Fly Away

Agincourt – Fly Away (Full Album) 1970 Acid Folk Mega Rare Private Pressing

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• published: 26 Feb 2016
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Although made available in 1970, Fly Away was never officially released each copy had the words "demo recording not available on general release" on the rear of the sleeve. Musically Fly Away was miles away from just a demo and one of the best acid-folk albums of its day putting the original `Merlin` pressings value up to around the 2000 British pounds mark today – check out more Private Pressings on my you tube channel Side1 1 When I Awoke 2 Though I May Be Dreaming 3 Get Together 4 Joy In The Finding 5 Going Home 6 All My Life 7 Mirabella Side 2 1 Take Me There 2 Lisa 3 Dawn 4 Barn Owl Blues 5 Kind Sir 6 Through The Eyes Of A Lifetime (Parts I-III) Howell and Ferdinando met through a mutual friend, Malcolm Garrett, and were soon playing in an ad hoc band in their native East Sussex. More crucial to Howell's musical development was his Philips reel-to-reel tape recorder. "I was interested in the challenge of making tunes and accompanying myself and everything so I got into other instrumental things". Thus, Howell and Ferdinando began collaborating on tape. When his parents moved to a bigger house, Howell soundproofed and subdivided a bedroom to create a recording space and a control room. By this time he had also saved up enough money to upgrade to a Revox 736. "Nobody had actually told us how heavy a Revox 736 was," he recalls. "Otherwise we would have got a trolley! It was just hilarious as we had to truck this thing all the way back from London to Brighton through stations and everything. It was a miracle we got it home without dropping it." Their first serious recording project came about through Ferdinando being a member of an amateur dramatics society, The Ditchling Players, who staged a production of Alice Through The Looking Glass starring future BBC broadcaster Martha Kearney as Alice. It was at this stage they decided to release the music from Alice as an LP. "The reasoning behind that," recalls Ferdinando, "was that we wanted to produce a memento for those who had been involved in the production." Their second LP, Tomorrow Comes Sunday, was the soundtrack to a local film and was again pressed in a small quantity for actors, production crew and friends Fly Away was, however, intended to be a collection of Howell and Ferdinando songs recorded in Howell's new purpose-built bedroom studio The recording of Fly Away was very relaxed. "There was this comfortable feeling," Howell says. "It was not a big deal, there were no deadlines and it was just an evening activity. John would come down and we would just continue doing a track. There were quite a few weekends involved as well especially with Lee Menelaus - she was a great singer - but if you could not quite get a track finished it was no big deal. Peter was interested in tapes and music and I was interested in writing bits and pieces. It was fulfilling our own amusement really." It seems almost a crime that the record seeped out no further than Howell and Ferdinando's family and friends because Fly Away is a timeless album and sounds as contemporary today. Then again, Howell and Ferdinando were not interested in wider recognition or success, but in moving on to their next project which was a showcase for Ferdinando's Moody Blues-influenced songs recorded and released in 1972 under the name of Ithaca as A Game For All Who Know. (see this elsewhere on my you tube channel)