Mr Fox
1971-09-13 ::: London, England ::: Playhouse Theatre
Craven Street & Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross, Westminster
BBC "Top Gear" programme with John Peel ::: M-FM

~*~ M3 version carefully remastered fixing various issues, WITH lite differential EQ & lite NR ~*~

01-[00:09]. ==Peel intro==
02-[02:57]. Silly Billy
03-[00:16]. ==Peel outro//intro==
04-[03:38]. H.P. Source
05-[00:30]. ==Peel outro//intro==
06-[12:34]. The Gipsy
07-[00:59]. ==Peel song outro//programme outro==

Total Time ::: 21:05

::: Quite earable VG++(Mk3) or VG+(Mk2) quality. Check samples for dubiousness drainage, or fleets of fantastic fantasy.
::: Warts: Repaired dullspots & dropouts but surely missed a few. Radio reception issues repaired but some vestiges remain.
::: CONTRAST CLAUSE: This is the more edible Mk3 lite EQ+NR remaster, the Mk2 version remastered with NO EQorNR can be found elsewhere.
::: COMPARISON CLAUSE: Mk1 is the original non-remastered raw transfer as received & doesn't commonly circulate.
::: Recorded Monday 1971-09-13 & 1st broadcast Saturday 1971-09-25 between 3&5pm.
::: NOTE: Mr Fox was a Bob&Carole duo at this session, as happened on many occasions, more info below.
::: NEW to common circulation. First this session has seen the light o' day in 50 years, excepting into a few ears.
::: Circa '71, the Playhouse Theatre was used to record BBC"studio"sessions & most(all?) had NO live audiences.
::: Final "Top Gear" Saturday afternoon show. After this date the show moved to a Weds 10pm slot.
::: These are LOSSLESS. Small file sizes due to single channel mono digital transfer of the original mono recording.

Recording Information ::: BBC radio broadcast -> unknown mono reel-to-reel recorder -> off-air mono master reel -> lossless digital transfer (unknown method) -> single mono channel 44.10Hz/16bit wav.

Remastering summer 2019 ::: 44.10Hz/16bit wav -> computer -> Audacity [normalisation to remove DC offset, fades, manual one-at-a-time glitch, bump, clap, pop, click, dropout & dullspot repairs, volume adjustments, speed fine on transfer except #01 1st 6 secs -1.5% to match other talk (speed of music checked with frequency analysis), lite differential equalisation applied (& bad 50KHz hum notched out), very lite noise reduction] -> CD Wave (track splits) -> flacs (Trader's Little Helper) -> Freed 2021-01-xx (NOTE: unknown why master tape had lower quality in #04 (7500Hz) but #02&06 are 10-11,000Hz.

Line-up (more info below) ::: Bob Pegg - melodeon (with effects), penny whistle, percussion // Carole Ann Pegg - fiddle, vocals, percussion.

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

DimeTravel 704 ::: Thanks to the original taper, E!, for the original off-air recording & re-doing it in lossless form - MUCH appreciated. ::: Corrections welcome ::: Garner says these 3 titles are Top Gear 1971-09-13 Playhouse Theatre (1st broadcast 1971-09-25). Bob Pegg says Mr Fox also did an In Concert. He says this session is not the Playhouse Theatre date but is a short time later. To me, with the setlist match, it seems likely Garner's date & location are correct with the band member listing incorrect. Session records say Barry Lyons & Alan Eden played at the Playhouse Theatre session, but Pegg says on the material here he & Carole did the overdubs, including percussion. So, apparently NO Lyons or Eden involvement here (& also Peel mentions it's just Bob & Carole). An extraordinary find, would that it had surfaced sooner, but better late than never! 2 unissued songs & "The Gipsy", a classic which morphed over time - great to have another studio version. This full-length version of "The Gipsy" is much more stark & without the full drum kit sound of the album, so while similar, has a more spacy, "out" sound than the album version. "Silly Billy" fits right into the Mr Fox catalog, and "H.P. Source" is astonishing folk/psychedlia that takes on on a trip in something like the same fashion as "Mendle" - they were treading new universes. One of the great folkrock bands of the era, still drastically underrated, all the more so for their originality, not just turning trad to electricity like many bands, but with lyrical innovations & storytelling unlike any other. Certainly Peel got it. The in session bands for this program were Mr Fox, Brotherhood Of Breath and Ron Geesin, and Peelie played some Sandy Denny, Michael Hurley, Shelagh McDonald & much more to complement the weirdness! This is perhaps from the same solar system as the EPIC "I Feel Concerned" by Gay & Terry Woods from 1970-11-03 Top Gear. Listen, enjoy, show appreciation, share, give, spread peace. Yrs truly, Knees

Bob Pegg on this session... "It's a strange beast. There are certainly some overdubs - penny whistle when I'm singing the slow bit - and I'm sure the percussion is overdubbed also, by me and/or Carole. Alan's playing ("Alun" was a misprint which stuck) would have been more sophisticated. No sign of a bass on any of the tracks. In fact, it seems that Carole and I did a number of broadcasts as Mr Fox, just the two of us. Jim Lloyd, our manager, wanted us to be Mr Fox, and occasionally add other musicians for big concerts. We said no, we wanted to be a full-time four piece with Alan and Barry, so essentially he dumped us. The beginning of the end - or the end of the beginning... These are both songs Carole and I had forgotten singing, let alone recording, though they came back soon enough on listening. "Silly Billy" is OK, but "H P Source" is something else, a full-on homage to H.P. Lovecraft (you have to be a fan of his writing maybe, but there are plenty of them around)."

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