was both an act of defiance and of solidarity with a growing number of protests around aspects of the school uniform code. At the time female students in the UK weren’t allowed to wear trousers in most schools, but ad-hoc protests were starting to happen. I joined one at the school I attended by wearing a school skirt, to highlight that there was no mention in the rules of any restrictions on what male students could wear. This might seem irrelevant to my connections to music, but for me it was all part of questioning, of not accepting the restrictions of mainstream culture. Of creativity as an act of personal, cultural and political freedom.

I was by this time saving up my pocket money for records rather than comics, first purchasing them from the record department of the store my mum worked in. The idea of making music myself now seemed possible. I could make sound, rather than needing to make songs that were constrained by their dependance on conventional ideas of musical skill. For my birthday one year, I think when I was twelve, my mum bought me a bass guitar, amplifier and portable cassette recorder. I can’t honestly say I fully understood the effort it would have taken my mum to afford those presents. I thought I did, but if I really had I would have done whatever I could to ensure I got less and my mum got to keep a bit more of her wages for herself.

Within a year, I played my first gig, at a local church hall. The band had formed in the garage at our house, and by the time we were offered the support slot to another local band, we had three songs ready. However, we didn’t know anything about playing live, including writing a set list. We thought deciding the order the day before would work okay. On stage the songs sounded better than I was expecting. They seemed less wooden, though clearly not to the audiences taste. Coming off stage we discovered we’d been playing the songs in a different order to each other. Improvisation became a key aspect of my live performances from then on.

(coming off stage at that first gig)

The tape recorder was put to good use recording radio programmes and my early experiments with sound. Listening back in our garden one day, I pressed record instead of play. After a few minutes I realised but, importantly, I listened back to the recording of the garden. The sound was of course transformed not only be the hiss of the tape itself, but because the small built in microphone, like all ambient microphones, didn’t filter the sound in the same ways as we tend to do when listening passively using just our ears. I heard sounds on the recording that I hadn’t noticed at the time. Another step in my understanding of the possibilities of choosing to listen in different ways.

There were plenty of gigs locally, though I was too young to get into most of the venues. The first that I did get to see was Siouxsie and the Banshees, supported by The Cure, and with The Associates making an unannounced appearance. They got through their set without giving in to the jeers of some in the audience not willing to listen.

As the 1980’s began I was working with guitars, cassettes, keyboards / synths, zithers,, reel to reel recorders and various small instruments. My mum had, I have no doubt, again stretched her finances to buy me a Jen SX1000 synthesiser for another birthday, and I also bought a Casio keyboard, paying in weekly instalments, often also with help from my mum.

I released an album of feedback and tape works on cassette in 1980, though this was very diy, with the handful of copies duplicated on a dual tape deck at home. I’d used some surplus cassettes as the ‘blanks’, recording over the pre-existing classical music. One, for a reason I couldn’t work out, allowed that music to appear in the background, reversed (so I assume from the reverse side). Again, something I hadn’t tried to control led to a result that added to the process in a way that opened up other ideas.

Apart from the hours I spent at home making music, the other aspects of learning were more complicated for me. It took me a long time to understand that formal state education failed me, and many others who had a hunger for knowledge but who didn’t respond to being restrained by expectations of conformity and a curriculum that seemed designed to discourage creative enquiry. Tests for dyslexia, and many other neurodivergencies, weren’t available in schools back then, except for those who fitted into the prescribed idea of having the more extreme traits. Although I have still never taken a test I know that I struggle with the written word. I like reading and I enjoy writing, but it takes me a long time and repeated editing to find the various errors I seem to make with the simplest words or sentences. This leads to a nervousness about publishing texts, an extra bit of effort needed to think a paragraph or page is ready. I am sure this is another link to the pleasure I find in the music of languages I don’t understand, and indeed to sound in general. I did enjoy some lessons; English literature, music and drama, and I wanted to carry on with art classes when I moved from lower to upper school, but the rule was that you had to be able to draw a horse that looked like an actual horse to be allowed to do that, and that wasn’t the sort of art I was either good at or interested in. I know my mum would have done whatever it took for me to go to university if I’d wanted to, but by the age of sixteen I was done with the conventional education system and it seemed to be done with me. Whilst some found it easy to drift into art school as a counterpoint to not fitting in, for others university in the early 1980’s still seemed distant, inaccessible or too much part of the establishment. Art school, however difficult it is for some in the arts to accept, was still bordered for most. I wanted to get on with doing, though I wasn’t sure what exactly. I also wanted to contribute to the household, but it took me a while to even begin doing that.

The world of work began to open up, though never really with a clear plan of climbing some sort of ladder; After a couple of short YTS (Youth Training Scheme) jobs I started part time at Andy’s Records (Hull) before moving to Our Price Records, Harrogate, eventually becoming specialist buyer and department manager. I then got a job as head of UK sales for a distributor of traditional music in Starbeck (1). For a while I tried to deal with various issues at that company but left to establish, along with Julia and one other person, ADA Distribution, an ethical distributor of traditional and other specialist musics (2). During those years I also worked occasionally as a writer / contributor to articles for Music Week, Rock ’n’ Reel, Folk Roots, Gramophone and other publications.

Running the business meant there wasn’t as much time to spend on my own creative work, but I did continue to play live locally. These were improvised performances using guitar, field recordings, clear inputs, small objects and loops, often when asked to support artists who the local venues considered left-field.

For many years now my creative activities have been as a full time artist, musician / composer, curator, workshop leader, educator, microphone designer / builder, writer, publisher and as a very lucky collaborator with Pheobe riley Law, my daughter. Being her dad is a joy, and she has been a constant source of inspiration and strength.

1) I knew nothing of the various issues at this company when I started working there. I tried to change things for the better but eventually could not work for them any longer.
2) The term ethical distributor perhaps needs some explanation. The structure of the industry has changed of course but distribution is still an element, and often where ethics can get pushed further aside. At the time we set up ADA, distributors often made unreasonable demands on labels as they were often the only way to get releases into shops nationally and into other countries. It’s a rather simplified explanation of the complexities, but for those not familiar with this aspect of the music industry here is an example of how the chain of supply was structured before we set up ADA;

. labels would sign artists, record and press the releases. Artists would usually get a very small amount for their involvement, or, if they self-released, would do so to sell at concerts and perhaps through local shops. Labels factored in the cost of distribution when agreeing contracts with artists, often in ways that were opaque. It was hard for small or artist owned labels to get distribution, for reasons including that pressing small quantities of a release meant the artists couldn’t afford to sell to a distributor at the price they usually demanded. Certain genres of Independent music had main distributors such as Rough Trade and The Cartel, but most other forms of specialist music could only access distribution in a rather ad-hoc and fragmented way, if at all.

. a label would deal directly with a distributor or, with one more stage in the chain, a wholesaler who would then deal with various distributors. This meant labels / artists getting an even smaller return, but it was seen as a way to have access to distribution without negotiating with individual companies. This was, in part, because distributors tended to have an often rather unapproachable process. For a small label it often seemed easier to sell for a pound or so less to a wholesaler and, technically, have their titles available to several distributors than to sign restrictive and lengthy exclusive contracts with one company.

. a distributor would handle a labels / artists releases, marketing new releases to the trade and handling regular stock orders from shops. By the time CD’s became the main format the price structure in the industry, in terms of specialist musics, was, generally, that labels would have to sell to a distributor at around £4 per disc or less. Distributors would push for the lowest price, free stock and other deals. The distributor would then sell to independent shops at a full trade price of around £7.29 but lower to chains, often at around £6.40 per disc, as the chains demanded lower prices, even when they sold fewer copies than some of the independent stores that specialised in different genres. Distributors often saw the chains as a way to maximise calls on labels to lower costs to them and supply more free stock. Stores would then sell CD’s for between £9.99 & £12.99, and much more for imports.

What we did at ADA was to set about changing that established system. We didn’t pressure labels to sign exclusive deals or give us bigger discounts, and we raised the price we paid them, whilst also ensuring artist-released albums had national and international distribution. On average we paid between £5-£6 per disc, establishing a way of working that meant our profits were not dictated by lowering the cost at which we could acquire stock, but taking a creative, progressive approach to raising the profile and sales potential of the releases themselves. That sounds obvious, and indeed it should have been how the industry worked, but outside of a few reasonably decent specialist distributors it wasn’t always the norm. In reality marketing was built around a system similar to the ‘old school tie’ approach, and on the ‘sell large early’ system by which success was then, and often still is now, measured. Working with outlets to understand the specifics of their location and customer base, and having a more collaborative connection, was rare.

We stood firm with the chains (Our Price, Virgin Records, HMV, Andy’s Records, Tower etc) and made the argument that they had a duty to support smaller labels, and the music they released, by paying a fair price. In addition we changed the way artists were paid at festivals, and, on occasion, with releases that helped particular artists or causes, we waived our part of any sales. We also tried to source recycled packaging and support projects to tackle biases within genres and the industry more widely. We weren’t alone in doing that of course, but it was rare for a distributor. Such efforts helped change the industry, but it is somewhat telling that the ethical stance that we, and a few others, took has still rarely been replicated in the industry. For example the percentage we paid to labels and musicians in the 1990’s remains higher than specialist distributors pay currently. There are people who call themselves distributors, demanding cd’s at £4 or lower and who actually trade, almost entirely, as a retail business via mail order. That is retail not distribution, and is accepted simply because there are so few examples of a more ethical way of working that artists / labels often don’t feel able to question the system. It is still about power and how some people decide to use it. Likewise, as I write this we are twenty-five years on from when we sold ADA and I still see labels, end of year ‘best of’ lists and various online projects that have a significant, sometimes total, bias towards male artists. I admit that I have no idea how that is still happening, and how it seems to have become normalised again.

Chapter 2 - Through industry

When I get up from the blue settee and walk to the kitchen, I pass the racks of albums collected over the years, including during my time working in the music industry. There are hundreds that have simply sat quietly, unplayed for years. I think about how much dust has, however briefly, settled against them. Dust that is the drift of spaces. From starting out with that temporary job at Andy’s Records (Hull) through to becoming specialist music floor manager / buyer for Our Price (Harrogate), then to head of UK sales for a record distributor that I came to realise had, shall we say, a different idea than I of how to treat labels and artists, I had progressed to a point where I needed to do something more focused on helping to challenge some of the issues in specific areas of the industry at the time. I took the plunge and left said distributor, forming ADA Distribution, with one other ex-employee and with Julia also becoming a partner shortly after.

If I think back to that first job at Andy’s Records, a chain ADA went on to supply, I can remember the shape of the store on the ground floor, the storeroom above and the shelving behind the counter. I can even remember the small pieces of paper stuck to those shelves to indicate genres or catalogue number ranges, but it’s my mum driving us back and forth to town in her car that I have the most vivid memories of. My mum worked in a well known chain store in the city centre and, whilst still at school, the record department there was where my earliest purchases of music began. The staff were all female, the only record shop / department in the city that had any women working in it during the late 70’s and, with one exception, until into the 80’s. When I would visit, with my pocket money in hand, they would always spend time talking to me and letting me have display posters. As a department store, they often were sent promotional material that they didn’t actually put up, including for releases by early new wave and left field artists. I sold almost all of this collection a number of years ago now, putting the money to good use, but whilst I occasionally ponder whether I should have held on to it longer, it’s the smell of the rolled up posters and extracting the occasional staple that I remember more than the releases they were for, and the time spent in the shop knowing my mum was downstairs in her office so I could store them there until it was time to go home. I had my growing independent interest in music, but the women in my life supported and nurtured it, added to it and have always done so.

Before I go further I should point out that ADA is not the same company as the American distributor with the same name that was founded some years after ours. We did make attempts to stop them using the name but they were backed by Warner Brothers, with access to legal teams way beyond our capabilities. We were advised that we would have won any legal action as we were already a well established part of the industry in Europe, but the process would have pushed us to the financial brink, and of course added to our personal stress levels.

As I detail the experience of working in the music industry I can say that I am still puzzled as to how it is documented. Like most things it is subject to some odd quirks and biases. I’m interested in how histories develop and are shaped either through chance or intended shifts in accuracy. The internet is not a place where all facts can be found, despite that being the impression we are often encouraged to believe. There are several key companies that were involved in the independent distribution network that one has to search hard to find a reference to. Rough Trade, Red Rhino, and The Cartel are reasonably well documented, but others, such as ATP, Sterns and indeed ADA (UK) aren’t. All of the companies that worked hard for the changes to the industry that were needed deserve to be part of the history. Without them the industry was, and still too often is, a place for distortions.

Hopefully there will be some memories in this writing that will fill in some details of the paths through the music industry that surrounded me in the years Julia and I knew each other.

Chapter 3 - Wishing, hissing

Until I met Julia my connection to traditional music was largely around ethnomusicology, mostly from other countries and cultures, with occasional forays into Scottish and Irish music. As for English folk music, whilst I was interested in certain aspects, from the outside it seemed to have become something of a middle class clique, disconnected from the roots of living traditions. The history is indeed a broken one, the impact of which has shaped connections to wider society since. It also affected the contemporary folk music scene itself, including in ways that were problematic, as could be seen elsewhere in music culture of course. For example I spent some time researching how early collectors filtered traditions, selecting songs and tunes that they felt were appropriate in the context of their own social mores or those of the class system of the time. There are now an increasing number of musicians and researchers looking at these biases.

I grew up around the city of Hull, which had a strong folk-revival scene through The Watersons, both as singers in their own right and through the Blue Bell folk club they ran. In terms of Yorkshire in a wider context, there were equally strong links to custom, song and dance, but as New Wave was the music that first grabbed my attention English folk music seemed to belong to a culture disconnected from my own. Of course, I came to understand that New Wave, Punk and the various other sub-cultures of the time, were, it can be argued, forms of folk music, at least for a while; protest, social commentary and new forms of ballad by anyone who wanted to be involved, rather than something imposed on them or placed behind, it first appeared, closed doors.

