TREVOR BEALES - FIRESIDE STORIES (HEBDEN BRIDGE CIRCA 1971-1974)

Released: 02/12/22

Today, the valley town of Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire is renowned as an enclave populated by artists and artisans; but it isn’t always like this – back in the late 60s and the early 70s, when a disparate selection of radicals, drop-outs, heads, musicians, artists and writers started to be attracted to the Calder Valley, it was still what local lad, and future Poet Laureate, Ted Hughes called “the fouled nest of industrialisation”.

It was in this pre-bohemian milieu that the cult folk artist Trevor Beales grew up, and from where he drew musical and lyrical inspiration. Beales died suddenly and unexpectedly in 1987, at the age of 33, and despite his music never being officially released by a label, his reputation as one of the unsung folk greats has continued to grow. Beale’s discovery of Bob Dylan, Django Reinhardt, The Byrds and James Taylor at a young age, lead to him picking up a guitar at the age of ten, sowing the seeds of the two major aspects of this music make it so remarkable: a sophisticated guitar-picking style that was leagues ahead of many of his (older, more recognised) contemporaries, confidently holding its own with pioneers such as Davey Graham, Michael Chapman, Dave Evans, Bert Jansch and Jackson C Frank; and his beautiful and literary lyrics.

Recorded in the attic of the family home at Ivy Bank in Charlestown on the verdant wooded slopes at the edge of Hebden Bridge between 1971 and 1974, these remarkable early recordings are collected here for the first time – a de facto debut that is long, long overdue, and that will finally reach the audience that Beales so richly deserved.