Thus it was that we met Alf Bower. Alf was primarily an art house film maker, but he wanted to brush up on his recording skills, and our project seemed ideal. From that point on it mushroomed.
Nigel Broadbent joined us from the Waggoners, Dave Sharpe on drums, Trevors daughter Lorna on fiddle. Between us, on a Teac tape machine and a four track mixer, we put together some stunning tracks with bass, drums, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, whistles, flutes, strings, clarinet, dulcimer, mandolin and fiddle. Then it ran out of steam!
Without any financial backing or incentive we couldn't keep the momentum
going., and it got increasingly hard to get everyone to session. By the end of 1975. The
project was shelved becoming effectively a dead duck.
But that wasn't the end of it. After a hiatus of a couple of years, and the acquisition
of decent domestic recording gear we started up again - this time at Malcolms House.
we lacked a drummer, but we had acquired a good lead guitarist in the form of Paul
Zdanowicz, who was quite hooked on the project.
More recordings were made, many of them good, and we finished the piece, but it somehow
lacked Alf Bower's touch at Yorkshire Arts. I suspect that corners were cut, simply to
get it finished.
Three items were dropped from the original libretto, just to enable us
to fit it on two sides of a cassette!
Finished, The Pathfinder was an anticlimax! In the first half of the seventies it had been
aimed at the 'folk-rock' market, possibly at a contract with a folk based label like
Transatlantic Records. But by 1979, the 'folk rock' trend had passed into history and there
was no potential market for a piece like 'The Pathfinder'. We mixed down our copies, and
went our separate ways.
We'd finally made our mystical journey to Robin Hoods Bay only to
find that when we got there we'd missed the boat!!
All musical and lyrical material on this site is COPYRIGHT JIM JARRATT & MAL LAWS 2002. No part of THE PATHFINDER may be reproduced or performed for commercial purposes without the express permission of the authors. While it is accepted that parts of the site may be freely downloaded for private use, we ask in return that you respect the ownership of our work.