The British tradition influenced music I did know was mostly from the folk-rock era. Some working with traditional material (Sandy Denny, Anne Briggs etc) and others with those influences (Nick Drake, Incredible String Band etc). I owned a few records, acquired in sales or second hand shops and my interest in non-British traditional music started when I got a library card that allowed me access to Hull’s central library’s music department, stocked with rows of vinyl from most countries. When I started borrowing LP’s from there I was unaware of what they contained, often choosing them based on the covers, or curiosity about music that was outside of my own experience, but I soon became particularly interested in the music of Asia, especially Japan and Indonesia, central Europe and Scandinavia.

I was still, just, in my teens when I met Julia. It took a while but eventually we found our way to each other and were together for many years. We shared much; the first holidays and first flats as a couple, running a business, and significant loss.

In the early days of our relationship I remember an afternoon when Julia played me some of the records she liked most. It was the first time I’d heard Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’, an album that changed my relationship to her music. (3). I now often find myself unable to remember what seem to be important events or details; the shape of a room in our first flat, or certain days out together. If I think about any of these things too much I admit I miss having the ability to recall them fully, yet I have a clear memory of some of the music we listened to that day in Julia’s room; Joni’s Hissing, Ah-Um by Charles Mingus, Love Songs by Peter Hammill & The Wishing Chair by 10,000 Maniacs. Prior to this my knowledge of Joni Mitchell’s music was limited. I had a copy of Clouds, but I hadn’t fully connected to the range of her work. Many years later, long after Julia and I had parted, I was interviewed for the book ‘In The Field’, and asked about the early influences on my interest in field recording. I fudged my answer, thrown by the question somehow and that the interview was taking place in a crowded Kings Cross station, where I found it difficult to focus. Thinking back as I have a number of times when discussing the same question, I don’t think I mentioned any of the actual early experiences of listening to ‘place’ that were important, either recorded or not. Some I’ll discuss later in this text, but over the years I’ve come to realise that this entirely studio based album by Joni was one of them. The title itself ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’, communicates place and situation. It carries sound with it; a detailed audible landscape of suburban life, thirsty and stale in the tight heat of summer, quenched by automated sprinklers. A field recording. A reminder of the space between flat documentation that is too often constrained by ideas of technology as the arbiter of worth, and the poetics of transmission. The lives trapped or freed by the manicured lawns, the summer drenched with insects and cooling spray. In that one title there is, in my opinion, more poetry than many other songwriters have been lauded for. I’ve included it in a discussion I’ve been initiating for a number of years now, on correcting the histories of sound linked to place in the context of field recording, sound art. These are conversations not formal lectures, the success of them based on everyone in the room.

The songs on Hissing, and those on Hejira, the only album by Joni I could find to buy in the days after first hearing Hissing, are all steeped in the sounds of place, often as they interact with the shaping of their protagonists lives. At least that is how I heard them. The combination of Joni’s words and my own growing understanding of a connection to audible detail, pushed the music into my imagination. Neither myself or Julia had navigated their city littered streets, desert tarmacs, or the snow covered pinewood forests in those songs, but they sparked. The sound of dress fabric held in anticipation, lives vast, singing in their fragments.

Thank you Joni. Thank you Julia. Even just that one afternoon with you, listening, still reaches somewhere in me.

Another album we listened to in Julia’s room was ‘The Wishing Chair’ by 10,000 Maniacs. Apart from that bands connection to traditional music, including a cover of the Shirley Collins repertoire version of ‘Just as the tide was flowing’, the album was produced by Joe Boyd, founder of Witchseason productions and Hannibal records, a label we would distribute later, and strongly associated with folk-rock in the seventies. Thinking back, Natalie Merchant’s voice and writing acted as a bridge into more American music that, whilst being part of independent / alternative music, still connected to the rural traditions of story telling.

Julia was at catering college and in her spare time baked cakes for weddings and other celebrations. I began helping her as she expanded this side business to include vegetarian cakes and veggie sausage rolls, supplied to various health food stores in the area. Eventually she got a job running the cafe in a shop called Portico on Beverley Road in Hull, formally the store that used the slogan ‘Everything but the Girl’ that gave its name to Tracy Thorn and Ben Watt’s band. I helped out from time to time, though the details of menus or systems Julia set up elude me.

One of Julia’s best friends at the time, Lisa, and her family, were heavily involved in the folk club at Nellies (The White Horse, Beverley) and over time we started going to sessions each week. My mum would come along sometimes also, enjoying the guest artists that spoke of contemporary issues. Our first folk festival was a trip to Towersey and during the long drive one of the albums we were played that stuck out was ‘The Noah’s Art Trap’ by Nic Jones, another artist we eventually worked with. In general the folk music scene seemed a friendly place and, looking back, I think i’ve always looked for a sense of community within music / art. Nothing wrong with that of course, but as a subconscious need it does, unfortunately, mean the reality often bites, whether that is because of specific problematic individuals or wider aspects. English folk music, for example, by the eighties still seemed often very ‘old school’ when it came to attitudes on gender and ethnicity. It also seemed somewhat stuck on a narrow, middle of the road path, musically speaking.

We’d been a couple for a while when Julia decided she wanted to train as a medical herbalist. At the time there was only one person practising in Yorkshire with a legal license to do so, based in Knaresborough. So Julia applied to be her assistant and moved to a small flat in a house belonging to a women who had been a figure in sound and dance eduction in the 1970’s (I have tried but can’t recall her name, though I do remember she issued an EP of sound and movement exercises). I followed a couple of months later, after getting a job at the Harrogate branch of Our Price records. For both of us this was our first time living away from home and I do wish my memories were clearer, or rather more instantly available to me. I can recall some things, but there are gaps. I remember walks by the River Nidd, collecting wild garlic which we would wrap fish in to steam with ginger, or learning to cook new meals from the cookery books my mum gave us. We had a happy time there. Later we moved a few miles to Starbeck. Here we played host to musicians playing at local clubs. We spent a few months in one flat above a charity shop, moving to another on the top floor of a large house. I tried to find it using an online street map recently, but the entire row seems to have been knocked down now, replaced with a petrol station it seems. I can still recall the kitchen of one flat, but not the other. The living rooms and bedrooms of both I can remember, especially how cold one of them was, our breath visible most of the day, and an electric fire that we only turned when we really had to.

(3) How much the people we love shape aspects of our lives, even after we part. I have listened to ‘The Hissing of Summer Lawns’ hundreds of times in the years since, sharing it with my daughter, Pheobe, listening on long drives across afternoons or at home in evenings talking, drawing, cooking food.

Chapter 4 - Shop floors, dance floors

The Our Price store in Harrogate, later becoming a branch of Virgin Records, was managed by Sharon (her surname escapes me), with three other members of staff; Claire, Andy and a part timer whose name I also can’t recall now. The ground floor was run by Sharon and Claire, with myself and Andy splitting our time between there and the upstairs specialist sections. Andy was in charge of dance music and what was still termed ‘indie’, with me focusing on soundtracks, jazz, classical, traditional music and indie also. That did also include ‘world music’, a term that I tried to get changed in store and later removed as a default definition across the industry. As specialist buyer for the store I had some freedom around store policies. For example, like most chains then, store playlists came from head office, based on mainstream releases and whichever label had sent the most promotional material. It was dull and, as most people with a genuine interest in music, I was convinced it actually limited sales, contributing to the impression that chart music was or should be the dominant form. I remember an article in Music Week (a UK music industry publication) sometime in the 1990’s discussing how chart music (pop, rock, dance) accounted for less than 5% of all music sales globally. That rate has increased somewhat since, for several reasons, but the possibility for anyone to listen to any form of music via the internet has clearly not had as much of an effect as many of us thought it perhaps might when it comes to representation on mainstream radio, tv and in other media.

At Our Price I suggested that time be given over to other forms of music and, after some back and forth, it was agreed that each morning the music played in store would be chosen by a different member of staff. Sales across all specialist areas in the first month increased significantly, and continued to improve. Most sales were to people who had no prior knowledge of the artists being played.

Independent record shops have always known this of course; that customers like to hear music that is new to them, and to have that experience of chance discovery. So, the idea was then rolled out across all stores nationwide, the first chain (except Tower records) to allow all staff to regularly choose albums to play in store outside of chart releases as an actual policy. It sounds so odd to say that. So strange that things had become that restricted. It’s rarer now to even have a branch of a record store chain in the UK of course, but even those have mostly reverted to the head office playlist / radio station. That one simple suggestion, made in the 1980’s in a small branch of one chain, is not, of course, written in any history of the music industry in the UK, nor are many similar shifts, but it had an impact, allowing numerous labels and artists to increase their audience. I mention that not to elevate my role as, of course, it was something others were fighting for in other chains. I simply managed to get the idea past the regional managers, perhaps because the store wasn’t in a key location. However it is an example of how there are so many ideas and decisions, in all areas of music culture, that are often only heard about when they are claimed by those further up the management ladder. Despite significant improvements on certain issues, it is sobering to see that music culture is still far too affected by structures of power, hierarchies and gate keeping.

Harrogate was an odd town, with lots of students but a lack of nightclubs other than one or two very conventional ones of the type where you weren’t allowed in unless dressed in ‘smart attire’. So, myself and Andy started a night in a basement opposite Harrogate Theatre. ‘Sweatbox’, as I named it (the title taken from the EP on 4AD by The Wolfgang Press ), became the ‘student night’. Our regulars were pleased to have somewhere to go and it did feel like something of a community. Anyone who has DJ’ed will know the rush that comes when you put on a particular track and see the reaction. I think we ran that for a couple of years, suggesting to the owner of the building, who also had more mainstream club nights, that there was a need for an electronic / club music night. We suggested a DJ we knew of through the shop and so, each week, the night before Sweatbox, Jez from Utah Saints would drive over from Leeds.

I have always had quite a hunger for information and especially finding hidden or overlooked details. In this context I soon began to connect with buyers at other chains, labels, distributors, regional sales / promotional teams, and to have conversations around various aspects of the industry. There were lots of unwritten policies and unspoken rules. The treatment of female artists in the industry is now much more widely discussed but it’s not so often that one hears how the ‘shop floor’ and distribution side of the industry functioned in this regard. For example, classical music policy at most chains in the eighties and nineties was that work by female composers and non-mainstream musicians did not sell and therefore should not be on the regular stock lists. These were lists of key artists / albums that needed to be in stock at all times, forming the main sections for each music category. Some branches dotted around the country challenged that but there were still arguments from management around whether female classical composers should be given their own sections even in the largest stores and even when they had enough of their work available.

At Our Price I challenged this, directly to Sharon and then via the specialist buyer systems. It wasn’t about separating composers through positive discrimination (though there were good arguments for doing that) but because these biases had nothing whatsoever to do with the importance of the work or the reality of the response from customers if they were given more access to it. I asked if I could be allowed to try something, and was given one month. Every Monday morning I was allowed to play music by female composers, as this was, I was reminded, the ‘slow’ time sales-wise. The problem was that I then had to get hold of the albums and it is a sign of how much change there has been (lots still needed of course) that the number of albums that it was easy to get in stock quickly was minuscule, with others on smaller labels needing to wait for a larger stock order from one of the specialist distributors, a process that often took weeks until stores reached the required order level. Most albums I could order right away were released through labels owned or distributed by the majors; Hildegard Von Bingen, Meredith Monk etc. I ordered what I could, within a small budget I was allocated. I specifically remember playing Meredith Monk’s albums on ECM and always selling them within minutes. This pattern followed with almost every album played, not because of any skills in terms of selection but because people always respond to music they weren’t expecting to hear. There was an independent classical music shop in Harrogate and normally I’d be for the independent against the chain, however it was shall we say, rather conservative, and took some time to also start giving their customers access to a wider range of releases.

The same reaction from customers happened when playing traditional music from other countries, songwriters on smaller labels, jazz from musicians other than the most well known names, and almost every other genre. Again, that is so obvious, and so odd to think chain stores ever restricted what music was played in store. Then again, it might explain why they began to struggle even before the internet changed the industry.

During my time in the sales and distribution part of the industry I got to know most of the classical stores in the UK and it might not surprise anyone if I say that most were run by men with less than progressive attitudes, either towards female composers or indeed most contemporary music. I can’t say this is a 100% reliable memory but i’m fairly sure the most successful album, not only in the Harrogate store, but once the policy was rolled out to all stores, was an album of music by Von Bingen by Gothic Voices & Emma Kirkby. That was one album, along with the upsurge of interest in early music more generally, through which I got to know the people at Harmonia Mundi, a label and distributor of specialist music ADA would eventually also work with, sub-distributing their catalogues to stores who, at the time, weren’t stocking ‘classical’ music, but who were eventually persuaded that more and more customers were interested in music crossing genres. This is another aspect of the industry in the eighties and nineties that many won’t recognise now, but the specialism that powered music culture in general did also shape retail. There wasn’t anything wrong with that of course, and there still isn’t, but the fluidity of how genres did and could influence each other needed to be recognised outside of a few stores mostly in larger cities.

