John Renbourn
RSL Club
Balmain Hotel
Sydney, Australia
September 1987

01 DJ introduction
02 My Sweet Potato (Booker T. & The MGs)
03 Great Dreams from Heaven (Joseph Spence)
04 Lord Franklin (trad., arr. Renbourn)
05 Watch the Stars (trad., arr. Peggy Seeger)
06 The Cannonball Rag (Merle Travis)
07 Little Niles (Randy Weston)
08 The Lazy Farmer (The Young Man That Wouldn't Hoe Corn) (Trad.)
09 The West Wind > The Blarney Pilgrim (trad., arr. Renbourn)
10 Lindsay (Archie Fisher)
11 Sandwood Down to Kyle (Dave Goulder)
12 The Lament for Owen Roe O'Neill > The Mist Covered Mountains of Home > The English Dance
(trad., arr. Renbourn)
13 Cherry (Dollar Brand)
14 The White House Blues (trad., arr. Renbourn/Charlie Poole)
15 Candyman (Reverend Gary Davis)
16 DJ outro

Total time : 1:15:55

John Renbourn - acoustic guitar, effects, vocals
Mitch Greenhill - electric guitar on Tracks 14 & 15

"Sunday Folk, "ABC-FM Radio broadcast (M2-FM, AUS)

Original notes:
Excellent, warm quality & great wide stereo FM broadcast professional soundboard recording of complete show. Check samples for verification, illumination & that "I feel good about this download" feeling.

Warts: No memorable problems at all. I surely missed a few dropouts. You'll be able to tell it's from analog tape in a couple of places, but in general, a real pleasure.

At the risk of having loads of corrections come in, I added the songwriters/sources this time around to show the depth of John's repertoire.

If you've never seen him, go see this guy play while you can.

Nothing here ever commercially released to my knowledge. If I'm wrong, please advise & I'll take the offending trax offline.

CoolSonics 114: Thanks to the original taper & traders! My copy came from "Reel Master Gaule". Corrections welcome.

This one is right on. John is VERY good form, steadily producing sounds like two (talented) guitarists performing at the same time, but more importantly perhaps, he is only beginning to settle into what would become his "standard" repertoire for the next 25 years, so it still has a very fresh feel to it & he is pushing his boundaries with many of the tunes. It has very nice stereo separation, the ambience is good and the audience is set way into the background. John is one of the most beautiful fingerpicking acoustic guitarists I have ever had the pleasure to see play.

More recordings on the way, making up for years of slow netspeed. Kudos to Zongo for life support, Lochner for mikes & much more, & to Fast Freddie for runnin' Video Dick's Record Emporium with the bathroom office full of tape decks. Thanks to Hanwaker (few among us can keep his pace) for over 30 years of trading & friendship. Mountains of gratitude to Davmar, D.White, Sanchez, Elliot, The Florida Kid, Kloiber, Zingg, JTW, Bershaw, Boston Gold, Weeks, Dixon, Moore, Gough & SO many more for all that collecting & sharing... Royal thanks to The Man In The Palace, Doc Tinker, Brinkhoffs, Barely Eatin', Reel Master Gaule, Parrish & all the traders who housed me thru my music acquisition & travel years. Hats off to Brother Kent, Uncle Jake, Little Queenie (& her neighbor Frank) & his honor Ptomaine Thomas. Glasses raised to Byron for musical horizon expansion & much obliged to J & Thurston for keepin' my concert fires burnin' since my continental shift. Thanks to the Mods for keepin' DIME alive. Enjoy, share, give, spread peace. Yers truly, Knees

Support the artists! http://www.john-renbourn.com

Do whatever you want with it except sell it, 'cause that ain't cool!

recording lineage: ABC-FM Radio stereo broadcast > unknown equipment > off-air master tape > 1st generation tape > 2nd generation Maxell XLII-90 cassette, Dolby B on.

playback lineage, 2011-08-18: 2nd generation Maxell XLII-90 cassette on Nakamichi BX-300 cassette deck, Dolby B on, azimuth & pitch adjusted, heads cleaned & demagnatized > Tascam CD-RW900SL pro CD recorder > CD-RW > computer, EAC secure > WAVs > Audacity (fades &/or glitches, dropouts, volume adjustments, no EQ) > CD Wave (track splits) > Trader's Little Helper > yer ears. First uploaded week of 2012-02-07.

EN remaster notes
3.26.2015

A tremendously sad day, as John has died of a heart attack at age 70 just this morning. Staggered by this awful news, I set about remastering this absolutely stunning solo acoustic set from 1987, gorgeously captured by Australia's ABC radio, in honor of this most exemplary and irreplaceable musician.

This didn't need much at all, believe me... CoolSonics did an impeccable job getting this into circulation and all I felt was a tad lacking was the high end attack transients of the guitar, which were slightly muted by the Dolby B used on the original cassette he transferred. I used some Sound Forge 9 Graphic Dynamics groove juice (with a splash of goofa dust) and that was all... I always try to do as little as I feel is required and this was already in tip-top condition. I also moved one track marker so the DJ intro (which I patched at the start to begin with a somewhat complete sentence) can be skipped; the fade-up of the applause that begins the show is now at the start of Track 02. I also created a separate track (16) for the DJ outro and titled and tagged the files, as well as making new MD5s and amending this text file accordingly.

It's an incalculable loss, but JR has joined Bert Jansch in the Great Beyond, and of course we have the endless wellspring of standard-setting music he leaves us as he exits our world. Pull this undercirculated gem down -- it really is a rare glimpse into the songbook of John's solo repertoire, on a gig where for once he wasn't in the company of various other luminaries and he could command center-stage -- and enjoy it forever as a tribute to one of the most seminal and skillful guitarists that will ever live, in full free flight and shining bright three decades ago Down Under.

updated lineage: FLACs from original 2012 DIME seed > Sound Forge 9 remasterizations > back on DIME > you

R.I.P. J.R.
1944-2015