Live At The BBC 1972 - 79

Dick Gaughan was professionally active from 1970-2016, retiring on health grounds and living now quietly in Edinburgh. While Handful of Earth (1981) remains his most lauded single body of work, it marked, for the artist himself, the end of an era - the absolute best that he could do within traditional music. From that point on, contemporary songwriting, often in service to social commentary, became more prominent. For reasons most easily described as the vicissitudes of rights ownership and the consequent absence from the marketplace of several early albums, ready access to the 'first phase' of Dick's career - the ten years preceding Handful of Earth - has long been difficult. This album, LIVE AT THE BBC - and its parent set, the 7CD/DVD R/evolution: 1969-83 - retrieves that 'lost era' in abundance, revealing the magnificence of Dick Gaughan's early music for the twenty-first century listener.