Through my early teens my record buying was focused on new wave, punk, post punk, experimental and traditional music. To be honest, I didn’t see the classical music I did know, composed from the 1950’s onwards, as part of that genre. I tended to think of it as experimental or contemporary music and that classical music referred to earlier definitions of the term. However, I remember buying an album of music by Delius in the store my mum worked in. I bought it because it was cheap (part of the Music for Pleasure label) and I was intrigued by the titles; ‘On hearing the first cuckoo in spring’, ‘Summer night on the river’ etc. From then on I would often buy albums from the classical sections of stores based mostly on intuition, particularly from the sale sections. I think lots of people reading this might remember doing that, when records were cheap enough to take a chance on, and before mainstream marketing really started to exploit the idea of more carefully crafted sleeve designs. An element that often used to hint at some connection to the music when issued by labels more driven by less conventional creative aims. I’d always bought records that way; looking for those that seemed to differ in some way from the pack, or where there was a sign of interesting aesthetics. 4AD / 23v for example, but one album purchased on release in 1983, that in some ways connects to my growing interest in, shall we say, music with classical influences, and my connections to ‘field recording’ at the time, was Virginia Astley’s ‘From gardens where we feel secure’. I knew of her through The Ravishing Beauties sessions but hadn’t heard this album. There was something about the cover, and again the titles (‘It’s too hot to sleep’, ‘With my eyes wide open I’m dreaming’) that made me think the music might open my ears to something. The tribal nature of alternative music scenes in a provincial northern town meant that buying an album by any women other than the accepted ‘punk royalty’, and one with the a drawing of a flower on the cover, could get you a swift kicking. Paying my £2.99, I got my copy from Sydney Scarborough’s’ in Hull City Centre, where every Saturday there would be small groups of punks, goths and mods outside checking to see what any of them had bought. Some would even police what others came out of the store with. I remember buying a copy of Destroy All Monsters single ‘Bored’ at another shop, Shakespeares, in 1979. I didn’t know the band really but it was on red vinyl and in the sale section, where almost all records by female fronted or all female bands were put, even upon release in that particular shop. It was a sign of the sexism around music at the time, but it meant some of us could buy several records at a time instead of one. I benefitted from an attitude that shouldn’t have been there and I often think about that. On being spotted carrying ‘Bored’ I was chased by the record police, who were determined to break the record and give me a thump into the bargain, partly because, If I remember correctly, the lead singer, Niagara, had said something less than positive about a prominent male musician in a recent interview. The Virginia Astley album felt at that point like a further affirmation that music is music and shouldn’t have borders based on cliques and fashions, shouldn’t have access to it controlled by such things. Those reading this who lived in larger cities at the time might not recognise such revelations as anything other than obvious, and it is still an issue that almost all books on the music and culture back then are written from a metropolitan point of view, rarely reflecting the realities of smaller cities or rural communities.

Hearing Jacqueline Du Pre’s recording of Elgar’s Cello Concerto (I first heard the 1967 performance version) was another pivotal experience for me. It seemed so obviously to illustrate the difference between only acquiring technical skill and what happens when other energies and personal expressions are also there. The combination of acclaim and some of the criticism of her at times had an effect, and added to my interest in music and musicians who created work with a sense of artistic determination, whether that be through quiet subtlety or whirlwinds of fiercer expression and demand for space.

When I began tentatively stepping into the classical music department of Gough & Davy, a music instrument store in Hull that some years before also ran a record label, releasing work by lesser known composers, I would avoid the main sections, filled with the usual names, and look for the albums that were put in the back of the racks or in the reduced sections. Two men ran the department, one of whom my mum knew via his wife who, if I remember correctly, worked in another department store in the city. He was friendly, as indeed was the other one, a dedicated Wagner fan who looked upon anything composed after him as ‘modern rubbish’. If I brought to the counter one of the rare albums by a female composer he would try to tell me where I was going wrong, not only with this ‘modern rubbish’ but because ‘women really couldn’t write good music’. There weren’t many albums by female composers in that shop of course. They didn’t get past his ordering system for one thing but also there really weren’t that many being issued in the late ’70 & early ’80’s on labels that were easy to get in the UK (4). But this determination to find releases that mainstream attitudes at the time, for whatever reason, pushed aside meant that by the time I worked at Our Price I had a decent grasp of which labels had some interesting back catalogue or which distributor could source imports more quickly and cheaply.

(4) At the time there were strict rules on albums coming in and out of each country. Imported albums were usually at least twice as expensive as domestic releases. You could, sometimes, order them but the process could take anything up to four or five months as shops had to build up enough items to place an order with the import departments of distributors. It was well into the nineties before computers started to be widely used for ordering and realtime stock availability, so orders often arrived without the very albums you’d put them together to get.

Chapter 5 - Damp collapsing

Damp collapsing

I left Our Price to work for CM Distribution, based in Starbeck, a village between Harrogate and Knaresborough. CM (Celtic Music) was a company known for handling traditional music from the UK, Ireland and USA. At the time I didn’t know much about them but I would order stock from them for Our Price and during a phone call I was asked if I’d be interested in a job in distribution. It was offered to me as a step up in terms of salary and that I would head UK sales. I didn’t know much about the company beyond the titles they stocked but from the first meeting with the owner, had I not been young and keen to learn about another aspect of the industry, I should have trusted my gut. Within weeks of joining the company I began to hear stories, often directly from artists who would visit the offices, leaving in tears or rage as their work went unreleased, royalty payments were delayed or other aspects of their work controlled. I thought I could do some good there but I quickly realised that the owner (5) had an approach to business than I wasn’t comfortable with. He had been part of the folk scene both in Ireland and London in the ’70’s, but it is the issues around certain folk revival labels that is now most well known.

It is hard to discuss certain aspects of CM, including their acquisition of labels and the issues around copyright and artists’ access to their work as there is a complex, extensive history of rumours and confusion. One example is Leader / Trailer, an important British label releasing albums such as Nic Jones’ ‘Noah’s Ark Trap’ and Mike & Lal Waterson’s classic ‘Bright Phoebus’. These labels were acquired by another label, Highway Records whose entire catalogue was then acquired by Celtic Music. As I write this most of the titles are still unavailable and questions around the publishing, rights and royalties continue. A large number of the musicians have either passed away or have given up on the possibility of some form of resolution, but the pressure on industry organisations such as MCPS / PRS / PRL (organisations that handle artists publishing and rights) is building.

As I saw myself the owner of CM (now deceased) often also refused to supply artists with stock or to sell copies of the vinyl to the trade. It was part of my job in the first month or so to catalogue stock in two of the companies buildings and there were several albums that were regarded as collectors items and long out of print that in fact were still sat in boxes, in quantity, in the CM warehouse. There was also a damp room at the top of the main office building that held some, not all, of the master tapes for Highway / Leader / Trailer.. When showing artists around, often to view their own albums, they would sometimes find tape storage boxes on the floor or the tapes themselves off the reels inside.

Much has been said about the transfer of the copyright / publishing of the Highway / Leader / Trailer material, including around artists consent. What I can say is simply what I knew at the time and is based on my direct experience of conversations with the owner of CM, other staff there and via my role checking the stock and contents of various buildings. The issue of contracts often comes up, but I was told that Bill Leader, the original owner of the Trailer / Leader labels, had an approach that was often based on hand shakes, and although some albums did involve contracts, these were apparently either ‘off the peg’, limited in their scope, incorrectly drafted or open to challenge. Further, I was told that only some of these were acquired by CM and that the only paperwork at their offices was a small folder of papers in the main safe or at the minority partners office. This minority partner was a solicitor, though some years later he was struck off. His listing on the database of registered, qualified solicitors shows that he is prohibited. At the time of writing this there is some confusion but there are claims that he is a partner in the company that currently says it owns various aspects of CM / Celtic Music, including the Leader / Trailer catalogue and rights.

The re-copyrighting is complex but as someone with a reasonable understanding of artists rights it is, in my opinion, clear that there are issues. The minority partner at CM / Celtic Music (companies that were dissolved some years ago, with certain aspects of the businesses transferred to the previous owners relatives and this partner) has been involved in legal cases where there have been claims about various contracts, but I can’t find any documentation stating they were produced, so it’s unclear what, if any, genuine documents they still have. Certainly I was told a number of times by the former owner of CM, that they had no valid contracts to most of the albums. He also often boasted of never paying a penny in royalties to various musicians, this despite regular payments from the various performing rights organisations. I certainly remember him dismissing important albums as ‘worthless’, such as those by Lal and Mike Waterson, Nic Jones and others.

One artist that was loyal to CM for a number of years was Dick Gaughan, but even he eventually cut his ties. I remember the master tape to one of his Leader albums was thrown to the floor after Dick had questioned the owner on delays to the release of an album. Dick is currently involved in legal action to recover the rights to his work, and I have supplied what information I have to his legal team.

I also remember that Andy Irvine was not approved of by the owner of CM. His album with Paul Brady was on another label, Mulligan, that was caught up with CM. Andy was touring and his new album was released on Green Linnet, a label CM handled for the UK at the time. The label arranged to have stock shipped to CM but Andy was not given access to it. So, as head of UK sales, I simply arranged a solution that allowed Andy to have copies for his tour. Needless to say the owner of CM was furious.

The owners treatment of me was often difficult to say the least. Although he initially discussed all areas of the business with me, he quickly realised that I was prepared to challenge him on certain aspects of the business, and this was not something he was used to. I would say it took me less than a month to realise the situation and then a few more months to try to extricate myself from the employment contract he claimed I had signed but I had not. I was still in my twenties at this point and wanted to continue working within the music industry, but the owner applied pressure by stating that if I left the company he had the ability to ensure I didn’t work anywhere in the industry again. I didn’t believe this of course, as by that point I had more of a grasp of his own standing within the industry, but the situation was difficult.

In terms of the day to day work, there was an atmosphere of tension whenever he walked across from his office to the building that housed most of the stock and the sales room. I often had to chase him for my wages, which were never as much as I was told they would be, and when I eventually announced I’d had enough of the pressure being applied and would be leaving I didn’t get any further pay. I eventually demanded what I was owed and was offered part payment and the choice of the tapes for an album from the Leader / Trailer catalogue. I wanted ‘Bright Phoebus’ so I could return it to Lal & Mike, but it was missing on the day I was allowed into the room to access the tapes. Instead I asked for the tapes of a different artists album, with the aim of getting them back to said artist. Some years later I worked with this artist on another project that allowed them to earn some income from material that CM had controlled for years.

As I mentioned, I was given the job of cataloging stock, including albums stored in two warehouse spaces. One I knew about; a large room on the ground floor of the main office building, which mostly had the releases of the labels purchased by CM. The other, in a long building behind that, I knew nothing about and some other members of staff said they’d never been in it either. What I found were thousands of albums, of all genres, most of which had been purchased from other failing labels or shops. As I was, as usual, owed some pay, I was told I could select some of the albums instead. This wasn’t ideal of course, as my wages were helping Julia and I build our life, but there wasn’t much chance of saying no and getting the money instead. A few of the albums I remember acquiring included a complete set of original vinyl by Popol Vuh, Anne Briggs debut for Topic and a copy of Karen Dalton’s album ‘In my own time’. At that point her music was known mostly to a small circle of people who had know it during the sixties and early seventies. The album I found came from a shelf of returns that had been sent back from shops as faulty. The only thing wrong with it was that it was slightly warped and there was a bit of surface noise here and there, but the first notes of ’Something on my Mind’ stormed through. As the vocals began I knew this music needed to be heard by new audiences. I tried to find out more about Karen, whether she was still performing, other releases, anything. Mostly all I could find were a few people with only vague memories and no leads to anything more solid. I copied the album I had onto tape and sent it around to a few people I knew. One of these tapes found its way to a DJ who then started playing some of the tracks on his show. This led to a steady growth of talk about her work and to a conversation around efforts to get both of her studio albums re-released. This did happen some years later, in 1997 and ADA handled the UK distribution of the initial run on Koch Records as imports.

Eventually I simply couldn’t face working at CM anymore. Too many artists and labels were being treated in ways I wasn’t comfortable with. In terms of the business side of things I simply knew there was a better way to work. I wanted to expand the range of music available in the UK and from the UK to other countries. To pay labels a fair rate and work in ways that encouraged a more considerate interaction between distribution, labels, artists and the audience. A way of working with a strong sense of ethics.

(5) I decided not to use his name. There is something in that about a small sense of control over someone who seemed driven by a need to control a section of music culture, but who, I am proud to say, was significantly reduced in his ability to do so by those motivated by a more ethical stance.

Chapter 6 - Starting out, towards change

ADA distribution began in a small room in the office of Adastra, a folk music agency in North Dalton, East Yorkshire, run by friends we’d met through the folk scene. The name ADA didn’t come from that connection but had already been decided and registered before we found that office. We began with twenty or thirty labels; artist run and larger ones such as Greentrax, Temple, Claddagh, Topic & Rounder (& their various affiliated labels). We ran out of space quickly and moved to an industrial unit on Grovehill Road in Beverley, a market town also in East Yorkshire where Julia and I had rented a flat on the top floor of a building in Saturday Market, woken every Saturday at 4am by the sound of the market stalls being put together for the day.

We had a policy of paying labels fairly from the outset. That sounds simple but back then, as explained earlier, how the record industry worked, in terms of distribution and retail, was complex, often involving three or four stages, and also, quite intensely competitive. In order to be able to pay labels fairly we had to persuade some stores to pay us at a flat rate without always asking for considerable discounts. That took time and most of the chains still demanded them, so we simply took less for ourselves, kept the labels cut the same and looked for ways to increase sales and to bring in other forms of music, other traditions and other genres.

Myself and Julia tended to work from early in the morning to late at night most days. Partly because it was needed but also because there was an energy from trying to do a good job for the music, labels, artists and customers. The third partner in the business moved further away and started to spend less hours in the office. Eventually this, and other issues, meant we had to make the decision to buy him out of the business.

In the first year or so of the business I drew on my contacts at independent shops and chains, collected throughout my time working in the industry and also via my personal connections to independent music. Within a couple of years we were supplying most of the UK stores that had decent specialist music sections. There were hundreds back then but to name a few; JG Windows (Newcastle), Decoy Records (Manchester), Heffers (Cambridge), Jumbo (Leeds), Rare & Racey (Sheffield), Sister Ray (London), Rough Trade (London), Sterns (London), Revolver Records (Bristol), Rounder Records (Brighton), Sydney Scarborough (Hull), Gough & Davy (Hull), Cob Records (Porthmadog) etc. We also supplied all the chains; HMV, Virgin, Andy’s Records, Tower Records etc. Tower was an interesting contract. We were the main supplier for tradition based musics for their London lead store, then at No.1 Piccadilly Circus, and unlike other chains, dealing with them wasn’t down to a regular phone call with their buyers. Instead I visited the store once a month and physically stock checked their shelves, filling in a stock sheet and then supplying them with any releases that were required. Anyone who remembers the store will know that it held extensive stocks, so rather than the usual one or two copies per store, Tower usually held at least five or ten copies in stock of most releases. I do remember another distributor (jazz) telling me that stocking Tower was a chance to unload any overstocks. This went against our belief that there had to be an ethical base to what we did, not only because it was the right thing to do but also we both knew that if we deviated from that, even slightly, we might make a bit more money but the enjoyment, and some sleep, would go.

