Sleeve notes 1

SUMMERTIME BOOZE
I can't remember when I first met Nev Grundy or Chris Harvey for that matter - it must have been in the seventies when trousers were flared and so were nostrils. Nev was a singer at Southport's Coronation Folk Club - a rival to the long established Bothy of which I was the organiser and still am but of course I'm just trying it out for 6 months and if I don't like it I can call it a day and go back to my Stax singles. I thought the 'Corry' a threat with its town centre location and zippy Friday night atmosphere, was jealously overprotective of the Bothy and probably looked askance at this Al Stewart-fixated, badge wearing, guitar thrasher. I still look askance at his more extreme behaviour.

Chris was a different cup of meat, semi pro musician with one of the UK's top folk bands - Strawhead. He'd played the Bothy many times in his synth era and once had scalding water over the Korg and himself when the pipes burst during a particularly harsh "Blundell Arms" winter and halfway through "Bold Benbow".

I DO know when I met Candy Rell - it was at Bromyard Festival in 1985, woozy with cider and lack of sleep (me not her) and she introduced herself as the person who'd cold called me about some band called Bryony from York that wanted a gig at £65 and I would only give them £55! Plus ça change. She had corkscrew hair and laughed a lot - we hit it off immediately.

Here then is a disparate (desperate?) bunch of activists on the folk scene, that thought it might be a lark to upset the massed melodeons in the "Elsinore", Whitby during festival week with a snook-cocking blast of 50s and 60s rock-a-beatin'-boogie and over the years has gone doing just that, never rehearsing and erm, laying down tracks quickly in the studio so that 2 pints can be secured before last orders. We actually get a few gigs too.

Primarily though it's all Nev's fault, his idea, his pigeon, his repertory and ultimately his responsibility when the Police are called! This our third release and the first on this new-fangled CD format. We hope you'll treasure it and play it as a backdrop to those beach parties you'll all be at this Summer. Me I'm just the drummer - I like dark nights, 78rpm shellac and I realised in 1965 when the first band I was ever in got £1 between the four of us for our first engagement that I was never going to make any money out of showbiz.

It's good fun though isn't it?

Clive Pownceby


FOUR PACK
It was in 1992 when Chris, Clive and Nev decided to rock the boat during Whitby Folk Week by playing rock & roll in the Elsinore Hotel, home to throngs of accordion players from noon to midnight. This one-off jam session is now an annual event during Folk Week, with the little pub bursting at the seams with temperatures and conditions that raise two fingers to health & safety regulations. In 1995, Candy Rell completed the line-up after she had guested on their debut album, and has been an essential part of the gang ever since.

Their recording debut was Liquid Diet (1995), followed by Alehouse Rock (1997), both on cassette. They then switched to CD and released Summertime Booze (1999), and Elsinore Rigby (2001).

After a gap of five years, the Legends have returned to the studio to issue this double CD containing every song they have recorded to date, with three previously unreleased tracks. The first two albums are now available on CD for the first time ever, and you can trace the band’s evolution from cheeky iconoclasts to stars of the premier fringe event of Folk Week, featuring illustrious special guests from the folk world as special guests.

Take this piece of rock & roll history home and relive the party whenever the winter blues draw in too close; play it and think of summer, rock & roll and the Legends!

Dave Newton

Alternative 2nd paragraph (not used due to lack of space):
The first two albums, Liquid Diet (1995) and Alehouse Rock (1997) were released on cassette, still a popular format at the time. 1999’s Summertime Booze saw them switching to CD, and included the finest millennium song ever written: “It’s the Year 2000 (and the World Needs to Rock & Roll)”, written by Geoff Parry and Nev. Two years later, Elsinore Rigby showcased the band’s increasing versatility by featuring songs by artists as diverse as Lou Reed and Richard Thompson, with Clive making his vocal debut in a very creditable version of “Poison Ivy”. Candy’s breakneck version of Da Doo Ron Ron” included a solo from Chris that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a Van Halen album.