TRASAM 16, the most popular Johnstons album by some way.
Last night, wanting to see what Irish folk LPs were available on eBay, I chose The Johnstons for my representative Irish folk group. The steps are these: enter the Shop By Category page, scroll down to Music and click onto the Records sub-section, and key in “The Johnstons” in Search… This will get me straight to the desired Irish Folk / Traditional category. Or so I thought.
I now know that there are 19 Johnstons records (16 LPs and 3 45s) currently on offer on eBay, including a solo album by Adrienne Jonstone (sic). There follows a breakdown of category:
Music > Records > Albums / LPs > Folk > English 8
Music > Records > Albums / LPs > Pop & Beat: 1960s > Pop: 1960s 2
Music > Records > Albums / LPs > Rock > Progressive 2
Music > Records > Albums / LPs > Folk > Other Folk 1
Music > Records > Albums / LPs > Irish Folk / Traditional 1
[Bingo! This was my 12th attempt!]
Music > Records 1
Music > Records > 12” Singles > Pop > 1980s 1
[This - a listing for TRASAM 16, The Johnstons Sampler from 1970 - is advertised as “Rare Scottish Folk”, but the confusion is at least compounded by corporate inconsistency, as eBay don’t have a Scottish Folk category: presumably they’re one of those institutions threatening to move away from Scotland come independence, if Scotland features on the corporate radar at all.]
Music > Records > 7” Singles > Folk 1
Music > Records > 7” Singles > Rock > Psychedelic / 60s Garage 1
Feeling somewhat bemused, I repeated the exercise with The Dubliners. This time, I reached Irish Folk / Traditional on my sixth attempt (3 Other Folk; 2 Music > Records). The clue is in the name, dummy: The Dubliners.
'The Category Stomp', by the way, is a song by the great John Hartford, a Country artist (there seems to be consensus here).
'The Category Stomp', by the way, is a song by the great John Hartford, a Country artist (there seems to be consensus here).
Further: 50% of ebayers – these findings are based on the search "Bobbie Gentry" on popsike.com – give Bobbie Gentry's 1968 LP as ‘The Delta Sweetie’ rather than the correct title, which is 'The Delta Sweete'. This is a textbook Freudian slip, caused by the same wishful thinking that translates the 1981 John Carpenter film 'Escape from New York' to 'Escape to New York'.
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