The trips to London each month weren’t ideal though. Julia and I had our flat and we already spent less time together away from work than we really needed to. Looking back we were working so hard for the future that we forgot to concentrate on the present. It’s easy to say now, easy for me to say, but I got too caught up in the stresses and should have worked harder on getting the balance right between what the business needed and what we, as a couple and as individuals, needed, including, very importantly, more time with my mum. I spent less time with the people I loved than I should have, but this is, unfortunately, what we all sometimes do, always thinking there will be time to do better.

I do remember that I would bring back steamed honey and coconut cream buns from a small Chinese bakery in London for us both and my mum, and also phoning Julia, from a phone box as this was before mobiles, to ask if we could afford what seemed like a lot for a signed copy of a book by Laurence Whistler (£35) that I had spotted whilst having lunch. Julia said I should get it and I did, and still have it. I don’t know how to say this exactly, but these acts of care stay with me, like the blue Habitat settee we purchased together and that seemed such a luxury. It had a small tear in the cover at the back so was reduced, but still more expensive at the time than we thought we could afford. I am sitting on it now as I write this. Julia took so few things when we went our separate ways. I think about that. I often tried to work out whether it was another act of care, to let me hold on to some sense of continuity as a way to cope with grief, or whether it was about her need to step onwards with less physical links to our relationship. Probably both.

The day to day running of the business involved ordering stock from wholesalers and directly from artists and labels, keeping track of stock levels, taking orders over the phone from shops and regular conversations with buyers at independent shops and the various chains. Much of that work was done on the phone, with internet ordering only becoming the main system across the industry later in the 1990’s. We knew most of the staff at the specialist shops in the UK well and they trusted me to not push releases to them that they would otherwise not take. This was a key aspect of the business, as elsewhere in the industry that trust had been eroded over the years. Independent music, of all genres, changed distribution in a largely positive way during the New Wave era, with Rough Trade, The Cartel, Red Rhino and various other companies building strong networks where the music took centre stage so to speak. Profit was important of course but most running those companies weren’t prepared to ‘sell out’ or compromise whatever prime motivations they had. Of course as time went on some of those businesses were caught up in acquisition deals with major distributors and other people, with different outlooks, handled things in ways that slowly changed the whole basis of that important era of disruption.

(an aside; Now, decades on, there are still traces of that time but physical music distribution has largely drifted back to a business model based around ideas of mainstream success, which simply don’t fit with the way explorative music develops and grows. Digital distribution allows anyone to release their work and reach audiences, but how revenues are divided between platform, label and artist is magnitudes further out of balance than the questionable deals back in the 1990’s. That said, the option of having the freedom to release music without the need to sign away your rights and distribute it without restrictions is important. The odd thing, to me at least, is that other aspects of the music industry haven’t changed that much. Even with outlets covering specific genres getting work reviewed is still, largely, subject to the same biases and structures that have been the norm since the invention of the global music industry. Labels still tend to have more influence than self-released work, despite many of the people working as reviewers or dj’s coming from scenes that depend heavily on DIY approaches. I’m not, of course, arguing against ‘the label’, they can be important in a curatorial sense, but there are, and always have been, plenty of artists who decide or need to release work via their own imprints. Speaking for myself, the reason I began doing so was down, in large part, to an interest in the process but also because of my experience working with labels and seeing how the mechanics of the industry still sits within systems that can, often unwittingly, support biases.

Digital review downloads allow labels and artists to see whether magazines, radio stations and other connections even bother to open the email or download the work. Some artists, some labels have everything downloaded, others are ignored. There is, of course, more and more material being released, and even the most obsessed listener doesn’t have time to give even a tenth of the work a decent hearing, but structurally the positives involved in artists and labels having more control hasn’t, yet, forced other parts of the industry to look again at their model and find a more equitable system. Perhaps it’s not possible, but it would be interesting to see some more attempts at change at least. Artists also too easily slip into ways of navigating careers that align with or sit alongside these structural issues, even when they think of themselves as standing against such things. How far the music industry has changed is dependant on all of these factors, and whilst it can appear that there has been massive change in the digital age, and more coming via AI, the basic structures haven’t really shifted that far, yet.)

As our reputation grew we added more and more labels to our roster. Most from other countries I actively sought out, often becoming the first outlet outside of their own territories. That was important in many respects, including that it was part of moves to ensure that ‘world music’ didn’t get stuck in a narrow understanding of the range of music available via the major labels that had picked up on something they could make a profit from. Most of the labels were run by one or two individuals, or with small teams, and this meant we got to know them personally also. Some of the mid-sized ones that worked with specific traditions relied on some forms of state funding but any additional sales in new markets were very welcome. We did get invites to various events, conferences and festivals but we didn’t have time and the business was starting to reach a point where the amount of work needed didn’t match the budget available to hire more staff. It wasn’t as simple as that though. Over time, almost without noticing, I had become a storehouse for a massive amount of information that would have taken a lot of work to transfer to a computer system as they became more accessible. I knew the catalogue numbers and stock levels of tens of thousands of releases and I hadn’t put in place a system that anyone else would find easy to grasp at the speed required. We, by which I mean myself & Julia, were trying to handle all of the pressures and also coming to understand the changes that were needed.

We handled artist run labels with one of two albums in their catalogue, and the largest ones such as Topic, Smithsonian Folkways, Rounder etc, and even began to expand, often via sub-distribution agreements, to include important labels working with classical music (mostly contemporary and early music), jazz, improvised music, blues, new country and experimental work. This meant we dealt with more and more labels whose staff we only knew at the end of a phone line, or fax number. That was okay of course, but, looking back, I think it was somewhere in these changes that the line between working with labels and simply stocking some of them began to become more defined.

Throughout our time running ADA we never insisted on labels signing exclusivity contracts, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, and whilst some labels grew and become part of larger organisations or to include different distributors, only one did so in a less than positive situation. In 1993 myself and Julia were asked to become directors of No Masters Voice, a Northern song writers co-operative that also included Lal Waterson, Mike Waterson, John Tams and several others. It is another situation that is difficult to discuss but I will try to course a path that offers some facts but avoids getting into areas that are more complicated, especially for some still involved. We were friends with several members of the co-op but were also asked to be involved because of our work within the industry, and to become the distributor of the label. Involvement meant monthly trips to Rotherham to discuss plans for the label. This wasn’t always easy for us as we were already working long hours. A suggestion was put forward that some meetings could be hosted elsewhere. This eventually did happen, including a few meetings at Ravenscar with Lal and Mike hosting, and some at our flat.

One album we were actively involved in was the NMV compilation of new songs by most members and this marked the first recordings for some years by Lal Waterson. Some months earlier we had driven over to Derbyshire for John Tams’ birthday, at which the room fell silent when Lal started to sing ‘Some Old Salty’, a song that appeared on her first album with her son, Olivier Knight, eventually released on the Topic label. Most of the sessions for the NMV album took place at a studio in North Dalton, with some of the artists staying with Julia and I in Beverley. We would drive them to the studio, sometimes stay for the recordings and be asked to sit in on some of the mixes. The album, released in 1994, included songs by Lal Waterson, Mike Waterson, John Tams, Token Women, Kathryn Locke and others.

Token Women started as an all-female ceilidh band and when a release of theirs was planned they asked me to produce the album. Along with my opinion being sought by Lal Waterson on the recordings with her son, Oliver Knight, to have been asked to produce the ‘Out to Lunch’ album was something I both appreciated and took as a sign of trust. It was recorded in Tewksbury and I remember it being an enjoyable time, with trips to local restaurants and much talk about certain issues that were well known on the scene, and some that were beginning to effect the NMV co-operative. Sometime later Kathryn Locke, a member of Token Women, and Tanera Dawkins released an album under the name ‘The Chainsaw Sisters’, two cellos and percussion. An album that deserves to be available again. Few of the earlier NMV albums are available as I write this. Eventually we grew increasingly uncomfortable with some members of the co-op (not mentioned here) and how they seemed to be more concerned with their own albums than those by others, with the Chainsaw Sisters album in particular I remember often being pushed to one side in meetings by some who thought it too unconventional.

ADA had worked hard on the NMV label, taking it from selling albums only at concerts to being stocked by most stores in the UK. As will be detailed below, we had to ask the third partner at ADA to leave and our unwillingness to go public with the reasons meant that other, incorrect and misleading versions were given more credit than they deserved. Despite letters and calls of support from other members for myself and Julia, and everything they knew of us both as individuals, without notice some members used that situation as a reason to give distribution to another company based in London. Shortly after this we decided to resign, not only because of that but because we felt the label had stopped functioning as a co-operative. A few weeks later we received a cassette in the post from one of the other members, with a track titled ‘The Trouble With Boys’ (sic) and a note thanking us for trying to do our best for the label and the artists themselves.

Eventually the issues with the third partner in the business came to a head. It is a fault of mine that I might stand firm, publicly, against certain issues involving systems of bias, but when it comes to more personal situations I, like many, bruise and find it hard to find the energy to fight back publicly, preferring to stay quiet and hope that communicates something of worth. There’s nothing wrong with that but of course others will not always do the same, and often a respectful silence is not allowed to communicate the ethical stance it involves. The reasons that are easier to discuss included that he had moved further away from the business and spent far fewer hours working than myself and Julia. I won’t go into detail about the other reasons but eventually we had to get a solicitor involved to try to work out a way through the increasingly difficult situation. We had two options; to remove him from the business via a majority decision or, against the advice of our solicitor, offer him a reasonable settlement, hoping this would, eventually at least, allow him to see that we tried to find a better solution. We did that and he agreed to leave the company. The sense of relief was massive. I remember Julia and I going back to our flat, laying on the blue settee, the stress slowly lifting, believing that we could now see a way to maintain and develop further the range of music distributed and the ethical stance of the business. I phoned my mum to let her know. We slept well that night.

We woke early the next day and I set off to our office and warehouse, with Julia staying at the flat in the accounts office we had there. Walking to the door of the industrial unit we shared with a few other businesses, I was met by a couple who also had premises there. “It’s all gone’ is all that I remember them saying. Everything was gone. 150,000 albums, gone. I collapsed. Julia was phoned and arrived a few minutes later. We wept, struggling to bridge the divide between the relief we had felt the night before and sitting in the ransacked offices.

We always saw the best in people so I phoned the third partner to let him know what had happened. He drove over to see for himself. It wasn’t until he left the warehouse, having stayed for less than five minutes and still legally partially liable for any financial losses as the agreement for him to leave the company hadn’t been signed yet, that one of the police officers who was there asked whether we thought he was involved. We were shocked and told the police that we didn’t think he had anything to do with it. which indeed he hadn’t, as become obvious in the weeks that followed. Later our solicitor confirmed that, putting all of that aside, he was responsible for his share of the losses, but we decided to stick to our word and take the agreement for him to leave as having been enacted the night before the break in.

I’d like to mention the branch manager of our bank, Nat West in Driffield, Susan, whose full name I can’t remember. We knew her in a business sense, having the occasional meeting at the branch offices, and phoned her the day after the break in to let her know that we needed to arrange a meeting to discuss how we could go forward. We explained we were now busy cleaning up the offices and moving the few valuable items left to a space in the roof, as the police had advised that there was a chance the thieves would return or would tip off others to what was in the building. Within an hour she arrived, rolled up her sleeves and helped us move boxes. I doubt bank managers do that these days, and I’m sure not many of them did even then.

The months that followed are a blur. The stress was massive. We had insurance of course but lots of the labels we distributed were either small or working on tight budgets. They’d given us stock to hold and couldn’t afford to re-press, either immediately or longer term. The insurance company, which will come as no surprise, would only eventually pay the cost price of the albums we held in stock. For items on consignment this meant the price of pressing a cd, cassette or vinyl rather than the amount we would give to the label when we sold an item. Most labels understood this and were supportive as we tried to work out how to ensure they were not out of pocket. A small number (very small) however demanded higher amounts than we were liable for. We could see both sides of course but legally we were only obliged to replace the lost stock either physically or in terms of cost price to produce, as per all industry distribution agreements. We disliked this. Having to get into legal compromises with labels and artists that were either our friends or we had worked with for years was difficult, and probably began the process of us both feeling a change was needed. This was countered however by the support we received in general and I would like to thank, again, all of the labels and artists that stood by us at that time. Most cared enough to recognise the effect on us as people, as friends, not only as the owners of a business.

Over the next eight or nine months we paid every label and artist whose stock had been lost. One label however caused some difficulties. We held most of their stock of one release, an album I recorded for them without asking for any payment. We had a few hundred cd’s, and they demanded that we pay not only our normal full price as distributor but the price the artists themselves could sell them for at gigs. This was outside of any agreement, or any ethical way of working. Difficult as it was we decided to pay, out of our own pockets, for the album to be repressed instead. This meant that they would have all of the stolen stock replaced and additional copies. To our distress, after we had done this, trusting them to stick to their word, they took the repress but demanded we also pay more on top of those costs. Later on when some of the stolen stock of that album had been recovered they also demanded we return that to them, despite the fact that we had, in effect, paid for it to be replaced, paid for those replacements and again when we sold copies. A relative of one of the musicians, who seemed to assist in running the label, during one tense phone call told me of his links to certain men who would come up north to ‘have a word’ with me. I kept that from Julia and have never spoken about it until now. We had spent years building the business and our reputations as honest, ethically minded people, and months trying to rebuild after the break in, but this one label, or at least one person involved in it, didn’t care for any of that. I still prefer to think the musicians themselves might not have been fully aware of the situation, though I do think at least one of them might have had some idea. It took me some time to get over the sting of that and it probably contributed to my reaction to a more personal situation involving one of the musicians some years later.

