This album deserves at least one more review, and a 5-star one at that. Doubling up the original Deep Lancashire with its sequel, Owdham Edge, this is a fantastic-value snapshot of the real-life urban folk music of 1960s Lancashire. Warmly sentimental on the one hand, wryly comic on the other, it's a tradition which hasn't entirely disappeared - though it's perhaps less in evidence nowadays.
Launching the careers of Mike Harding and the Oldham Tinkers, these records were apparently Topic's biggest sellers in their day. I've known them for many years, and I think what I love most about them is a kind of contented peace at their heart - ironic, considering the brutally hard lives which are the main subject of the songs.
One small complaint: in deciding which of the original tracks to include, how on earth could the cacophonic warbling of Nobbut a Cockstride Away have been preferred to the brilliant Bard's Reformation?