The Iron Muse (A Panorama of Industrial Folk Song) is the title of two albums released by Topic Records, the first as a 12-inch Long Playvinyl record released in 1963 and the other as a CD released in 1993.
The album is listed in the accompanying book to the Topic Records 70 year anniversary boxed set Three Score and Ten as one of their classic records[2]: 30 with The Blackleg Miners as the sixth track and The Weavers March as the twentieth track on the sixth CD in the set. Both tracks appear on the two versions of the album.
The Iron Muse (A Panorama of Industrial Folk Song) arranged and produced by A. L. Lloyd is a thematic Industrial folk music album.[3] The featured singers and musicians are Anne Briggs, Bob Davenport, Ray Fisher, Louis Killen, A. L. Lloyd, Matt McGinn and The Celebrated Working Man's Band.[4]John Tams considers it to be in the form of a radio ballad.[2]: 31 The album was recorded at Champion's in Hampstead, London[2]: 30 byBill Leader and Paul Carter in an ad hoc studio set up in a large room. Colin Ross said that they had to wait for the coke fire to stop crackling before they could record the tracks.[2]: 31 The album had a sleeve note commentary and a 4-page accompanying booklet with tune and song details, including lyrics, both written by A. L. Lloyd.
Side one consists of music and songs from coal mining, the majority of which are printed in a book of coalfield songs by A. L. Lloyd.[5] The second side starts with a weaving tune and continues with songs covering weaving, foundry work and shipbuilding, and ends with a final coal mining song and a set of coalfield tunes.
This album was Anne Briggs's first recorded work. This was also Matt McGinn's first recorded work after he won a songwriting competition with "The Foreman O'Rourke".[6]
In the booklet for the vinyl album, A. L. Lloyd writes that "The Poor Cotton Wayver" has a version to a different tune on Ewan MacColl's album Shuttle And Cage (1954),[7] which had been published under the title of "The Four Loom Weaver" in MacColl's book The Shuttle And Cage.[8]: 4 [9]
The record was issued in America by Elektra[10] in 1964, with the tracks ordered in a different sequence and without The Collier's Daughter.
The numbers in superscript brackets refer to the track number on the CD release.
All songs and tunes are traditional except where the author is identified following the title.
Anne Briggs, Bob Davenport, Ray Fisher, Louis Killen, The Celebrated Working Man's Band, High Level Ranters, Tommy Giffellon, Ewan MacColl, Dick Gaughan, Ed Pickford, Maureen Craik, Dave Brooks, Harry Boardman and the Oldham Tinkers
The second album with the same name was released as a compilation with only eight of the original tracks, the remainder being from other albums of the same period. None of the A. L. Lloyd or Matt McGinn songs appeared on the CD.
All songs and tunes are traditional except where the author is identified following the title.
All the authors listed below are from the Allmusic website.[12]
Tracks from the original album also appearing on the CD are marked with (*).