Whilst those months rebuilding were difficult I remember Julia’s simple way of conjuring a sense of normality when I walked through the door into our flat. My mum’s support and love kept me, and indeed us both afloat, and every now and then she’d arrive at the flat with a few bags of shopping to help, always including some of those small luxuries that can be hard to justify the expense of when cash is tight; iced buns or some other treat. We even managed to find time for a few days out, usually to the Yorkshire Dales or moors. We took my mum to France for a holiday in Normandy and looked forward to being able to do much more for her once the business was back to normal. I am desperate for the memory fog to clear further, allowing me to more fully recall such days, and talking with my mum about everything and nothing. I am hungry for the small details.

After several months the insurance paid up, in part, and negotiations continued around disputed areas of the costs. We still had no idea who had organised the break in. We did try to see the humorous side, that the thieves no doubt saw a warehouse full of albums and thought they had struck a jackpot. The look on their faces back at their lair as they opened box after box of pibroch, bagad, yoik, nyckelharpe, gamelan or improvised jazz would have been worth seeing. Then, out of the blue, we had a phone call from one of our mail order customers in Blackpool. He had seen a new record shop in the town and as it was full of albums that only we stocked or imported he knew something wasn’t right. We called the police but were told there was nothing they could do. The detective in charge of the case would call us back when he had time. We got in our car and drove to Blackpool, checked out the shop to confirm the stock was ours then sat in our car outside, called the police again and said we weren’t leaving until they did something. They arrived shortly after and took possession of the shop. We were asked to go back to the station with the detective and other officers and at that point were told that they had known who had carried out the break in for some months and had this shop and other premises in Blackpool under surveillance. Unfortunately the ring leaders had left the country some time earlier, but basically, a drug cartel was involved. It took some time but eventually we got back all of the stolen stock they still had. Another slightly humorous aspect is that in the months since the break in they’d only managed to sell around five hundred cd’s. It did take skill to sell this music. Oddly the average shopper in Blackpool seemingly wasn’t that interested in collections of Swedish herding calls or Gaelic waulking songs.

It took months of hard work and dealing with the emotional impact but eventually we started to get back on top of our energy and determination. We moved to offices in Saturday Market, Beverley, across the square from our flat, and re-arranged the business so that we held less stock on site.

I don’t remember the year but at some point it became obvious to us that mail order would be a way to connect more directly with the community and also, with careful and ethical ways of working, could help artists reach new audiences. We had become known for stocking releases of tradition based music from many countries, being the main (or only in most instances) supplier of music from Scandinavia, Brittany, France, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Canada, Japan, Indonesia, Sami territories etc, working closely with organisations, labels and individual artists in order to establish a wider interest in these musics. It will sound odd to many reading this but back in the nineties apart from one or two shops in London or other capitals across Europe, getting hold of this music was difficult and expensive, often involving sending a cheque or cash in the post and waiting weeks, if not months, for the albums to arrive. From memory in the early days of the business we began by establishing distribution deals with Keltia (Brittany), Robi Drolli (Italy), DAT (Sami), Sonifolk (Spain) and an organisation based between Sweden and Norway that acted as a wholesaler for lots of labels, large and small, from across Scandinavia. Soon, albums from these traditions were not only on sale in shops around the UK but on the stalls at festivals, being reviewed in the press and finding their way into the hands of audiences and radio stations. This also meant more artists could tour here and find an interested audience somewhat familiar with their music. Some of the distribution deals were reciprocal, meaning the availability of work by artists from all countries involved started to increase, often significantly.

In some countries there were problematic national policies and the control of music was stifling. I remember in Georgia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia for example we only managed to get releases in and out by working with small shops that operated almost underground. We’d send a box of albums they wanted & they’d send us a box that we wanted in return. We also had a deal like this with a shop in Japan and I have to admit that our own collection of Japanese music, of all genres, increased too. It’s how I managed to get hold of three of the comprehensive ‘Complete Music of Toru Takemitsu’ box sets for example, as well as hard to find albums of Japanese koto, shamisen, noh, soundtracks and jazz.

We noticed another problem on the UK folk scene was how the stalls at festivals were run. Albums were often overpriced and the artists appearing had to sell through the stalls, accepting whatever deal they were offered. We wanted to change that. We knew that if we gave the artists appearing at the festival a fairer price or didn’t insist on being the only way they could sell them, at the same time as offering a much wider range of other releases, we’d make our profits there, enough to pay the stall fee to the festival and ourselves a fair wage for the work involved. We started with Beverley Folk Festival and didn’t ask for anything from sales of albums by the artists appearing, though most did give us something when they collected their remaining stock. Audiences were often surprised by the range of albums we had and we were soon asked to provide stalls at other festivals. We helped arrange one in Yorkshire focused on Scandinavian music, and started discussions with others. We couldn’t commit to doing many however as it would have distracted from the rest of the business, and to be honest, we also liked going to the festivals for the social aspect. I remember Julia and I going to Sidmouth Festival for the 1st time; camping, paddling in the sea, dancing (yes, I did dance from time to time) and finding a bakery that had small cheese topped bread cakes. We’d get up early to get some, warm from the oven, before they sold out.

Back in Beverley, each year during the festival we’d be running the stall, trying to keep up with the day to day business and were also often called on to babysit for visiting musicians. I remember Maddy Prior’s daughter, Rose, staying with us for a day for example.

Anyone who works on the industry side of something they also have a personal interest in will know that often you have to deal with people being unreasonable, greedy or rude. It didn’t happen often but when it did it stung. Some of the larger festivals had stalls run by the same person and he did not like the fact that we were becoming known as offering a wider range of albums and treating artists differently. We did supply him with stock of certain releases so it didn’t surprise us when he placed a large order for the start of the festival season one year. That invoice was never paid, and it was a large one for us, several thousand pounds. He continued running stalls even with a court order against him and, if i’m honest, the fact that some festival organisers knew he owed money to various companies, and artists, but didn’t make efforts to link his stall license to paying his debts did rather remind us that some involved were less than ethically focused.

Writing this history has brought back so many stories, enough for a few books. Lots that are positive and some that are a reminder of how much casual racism and sexism there was even amongst those involved in various scenes who thought of themselves as progressive, liberal or even socialist. I remember, for example, one (male) folk singer who has a reputation for strong socialist politics telling me how he thought all Indonesian music sounded the same to him and that he didn’t see the point in listening to more than one album of any of it. I never viewed him the same way after that and I find it so disappointing that he has been able to maintain and expand his career as a socialist songwriter in the years since. Of course this is hardly a surprise and it happens everywhere. Once out of earshot of others, or after a pint or two, some reveal their inner prejudices and faults. Should we be ok with that? Should we accept that we all have failings or fault lines that can be exposed in times of stress or by a slip of the tongue? Perhaps, if it is that and we recognise the mistake and learn from it, but when someone is in a position where you are working with and for a form of music, art or community, then such considerations have to also be combined with a firm ethical stance and the courage to call such things out, to have discussions and to ask those involved to reflect on their attitudes. I will say one thing for the traditional music scenes, which also goes for classical and Jazz, with caveats; they all had these conversations even back in the eighties and nineties. They didn’t always solve the issues and often there was very significant push back, but the voices were there and building.

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Vinyl: During the nineties labels started ditching vinyl as a format. Other distributors were happy to have more space so we were often the only company interested in buying the stock. We were offered either the complete or partial remaining stock of vinyl on Claddagh, Temple, Topic, Tangent, Lyrichord, Smithsonian Folkways, Rounder, Yazoo and numerous other labels. Often this amounted only to a few boxes, and we did have to turn down some offers, due to space, but I do remember that Claddagh sold us all of their remaining albums (on their own label and others that they handled in Eire) for around £1 per unit. Likewise, Topic, gave us a deal where we could buy vinyl for, I think, between 50p and £1 per unit. Anyone reading this who knows anything about these areas of music will know that if we’d bought everything we could and kept them for a few years we’d have been sitting on quite a valuable resource. I was sure demand for vinyl would come back, but I didn’t realise that it wouldn’t be in the same way, where cost was at a level that didn’t encouraged taking a chance. We sold the vinyl we could buy mostly to a few specialist shops that still stocked the format, via mail order and at festivals, always priced fairly to reflect the price we had paid.

The deletion van: I don’t think this happens anymore, but there used to be a couple of companies that drove around the country in vans buying up stock from closing record shops or deletions from labels and selling them on. We’d get a visit every couple of months and I have to admit I was a bit like a kid in a candy shop. In the vans you could find free jazz, experimental music, rare classical albums by living composers, tape music and items from labels like 4AD, Factory, Cherry Red etc. I still have, for example, the 4AD postcard sets and calendars I got from one of the vans for a few pounds.

Japanese music / releases: I had a personal interest in Japanese music of various genres, so tried several ways to set up agreements with distributors, labels and stores there. It proved difficult for various reasons, some that still exist today, where not all of the music issued is easily available elsewhere, though streaming and other digital formats have changed things of course. There were one or two specialist shops and mail order companies that stocked some Japanese releases in the UK but they were expensive and supply was limited. We eventually dealt with a number of sources and imported a wide range of music, from traditional music through to improvisation, soundtracks and other forms, such as the full catalogue of Pizzicato Five and other artists in what could be termed art-pop. We also handled titles by pioneering musicians such as Nenes, from Okinawa, working to expand the profile of Japanese regional music.

Scandinavian music: So often when writing through these memories I have been very aware of how much has changed since the 1990’s. When we started importing music from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland and the Faroe Islands it was, more or less, like starting from scratch to convince the labels that any company in the UK wanted to stock their catalogue, not only picking a the handful of titles for the sake of novelty. Their initial wariness was valid as prior to this there had only been the occasional sign of interest when certain releases were picked up by major labels during the ‘World Music’* boom. We began with a few labels, mostly documenting contemporary tradition based or influenced musics, with artists such as Garmarna, Hedningarna, Annbjorg Lien, Maria Kalaniemi, Minna Raskinen, Ajo, Groupa and many more. We built up extensive catalogues of albums of kantele, herding songs, hardinger fiddle, nickelharpe and folk song. Through those connections we also started to import small label jazz and one or two labels reissuing early Scandinavian art / prog / jazz rock by the like of Karin Krog, Samla Mammas Manna, Bo Hanson. We also helped set up the Scandinavian music festival in Yorkshire mentioned earlier, and assisted in the tours by various musicians.

*That term ‘World Music’ was one that we, along with most musicians involved, didn’t ascribe to. We joined in with several campaigns to have it removed as a category in shops, polls and other situations, including face to face discussions with the specialist buyers / managers for Tower, HMV and Virgin. Those campaigns had some success but it’s still a term that is used, though there is a growing discussion around it again.

Breton / French music: another example where we were the only importer in the 90’s, and since then there hasn’t been any distribution for most of the labels here in the UK. To some extent that perhaps isn’t as important now, as most specialist buying is done online direct from the labels, but before the digital revolution physical distribution helped shifts in listening and exposure. For ADA, whilst we had a strong catalogue of labels issuing French traditional music and jazz, it was Breton music that had a significant increase in popularity in the UK during those years. Since the 1970’s there had been a strong resurgence in Breton politics, and the accompanying interest in the culture and heritage, and this led to a significant increase in albums being issued. We struck a deal with Keltia, the main label and distributor of smaller labels in Brittany, and set to work on raising the profile of the music here in the UK. At that time, outside of France, there were one or two well known artists, such as Alan Stivell, Malicorne and the Goadec Sisters, but there was so much more of course, including the Bagad, Bombard, Harp, Gwerzioù, Sonioù traditions, as well as bands who were mixing such forms with contemporary influences.

Imports (across genres): It’s fair to say that most people who try to get a job in a record shop do so because they have a passion for music. That was certainly my motivation when applying for a temporary job at Andy’s records in the 1980’s. The staff discount was another attraction, and you had to be careful not to add more to your store account than you could afford from the next months wages. As already mentioned in the 80’s and 90’s getting hold of releases from other countries was costly, took a long time and was not easy. The import routes we established from various countries for the labels we handled also often meant we could access titles on other labels, both smaller ones and the majors. Shops, and later our mail order customers, would ask us to get albums of all genres simply because we could usually get them much faster and for a more reasonable price. Prior to this it normally took several weeks and an imported cd could cost between £15 & £30, more for titles from certain countries. There were rules about imports, but these were set by the major labels and often restricted the artists global profile. Where there were regional versions of releases available we would of course supply those, but if not we would assist labels, artists and audiences to access the music, usually managing to supply them at the same cost as UK releases.

Alice Coltrane: I knew of the music of Alice Coltrane but in the mid-1990’s it was hard to get hold of her albums. Some hadn’t yet been reissued and the cassettes of her spiritual music released through her ashram didn’t have proper distribution. We supplied some of the growing number of new-age shops, mostly with solo harp music, European choral traditions and music from countries such as Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia etc, and we did get requests for Alice’s cassettes. We tried numerous ways to get copies, eventually swapping some stock with a shop in the US that dealt directly with her ashram. We negotiated to be an official source for the albums but the supply was too small for export. One of those instances were we said ‘we’ll take a copy of each for ourselves with the next shipment’ but didn’t get round to it as the demand always outstripped supply.

Shirley, and Dolly, Collins: It might surprise some but by the 90’s their albums were hard to get and outside of the folk scene their profile was fairly small. I’d worked with the BGO (Beat Goes On) reissues of some of their albums when working in record shops but the market for their work was limited and younger generations weren’t as aware of their names, except through the occasional reference to a song collected. Durtro Records had managed to put together a compilation cd ‘Fountains of Snow’, collecting previously released and rare material. This was a low key release and wasn’t available to retail shops when released. I will state that I had issues with aspects of David, the label owners work, but he agreed to sell us copies so we could supply certain shops. This wasn’t a normal deal though. We agreed to buy them for full price and therefore lose money when selling them to stores at ‘dealer price’. The reason can be explained by how he asked for payment; by cheque made out for the full amount directly to Shirley Collins. The release had been planned to allow Shirley to earn money from music that had been out of print or re-pressed without her involvement. It wasn’t really even about the money anyway, but about the artists having some say, some control. Dolly passed away in 1995 so didn’t get to see the upsurge of interest in her work more recently, or indeed perhaps release new work and oversee the reissues of earlier projects.

Nic Jones: Nic’s four studio albums for Trailer / Leader are considered key works in the English revival tradition, and, unfortunately, part of the CM story. They remain unavailable, though I have heard that might change at some point now that other, more supportive folks are involved. For those not familiar with Nic’s work I would suggest starting with ‘The Noah’s Arc Trap’. Nic had a car accident that put a halt to his career for many years and left him with physical and other impairments, affecting his ability to remember songs and play the guitar in the style for which he was widely renowned. His influence spread beyond the folk scene, but despite that and that he had one album still in print ‘Penguin Eggs’ (Topic) there was not any income from his other albums after the label was sold on. The issue of what happens with the copyright and publishing might seem to some to be insignificant in terms of the potential income for folk musicians, but the use of tracks in films, TV or adverts can generate useful amounts.

Julia Jones, Nic’s wife, set up a label, Mollie’s Music, to release a cd of live recordings, called ’In search of Nic Jones’, for mail order only. The demand from shops was there so we contacted Julia to ask if we could be allowed to distribute copies. We explained that, as with the Shirley Collins cd, we would not take any cut from proceeds and every penny would be given to Nic. Julia invited us to their house on the outskirts of York to discuss the plans and collect some initial stock. We weren’t expecting Nic to be there but he was, and contrary to some of the stories that went around the scene at the time, he was talkative, full of stories and happy that there was a demand for his music still. At some point he left the room and returned a few minutes later with his Martin guitar. I have to admit that the same stories had claimed he wasn’t even able to hold a guitar since the accident but he began playing with apparent ease. Different to how he had played before but he was playing again. Nic handed me the guitar and asked me to have a go. Despite his earlier albums still not being available, the interest in Nic’s work remains strong, and I’m glad we could play a small part in making some of the music available. Nic has been performing again for a few years now, singing, with his son playing guitar.

Anne Briggs: I find myself writing these names and still not quite understanding how their music had become known only to certain sections of specific scenes. Anne hadn’t performed for a number of years when we had the business, but those who knew her work also knew how important it was. I’ve spoken already about the bizarre (seen from today) system of imports back then, but when her album ‘The Time has Come’, originally released in 1971, was reissued in Japan we managed to arrange to stock it for the UK, and its inclusion in record collector lists meant the interest in her work started to spread to a new generation of listeners. All of her albums have been reissued a few times since and she has made a few appearances, though usually in interviews rather than to perform. I do remember writing a letter of complaint to Folk Roots after a review of her first concert in decades in London in the 1990’s. She was, apparently, understandably nervous and sang one song twice. The man who reviewed the concert spent some time criticising her performance for that. Everyone else in the room, and on the scene, was simply happy she was performing again and certainly didn’t mind if she sang any song twice. To me it seemed the review reeked of sexism and arrogance, something that I have to say wasn’t uncommon amongst writers covering these areas of music, as it was in lots of others of course. There were rumours that Anne was affected by the review and indeed she has only sung in public very occasionally since. It’s also perhaps worth mentioning that Martin Carthy, who was also appearing at the concert, fumbled during one of his songs, and, as was hardly unusual for him, had to stop numerous times to re-tune his guitar. None of that was mentioned in the review of course. I know mentioning these negative sides to the scene back then might seem unnecessary to some now, but anyone reading this who has run a label, or been involved in anyway with the ‘business’ side of music knows that passion for the music and a ‘fire in ones belly’ about certain aspects is often what keeps you going, keeps you committed to the hard work involved. Certainly for us, the biases that were so common then were something we wanted to do our bit to challenge and change, and unfortunately some are still there or have had a direct influence on how the music itself is both archived and perceived. Anne is highly respected and her work is known now to a much wider audience but still not as much as it should be.

Karen Dalton: As is well known now Karen had become reclusive and was either unaware of the resurgence of interest or unwilling / unable to comment. There are two countries involved; the UK and the US. In the US there were people who remembered her or had seen her play, but these were mostly of the same generation. Her two albums were long out of print and her health problems meant performing again, even if there were offers, wasn’t viable. In the UK by the eighties (and largely before that also) her name was known only to a few. There had been a very small scale release of her music in the UK and Europe in the early 70’s but it hadn’t been a commercial success and stocks were remaindered. Some copies of her 2nd album had been imported and it was one of these that I found when working at CM. It became an album I would play to people, discuss in various contexts and an artist I tried to find out more about. I began sending tapes of it to people in the industry; labels, dj’s, writers. These tapes got passed around and ended up with DJ’s who started playing tracks on radio in the UK, Europe and in the US. From there the story gets a bit more complicated. We had conversations with Koch, via their UK management, some years before they eventually reissued Karen’s first album. I can’t fully remember the details but I was involved in stopping a German label releasing an illegal cd of her work and I think someone at Koch was either also involved or contacted us after that. I discussed that the albums needed to be reissued and also potential sales figures in the UK / Europe.

ADA imported the reissue of her first album on Koch when it was released, but it’s fair to say that the demand in the UK at that time wasn’t large. It was her second album, the one I’d been playing to folks, that people were waiting for. It would be some years before she became the rediscovered figure she now is, and whilst various online sites give credit for that to Bob Dylan (he mentioned that Karen was his favourite singer in his 2004 biography) it is more accurate to say that there were lots of other people involved in the hard work of getting the music heard again. It is a shame she wasn’t able to really know how much her music is admired now, and, more importantly, perhaps use some of that to find a different answer in her personal life. In the early 2000’s I released the first album by Julia Holter on the . point engraved label, who has gone on to contribute a soundtrack for a documentary on Karen Dalton.

Ani Di Franco: Ani we heard of via another songwriter whose albums we handled in Europe. We were sent a demo of her first album and phoned the number on the sleeve. At that point that was Ani’s own number so we spoke to her and asked if we could distribute her albums. We’d order a few boxes at a time and slowly built up a market for them in the record shops we already supplied as well as some of the radical bookshops that would buy from us. In the 90’s the connection between politics (personal and structural) and music was still strong, with lots of artists setting up their own labels and finding it hard to get decent deals with distributors, if at all. Our approach was to not ask labels or artist to sign exclusivity clauses when supplying us. We took the view that this was their work and they had a right to keep as much control of it as possible. That sounds so basic perhaps, but it wasn’t how the industry in general worked, and still isn’t. Of course this also meant missing out if demand for an artist or a release increased to a level where larger distributors became interested, but mostly this was always handled with respect & thanks for our work, as it was with Ani’s music.

Nils Aslak Valkeapää / Sámi: I’ve been trying to remember where my interest in Sámi music and culture started. I did have a Folkways album of, what they termed, problematically, ‘Lappish’ songs that I acquired from a library sale in my teens and I remember reading some books about Sámi communities. Before the internet it wasn’t easy to find out more and the books I could find were mostly written from other national or cultural viewpoints.

When we set up ADA I made contact with DAT, the Sápmi label, and with one of its founders and an important figure in Sámi culture, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää. We were pleased to start to work with them on spreading the music, and the context, more widely. Marie Boine had raised the profile of Sámi music to a wider audience via her album on Peter Gabriel’s RealWorld label, but at that time no other Sámi artists had their albums generally available in the UK, or indeed in most countries outside of Scandinavia. Of course we knew that all it took was for the work to be available, to be heard, and there would be more interest. Albums by Nils-Aslak, Wimme, Johan Anders Bær, Angelin Tytöt (Angelit), Ulla Pirttijärvi and many others sold well once we could get them into the UK, and to audiences more easily.

When we started also stocking Sámi publications, Nils sent us a copy of his book ‘Trekways of the Wind’ with a note; “Thank you both for the valuable work you are doing. You sit with our sounds respectfully”

In more recent years there has been an increasing interest in ensuring Sami culture and status is equitably recognised, including with a pavilion at the 2022 Venice biennale.

Sue Mingus: The music of Charles Mingus was also something Julia introduced me to, via a copy of the ‘Ah Un’ album. In 1995 we were contacted by Sue Mingus who had heard about us via some of the other small, independent jazz labels we handled. She was setting up a label to issue the ‘Revenge! The legendary Paris concerts’ double cd, as a response to the multiple bootleg versions that were on the market, and wanted us to distribute it in the UK. We of course agreed but also suggested she contact Harmonia Mundi who had access to a nationwide travelling sales team and could get the album into even more shops. So, the label was distributed by both companies.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan: Nusrat was another artist that came to wider public recognition through the RealWorld label, though of course the Asian market was well aware of him. It was actually quite tricky to get access to some of the labels that issued a lot of his work in the 90’s, and it wasn’t always easy to know which releases were official or authorised. We managed to get stocks of most of the official albums and get them into stores that didn’t have access to the Asian distribution network. Some years later Julia and I met with Jeff Buckley and the music of Nusrat was something we talked about.

Pandit Pran Nath: We’d distributed the Gramavision label which had a few releases that weren’t selling well through their other networks. Amongst them was a cd by Pandit ‘Ragas of Morning and Night’ and we were offered the remaining stocks. They proved almost impossible to sell at the time and for some years we still had a few boxes in stock. In the years since Nath’s music has become wider known here in Europe and releases quite sought after.

Laura Nyro: Julia and I discovered Nyro’s music through my role as a specialist buyer for Our Price. I imported the US re-issues of her first four albums after we’d heard ‘Eli and the 13th Confession’ somewhere. I wonder how many reading this will remember the days of US imports arriving in their long cardboard shop display boxes (double the size of a cd). I quite liked those, even if they took up a bit more space. Years later I handled the promotion of the live comeback cd, but more importantly perhaps, when we had ADA we continued to import the albums that were still available.

LGBT songwriters collectives: There were an increasing number of LGBT songwriters collectives and labels in various countries that were self releasing albums on vinyl, cassette and cd through the 1990’s, mostly without distribution, and that were connected to roots based scenes and protest movements. We distributed a number of these and also, when we could, got involved with efforts to sort out some of the issues around how such releases were categorised in the chains. Tower Records had ‘Gay’ and ‘Women’s music’ sections for example, and elsewhere such releases were often placed into categories such as ‘radical’ or ‘protest’. There were differing opinions but musicians felt that in the context of general record shops they wanted their music treated as simply that; music rather than separated out and, in effect, somewhat sidelined. Nowadays that is a more mainstream discussion but in the ’90’s it was tense at times. We helped as much as we could by having discussions with buyers for chains and owners of independent shops, but mostly simply by working on getting the releases into stores in the first place. Things have come a long way since the 1990’s but back then most of the buyers for the chains would veto any release that they deemed to be of ‘gay interest only’. Likewise, as most were men, and it has to be said, often with the all too common attitudes music by lesbian musicians was treated with even less regard. Independent shops mostly had much better ways of working, with lots of them having active interests in various areas of politics and cultural life. I don’t know if anyone has written a concise history of these labels and networks, from the 60’s through the 90’s and onwards, but if anyone reading this knows of such a book or paper i’d be interested to know. As for the various labels, most released only one or two albums before running out of money, or those involved moving on to other outlets for their work.

The Roches: If I still had the faxes (!) and early emails from members of The Roches they’d be good to share, as they were always a good read, full of rye humour. We imported the re-issues of their albums, and also handled Rykodisc who released their 1995 album.

Harmonia Mundi: Another aspect of ADA was that we acted as a sub-distributor for Harmonia Mundi and their roster of labels (HM itself, Ocora, Auvidis etc). I had built up a connection with them as a buyer for Our Price records, helping with campaigns around early music, and we could get their labels into shops that generally didn’t want to open accounts with what they thought of as a classical only distributor (they were far from that). The London hq was run by Barbara, whose last name I can’t recall and unfortunately research online hasn’t helped, which is a shame as she was a formidable advocate for the releases by female composers they handled, early music and contemporary composition. My mum had become an avid listener to the counter-tenor, Andreas Scholl, whose albums were issued by HM. When he was visiting the UK to promote an album of music by Handel my mum was too unwell to travel to see him perform. A Phone call to Barbara and she kindly arranged for Andreas to sign two cd’s for my mum, which she sent to us and we gave to her as a surprise. I still have them, listening from time to time to something more than the music they contain.

Hannibal / Rykodisc / Joe Boyd: We had a distribution deal for both Hannibal and Rykodisc, but it was by no means exclusive. We mainly concentrated on the releases that were of more interest to independent stores. These included the albums by Trio Bulgarka. Bulgarian music was another strong interest for both myself and Julia, having been introduced to it by the Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares albums on 4AD. We spent quite a number of years setting up routes for albums of Bulgarian music to reach the UK. We also concentrated on albums on Hannibal / Rykodisc by Marta Sebestyan (whose earlier albums on small Hungarian labels we also imported), Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Toumani Diabate, Ali Farka Toure etc, and of course supplied the reissues of albums by Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Incredible String Band, Fairport Convention etc, to festival stalls and other outlets that didn’t deal with the labels other distributors. The main distributor did a good job for some releases but as it also dealt with lots of other large labels they often failed to pick up on some of the albums that they thought of as less commercial. I can’t claim to have always agreed with Joe’s approach to the business, but despite us only being a small element in the day to day work of those labels, he would ring up from time to time to ask how things were going and talk about new artists.

Claddagh Records and Jane Bolton: Claddagh is an important Irish label, shop and was also a distributor for a number of years. It released classic albums by Sean O’Riada, The Chieftains, Sarah & Rita Keane, Robin Williamson and many others. It also had a spoken word label, releasing albums by Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes etc. Likewise, a series of releases of classical music inc. Frederick May’s String Quartet (1936). Its distribution side handled just about every label and small release in Eire and we set up a deal with them to handle their entire catalogue elsewhere, also supplying them with releases for their shop and mail order customers. We dealt with Jane, who more or less ran Claddagh and was an important voice in the music industry, being one of the few women at the time who had a senior role in distribution.

Lal & Mike Waterson - Bright Phoebus: If you’re not familiar with this album, issued on Trailer / Leader, do check it out. It’s another classic of British folk-rock, and has also been subject to the issues with the transfer of ownership of that label to CM. We got to spend time with Lal and Mike and I remember talking with them both about the album. Mike was very vocal in his frustration and anger at the situation. Lal was sad about it, especially when we talked about how younger audiences outside of the folk scene hailed it as something of a cult album in the resurgence of interest in tradition and folk-lore. During the ADA years there were efforts to get the album re-released. I had tried to get access to one copy of the master tapes that was known of, and apparently not included in the sale of the label to CM. I think Mike did have or acquire the main master tapes but I’m not sure. There was a re-release on Domino Records but this was pulled shortly after release.

Jazz / Blues: Many labels that issued forms of traditional music also had imprints that specialised in blues and jazz. Likewise some of the co-distribution deals we struck with companies in other European countries also handled hundreds of small Jazz labels. ADA therefore became known for being able to source previously hard to find titles on labels from France, Norway, Sweden, Germany and many other countries. Alongside contemporary recordings from the likes of Emily Remler, Karl Seglam, Louis Sclavis, Monnette Sudler and many others, there were labels releasing important reissues or archive recordings by Billie Holiday, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, Sister Rosetta Tharpe etc etc, and collections of historical recordings of Musette / Accordion, Chanson, gospel, rural blues, Tziganes, Yiddish song and more.

Ocora / Lyrichord / Folkways / Smithsonian Folkways / JVC World Sounds Music Library: My early connections to music from other countries continued, and during the time we ran ADA we handled lots of labels issuing contemporary recordings, as well as several that, over many years, were attempting to build archives. I’ve already spoken about how hard it often was to import albums back then, but this seems even stranger now, seeing as how we live in the internet / streaming age. The JVC World Sounds Music Library for example remains largely unavailable outside of Japan, and indeed even there. JVC was taken over in the 2000’s and is now owned by JVCKenwood, who have an active music subsidiary. It would only take them a few days to get all of the WSML albums online and I know that the demand is there from a new generation of listeners. As to why they haven’t as yet I am unsure. Most releases on the Lyrichord, Folkways / Smithsonian and Ocora labels are available as downloads, usually via their own services or other specific platforms. Those labels had a vinyl sell-off and we were offered the complete stocks from each. I do remember that Lyrichord only wanted a fraction of the normal distributor price & we purchased as much as we could. Of course we kept a copy of each for our own collection, as we did with Folkways and Ocora. There wasn’t much vinyl offered by those labels but again we bought what we could and sold stocks fast. I try not to look at how much some of these albums go for now.

I did go through a bit of a panic about space a few years ago and decided to sell a large section of my vinyl collection. My reasoning at the time seemed solid and indeed I did sell quite a lot of albums that I can’t say I regret selling, but there are a number, including those on the Lyrichord, Folkways and Ocora labels, especially from Asian countries, that I think I perhaps should have kept. I still have some but…

Annea Lockwood / Tangent Records: Tangent was founded by Mike Steyn in the 70’s, releasing Ethiopian, Islamic and Gaelic music, as well as work by experimental artists inc. Annea Lockwood’s ‘The Glass World of...’. Another label that we purchased the remaining vinyl stock of. Getting copies of Annea’s album was a bonus as initially we had been told they had long sold out, but a box arrived with 10 copies (as I remember), one of which I grabbed immediately of course. Many of the vinyl albums on the label have become collectors items, whilst some were also reissued some years later on CD. Annea’s album has been reissued on vinyl also, but there’s something about the thick card sleeve and glossy lamination that still adds to the feel of the original. I’ve met, talked with and exhibited alongside Annea in the years since, though have never actually mentioned to her that I used to distribute Tangent. Indeed I don’t think I’ve talked about ADA much to anyone in the years since. I mention that simply to acknowledge that there’s something about that decision that I need to think about. This writing is part of that process.

Experimental Music / Free Jazz / Sound: Eventually more and more small labels in other countries heard about our work with traditional forms and asked if we could also handle their releases. My own background as a musician meant these were areas I already knew well, so it was a reasonably easy decision to try to assist those labels also. Most operated on very small margins and with small stocks, so often distribution wasn’t easy but at least shops had somewhere they could order their releases from alongside other stock, making the process faster for their customers. Mostly we didn’t carry large quantities of releases at all times but instead set up systems meaning we could acquire titles within a few days (UK) or a week or two for overseas labels. This meant we could access most releases in most countries. For example via our sub-distribution deal with Harmonia Mundi we handled Tzadik, getting releases by Gisburg, Yuji Takahashi, Harry Partch, Shelley Hirsch, Ikue Mori and many others into the shops without a HM account. We also handled releases by artists such as Èliane Radigue, Ellen Fullman and countless others under similar arrangements. As a musician / artist I’ve met quite a number of the artists whose albums we handled back then but they have no idea usually, and I rarely mention it either. It is interesting that distribution was a somewhat obscured system, with most artists unaware that the labels they were on or indeed actually running might have had one main distributor, with whom they’d probably signed an exclusivity deal, but that in a practical sense selling the releases depended on several networks.

Tony Benn: We handled Fuse Records, the label of Roy Bailey, and one of his projects was a series of tours with Tony Benn. I’m not sure how or why, but I ended up driving Tony between some events on one of the tours. A fact even more surprising considering I don’t think I even had a driving license then. Julia had one and I think the plan was for her to drive whilst I did some stints with the L plates on. I can’t remember why but I ended up doing the driving myself. Tony was full of interesting stories, discussing his views on the state of socialism and protest music.

New Country / New Bluegrass: I grew up hearing country music mostly on TV. Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Glen Campbell etc. I can’t say I connected to it as a culture, but certain songs stuck in the mind. When ‘new country’ started to gain a foothold, as a buyer, then sales manager and then with ADA I worked on releases by the likes of Nanci Griffith, Townes Van Zandt, John Prine (handling his label in the UK), Kate Wolf, Iris Dement, Alison Krauss and many others.

Publications: over the years we handled the distribution of various magazines, books and other non-audio publications, including Rock ‘n’ Reel Magazine and the re-launched Crawdaddy. Those two are linked as it was whilst interviewing Cindy Lee Berryhill, one of the founders of the anti-folk movement whose albums we also distributed, for Rock ’n’ Reel that we met her partner, Paul Williams, editor and publisher of Crawdaddy. At that time Paul had already re-launched Crawdaddy but had no distribution in the UK. Anyone who ever met Paul will remember that he had stories to last years, from his time spent with the likes of Joni Michell, The Beach Boys, Yoko ono & John Lennon (Paul is the long haired, bespectacled chap clapping with his back to the camera in the ‘Give peace a chance’ video), Neil Young and, it seemed, more or less everyone involved in the counter culture movement of the 60’s and 70’s. I have to admit that what I didn’t realise then was that he had been married to Sachiko Kanenobu, the influential Japanese songwriter, whose music I had been trying to find on long out of print vinyl.

I also contributed articles to several publications inc. interviews with Jeff Buckley and an article on Victoria Williams. Apart from these two magazines we handled publications issued by the various labels we distributed; from books of Sami poetry to jazz playing cards and traditional song and tune collections from various countries.

A few other areas of music and musicians that we helped get onto the shelves in the UK and other regions of Europe, often by stocking the first releases (artists) or extensive selections (wider forms); Quebecoise music, contemporary first nation artists from American, Australia & New Zealand, Cajun & Zydeco, Tango (inc. rare Astor Piazzolla recordings), Hawaiian slack-key guitar, Sharon Shannon, Kathryn Tickell, Mary Lou Williams (archive recording of ‘Zodiac Suite’)...and labels such as Bear Family Records, issuing comprehensive (and expensive) box sets of Americana, along with the Canto Morricone series. Prestige and Debut with box sets of Mingus, Coltrane, Davis ...the list could go on and on. I have to admit that whenever I focus on memories of the range and volume of releases we distributed I find it hard to work out how we managed to maintain the level of work involved. Having known other specialist distributors it also reminds me of how much they all deserve their place in the history of the industry to be more fully represented and valued. These were the companies that helped shape and support music culture, and some also did important work in changing problematic attitudes in the industry.

from Andrew Cronshaw;

“My memories of ADA are that it was the main source of most of the CDs in my territory; particularly good on Nordic music, which was barely being made available over here otherwise. Even the most niche recordings were usually available from ADA! When I was being a consultant for programming the Nordic channels at Music Choice Europe it was often easier to get what I needed from ADA than from the Nordic labels and distributors. I also remember you and Julia putting me up after a gig! Must have been one on my Splendid Venues tours, I think.” - May 2021

from Fiona Larcombe;

I performed at lots of festivals during the 1990s and first became aware of Jez and Julia by noticing that they seemed to be in the audience everywhere I went. When I found out that they ran a music distribution business, it made a lot of sense, because they were obviously so interested in traditional music and the people performing it. ADA was a rare example of a music business which focused on supporting and promoting artists and their music, rather than being in it just to make a profit.

Jez introduced me to the singing of Anne Briggs and to George Deacon’s edition of the songs collected by John Clare. This was before it had been reprinted in paperback, so it was not easy to get hold of and I still have the hardback 1983 edition which Jez gave me. I sang some of the songs in the collection on my only solo recording, “Songs from the Singing of Somebody’s Mother”, which Jez encouraged me to make. It was recorded and produced by ADA on cassette only, which makes it something of a rarity in itself. I really wouldn’t have had the confidence to do it without ADA. That is just one example of what I mean when I say that ADA really encouraged and supported musicians. - May 2021

From Ian Green (Greentrax Records);
‘…We enjoyed a happy and very worthwhile relationship and it was always a pleasure to work with them. Jez was also held in very high regard within the music industry and often contributed worthwhile items to major publications’ - October 2000

Pause some more - Other things obscured

The main elements of this writing was done several years ago, and expanded on during more recent months. As I get to this point of making it available I do sense that the two less positive stories have a weight to them that doesn’t reflect the overriding positives of our time running ADA. I think we all understand how bruises are often easier to recall than all the ordinary days, and the ones were something additionally good occurred. I don’t know how to draw out those details as so much is still in the fog across my memory, but I think one reason is also that we were constantly having positive conversations and interactions with artists, labels and customers that they did indeed become the norm. Musicians who we met at concerts were sometimes surprised to see that two of the people involved in the distribution of whatever label they were on were actually part of the scene as audience also. There were also times were we were thanked from stages, in print and, on an even more personal level, Julia had a tune named after her.

If anyone from the traditional music scene reads this text I have no doubt they would want more of those stories, more of the way we worked with releases to build their sales, but I simply can’t recall much of that. Had I been able to maintain a link to that world I’m sure it would be easier but as you read on you will, I hope, understand why I needed to find a different path. So, to all the musicians, labels, mail order customers, people we met running stalls at festivals and shop staff that we interacted with, thank you for putting your trust in us, for allowing us to work with your music or put stock onto your shelves, and for buying from us. We didn’t get rich doing so, but for a while we spent some years sharing a purpose, sitting on the blue settee and building something.

Chapter 7 - Loss, stepping back, then forward in wonder

The writing in this chapter doesn’t convey even a fraction of the emotions involved. To be honest there is so much here that I think I still haven’t fully come to terms with.

As I’ve already mentioned Julia and myself worked hard and perhaps didn’t spend enough time focusing on each other. In fact it’s more accurate to say that it was me that didn’t spend enough time focusing on Julia. I am perhaps being harsh on myself, but I think she got the balance right more than I did at times. I became exhausted, yet with the need to keep working long hours every day. I began to find that rather than feeling motivated by the drive to improve things for the labels, artists and the music itself, I would find myself more desperate to get back to the flat earlier in the day. To be with my mum, simply talking and starting to have those conversations that develop naturally as we mature. To get back to Julia, eat together and think about the next steps in our life together.

We were at a point where running an international business, distributing hundreds of labels in the days when computers were far from what they are now in terms of stock, database and accounting management, we perhaps needed to adjust aspects of the structure of the business. Things reached a breaking point. Either we expanded to become a larger business, taking substantial business loans and trying to avoid becoming distanced from our sense of ethics, or we stepped back. We were probably edging towards that decision but events overtook us. I can’t in all honesty piece together my emotions back then but clearly I was starting to lose my way. We decided to take a break from our personal relationship. It took me some years, but I came to realise that there was always some part of me that didn’t quite believe I deserved Julia’s love. Instead of facing that and finding out where it came from, my exhausted self found it easier to simply believe I wasn’t able to make her happy. The next year or so is, of course, private so I won’t go into it here, as it’s not only my story to tell. We both met other people, so I will say however that this is when my wonderful daughter Pheobe came into my life. She gave me, still gives me so much, and it was the grounding affect of having her in my life that helped me in so many ways at that time, which will become clear as you read on.

Whilst on holiday in France I woke up one day unable to fully piece together certain aspects of my life. The exhaustion had taken over. On returning home, my mum and Julia took care of me and slowly I began to focus, and, in part at least, repay them all for their care for me. Julia and I did come back together in some ways but I had left her when she was, unbeknownst to me, still waiting for ‘us’ to return and I couldn’t put that right.

Then something happened that I couldn’t control, no matter how much I wanted to. My mum, my amazing, wonderful, supportive mum found a lump and within weeks was having surgery and treatment. I can’t write about these months in any detail. I should instead leave several pages clear of words, to speak for the love, the strength, the tears and all the holding and being held.

(my mum with me in her arms)

My mum passed away a few months after Pheobe’s first birthday. At the service I held Pheobe in my arms, with Julia by my side. After the service I noticed Carol had been there, at the back of the church. Carol and I had met when we were both seventeen, the first relationship for both of us, and she and my mum had been close during those years. As she gave me a hug I tried to thank her for coming to the service, the words breaking as I spoke.

How many pages have been written about grief? and how futile they all are when it arrives into ones life. Time does not heal, it merely shifts the grief around, enables you to manage it in different ways. But, it’s still there. I had Pheobe to be with, to look after and I took, still take, great comfort from knowing her. As ever a women in my life is giving me so much.

We, myself and Julia, knew that we couldn’t carry on with the business. There had been too much loss, and we were both tired. Julia needed to put some distance between herself and the man she had loved, and who had left when he should have been taking time to find his way back to her. I don’t think I knew what I needed, or indeed that what I needed was even on my mind. I was lost, except for when I was with Pheobe and could see an entire new world forming in her face. ADA was still needed in the industry so we started conversations with two interested parties about selling the business. I can’t actually remember how that process began. It is so odd to realise that. I haven’t thought about it for some years, but to find important sections somehow lost in my memory is puzzling. Of the two interested parties one was a larger distributor that we knew quite well, and the other, we thought, were friends, though perhaps friends is overstating things. We knew them and were friendly with them and they with us. The larger company, had we pursued discussions, would have put together a formal offer that took into account the stock, the mailing lists, which at the time were the largest for specialist musics in Europe, and the good will in terms of trade contacts. The other party offered less. A fraction of the value that barely covered the stock, let alone anything else. Looking back I can try to say we did the right thing in selling to them but we didn’t. I don’t think the other company would have been a good idea either, as we’d have always felt that we had passed ADA to a company with less focus on maintaining the range of music we handled by then, but selling to who we did was a mistake on several levels. We spent several weeks arranging for the transfer of trade accounts, supply contracts, retail connections and distribution agreements with various labels, as well as stock taking and setting up various software systems for the people who would be taking over the business we had worked so hard to build. As part of the contract we also included spending some time with them, at their premises after they had taken over, taking them through the various ordering systems and helping them learn the ropes so to speak. Despite doing that for the agreed length of time and beyond, they began to demand more. It became clear that they seriously underestimated the skills needed to run the business and whilst we both tried to help as much as we could, a point came where their attitude became unacceptable. I was, at that point, deeply affected by grief and trying to spend as much time as possible with Pheobe. Eventually they refused to pay the second instalment of the purchase price and we were forced to start legal action. There might be some people reading this who heard one side of the story and as I try to detail ours it is simply to counter their misrepresentation of the situation. There came a point where we were being put in an almost impossible situation, and it was affecting us both. At the hearing they were ordered to pay the amount owed, after being told by the magistrate that we had gone far beyond the requirements of the contract of sale. What hurt was that we had sold to them at less than the business was worth, believing that the ethical values would at least be intact. We said nothing to anyone else about the situation, whilst they misrepresented it. I could have fought against that, put the facts forward, but I was, as I said, exhausted and I found myself realising (long overdue perhaps) that some people are ready to believe whatever they are told even if it goes against everything that is already known about you. I have never understood that. I still don’t. Over the next few months they undid much of the work we had done on getting a wider range of music into the UK and eventually, so I’m told, they only handled a small number of titles from certain labels and mostly for mail order rather than full distribution. They then sold the business on and, as far as I know, it was eventually closed down as a distributor. So, I stepped back, moved to the home I had grown up in, spent my time with Pheobe, and finding a way back to my earlier connections to music and sound. Julia eventually also moved away, to work for an organisation combining traditional music and education. Thinking about a photograph on social media, via a mutual contact, that popped up whilst I have been writing this, from a few years ago I think, Julia is smiling. A smile that is hard to describe but hers alone. I hope she has smiled more every day since we parted than she ever did when we were together, and we did smile a lot through those years. It took me a few years before I could work with any focused energy again. Whilst running ADA I didn’t have as much time to spend on my own creative work. I did perform live often though, mostly in Hull, supporting left-field artists. Those sets involved guitar, tape, field recordings, zithers, clear input and small objects. Gradually I began playing music again, locally and touring the Netherlands before my work shifted towards gallery settings, durational performance and extended listening practices. I’m known now to an entirely different audience / community for my focus on the act and art of listening, both as an artist and a curator, workshop leader, educator and microphone builder. The aspect of community has remained important, bringing with it the same positives, and the same disappointments when my naivety bumps up against individuals or systems that have problematic behaviours or biases. The experimental music scene has evolved to include links with traditional music, with younger artists drawing on revival albums as source material and inspiration. Occasionally I have worked with artists whose work I distributed via ADA but I’ve very rarely mentioned that. I’m not sure why. I’m extremely fortunate because not only does Pheobe bring me so much joy as her father, but we also work together, both on building the microphones that have become widely used across sound culture, but also in installations and performances. We’ve visited many countries as artists, including getting to spend time in Japan, a country whose culture I have been fascinated by since my early teens.

(Pheobe and me in Japan in 2023. Photo by Hajime Kato)

(programme photo for Rainy Days Festival, Luxembourg 2025. Photo by Véronique Kolber)

(performing with Pheobe at Cafe Oto 2025)

The DIY music culture that arrived with New Wave, coupled with the years working in the industry, noticing the positives and the negatives, has all had an effect on my own creative output. Whilst I have released work via established labels mostly I have published it on my own imprint, which did at one point also release work by other artists, including Catherine Kontz, Catherine Lamb, Julia Holter and others. Part of the reason is that I like all the creative aspects, from the freedom to make whatever work I intuitively want or need to, to taking and choosing the images for the artwork. Naming the tracks and the albums, and the often private thinking through all the processes. All of those things can be possible when working with labels but I tend to work most days from early in the morning to late at night and there’s something in my personality that needs to keep hold of space, even if I’m quite bad at taking it for myself. I’ve always enjoyed writing fiction but I’m as nervous of the publishing industry as I am of the music business. I never wanted to be one of those people that took being ‘a musician’ or an ‘artist’ as some kind of uniform, nor would I fit in with being a ‘writer’, or rather I’m simply not so interested in being defined by such categories, as they tend to come along with all manner of expectations. I think this also is a part of me that I am still trying to understand. Sometimes I find it difficult and at others I am grateful for all the sensitivity my mum gave me, because it allows me to, hopefully, give to others, but also to allow some tenderness towards my self when needed.

I don’t know if I’ll publish the fiction I write. I shy away from the processes involved in finding an agent and publisher. I am bruised by having worked with an art form I cared about and I think that is part of my nervousness. I’m also aware of how such distant experiences such as my time at school, and how the arts deals with issues around class all effect me in ways I was sure I wouldn’t allow them to. I still tell myself I don’t, but something holds me back. Of course that could also be my inner self knowing that the work still isn’t ready. I don’t know, but right now I am enjoying the writing itself and that is important.

I’m still working though experiences. Still trying to allow myself some of that space.

my mum’s garden, sometime in the 1990’s)

Legacy

Neither Julia or myself were comfortable with the self promotion aspect of the music industry, so it’s not surprising that the history and legacy of ADA isn’t as well known to anyone who wasn’t around at the time, but I am proud of what we achieved, and how it had an impact on both the industry and various areas of music culture. There were others working hard for change also of course and, as I alluded to earlier, it is telling that there is very little detail in the histories about any of them. I can’t claim to have read every book, article or paper on the workings of the music industry of course but personally I don’t know of any that deal with the work of specialist distribution or view the industry as a series of connected services, each with its own specific challenges.

As such, I have to try to re-cap some of the impacts we had whilst recognising that distribution was, and still is, behind the scenes. Less visible than the artists and labels, but essential, and highly important in the changes that were, and still are, needed in the industry.

. We worked with thousands of artists and labels that were releasing traditional music, jazz, experimental music, contemporary classical, blues, songwriting, helping them gain more income from their work and build larger audiences by getting their releases into stores around the UK, the rest of Europe, Japan, on more radio stations and in to the hands of customers globally.

. We expanded the availability of and interest in the music of various cultures in the UK, and in efforts for that to be ethically guided.

. We provided or supported the initial impetus to various areas of creative work that went on to become influential, and to change music culture more widely.

. We played an active part in attempts to combat the sexism that was rife throughout the industry, and also instigated policies and discussions around other forms of bias and prejudice.

. We changed how distributors were expected to deal with labels releasing specialist music, and how the pricing points across all stages were calculated (this however has been rolled back, with most distributors now paying less to labels / artists than we did in the 90’s, even whilst selling at similar or higher prices)

. We helped establish various labels, collectives, and creative projects to champion or explore music as a global force for change (political and social). We did this through distribution support, connections and advice on the market and production processes.

. We stocked most public libraries and university music departments in the UK, attempting to change the frankly bizarre purchasing systems at the time, which required suppliers to charge public institutions over and above retail price. Prior to our involvement because of this system various institutions and libraries were often unable to carry titles on smaller labels, as doing so meant expensive and slow importation. The impact of this one small area of our work was to change access to academic research materials at the time, though digital has, of course, expanded things even further since (or should have).

. and, perhaps most importantly, dealt fairly with labels, artists and our customers.

Apart from a general thank you to all the labels and artists who trusted us and allowed us to work with and for them I have to say thank you Julia. You gave me much in those years, much that stays with me even now, still sat on the blue settee, though it’s getting old, as am I.

(me and Julia in my mum’s garden, sometim

e in the 1990’s)

The labels

Looking back, after all these years, at the vast range of music, and the importance of it, I find myself even more convinced that the full story of specialist distribution in the industry during the nineties, when so much was changing, needs to be revealed, taking in all of the companies, mostly run by highly motivated people with personal connections to the music.

Here’s part of the list at least. I’ve linked to label websites for some, but also to elsewhere where the full back catalogue is more visible.

9 Gates

Ace Records

Acousteack

Acoustic Disc

Albany

Alga Marghen

Alice Musik Produktion

Ambiances Magnétiques

American Clavè

Amigo Musik

ARC music

Arfolk

Arhoolie

Arion

Auvidis

Avant

Avatar Book Institute

Awareness Records

Balkanton

Bear Family

Beeswing Records

Beeswing

Big Beat

Black Saint

Black Crow

Blind Pig

Boucherie

Buda

Buen Kulturverksted

BYG records

Cadillac

Caprice

CBS (Japan)

Celluloid

Chantons

Chess Records

Ciré Jaune

Claddagh

Cloches

CMC

Compass Records

Cooking Vinyl

Coop Breizh

Copper Creek

County

Crawdaddy (magazine)

CTI

Dancing Cat

Dara

DAT

Day Job

Debut

Disque Sono Studio

Disc ‘Az

DIW

DMP

Document

Domino

Dreyfus

Drone Music

Durtro Records (one release only)

Eclectic

Emanem

Enja

Epic (Japan)

Erato

Escalibur

Felmay

Fledg’ling Records

Flying Fish

FMP

Folklarin

Folklyric Records

Fono Astur

Frémeaux & Associés

Fuse Records

Gael-Linn

Giga

Gimell

Globestyle

Gramavision

Grapevine

Grappa

Greentrax

Green Linnet

Gwerz

Hannibal Records

Harbourtown

Harmonia Mundi & associated labels

Harvest

Hat Art / Hat Hut

Heilo

Hexagone

Hummingbird

Hungaroton

Hurv

Hyperion

Hypertension

Idut

Impetus

Incus

Indigo

Institut Du Monde Arabe

Iona Records

Irregular Records

Jass Records

Jazz Classics

JMT

Just Sunshine

JVC World Sounds Music Library

K.422

Kaleidoscope

Keltia / Keltia III

King World Library of Sounds

Kirkelig Kulturverksted

Kicking Mule

Klub

Knitting Factory

Label Bleu

Lapwing

Larrikin

Le Chant Du Monde

Lean

Leo Records

Lismor

Lochshore

Lovely Music

Lyrichord

Massproduktion

Melodie / Mélodie Distribution

Mille Pattes

Minuit D.L.C.

MNW

Mollie’s Music

Mono Music (Sweden)

Mooncrest

Mrs Akroyd

Mrs Casey’s Music

Mulligan

Music & Words

Mustradem

Myrrh

New Albion

No Masters Voice

Nonesuch

NOR-CD

Normal

Northside

Ocora

odin

Oh Boy

Okra

Olarin Musiikki Oy

Olympia

Original Jazz Classics

P-Vine & associated labels

Park Records

Philo

Pig’s Whiskers

Plant Life

Pure

Rebel

Red

Resource / Xsource

Revenge Records

Rhino Records

Righteous Babe

Rikou Soner

Riverside Records

Robi Droli

Rock ’n’ Reel (magazine)

Rounder

RTE

RUF

Rykodisc

Sain

Samizdat

Saydisc

Serengeti Sirocco

Seven Seas (Japan)

Shamrock

Shanachie

Shogakukan

Silence

Silex

Silversounds

Skye

Smithsonian Folkways

Solid

Son Records

Sonet

Sonifolk

Sons Galicia

Sony (Japan)

Soul Note

Sounds of the World

Special Delivery

Star Records

Stash

Steeplechase

Stick Records

Storyville

Sugar Hill

Sunnyside

Takoma

Tara

Temple

The Music Corporation

Topic

Tradition

Transatlantic

Tutl

Tzadik

Unesco

Vanguard

Viva Voce

Warners (global music division)

Water lily Acoustics

Wergo

Whirling Discs

Windsong

Winter & Winter

World Circuit

XI

Yazoo