18 July 1982
SA 30/6/402/1 — Mick & Sarah Graves; Geoff & Penny Harris. The Record Office's published research identifies Sarah and Mick Graves performing at Chelmsford Folk Club on this date.
Folk Club research / recordings
Folk Club Recording Collection
A focused guide to the surviving Jim Etheridge recording trail associated with Chelmsford Folk Club. This page treats the recordings as an evidence collection: what survives, what the catalogue identifies, what the recordings can establish, and where the surviving record remains partial.
Evidence boundary: the existence of a catalogue record does not mean the whole evening survives, and a dated recording should not be assigned a venue or programme detail unless the surviving evidence supports that connection.
Why the collection matters
The Essex Record Office's guide says Jim Etheridge recorded almost every Chelmsford Folk Club between 1978 and 1986. He used an open-reel recorder and microphone to capture the whole evening — announcements, floor singers, applause and other atmosphere — then dubbed the material to cassette. The guide says there are usually two cassettes per evening and describes the unedited recordings as a unique record of live performance through a whole evening.
The same guide says the Chelmsford evenings normally involved a rotating MC, floor singers in the first half, a guest's first spot, an interval and raffle, more floor singers, a final guest spot and usually an encore. These details describe the collection's documentary potential; they do not mean every surviving recording contains every part of that sequence.
Surviving Chelmsford recording trail currently indexed here
17 October 1982
SA 30/6/425/1 — Martin Carthy. The surviving catalogue record identifies parts 2 and 4 of 4 and names Colin Cater as introducer.
7 November 1982
SA 30/6/428/1 — Annie Harding / Chelmsford Morris. The catalogue identifies parts 1 and 3 of 4, including Annie Harding singing “Reynardine” and three Chelmsford Morris dances connected with its tenth anniversary.
3 March 1985
SA 30/6/653/1 — Popular Wobblies, Peter Billing, Geoff Harris, Simon Ritchie and others named in the surviving catalogue record. The recording ends abruptly, so survival is explicitly partial.
22 December 1985
SA 30/6/712/1 — East Anglian Dulcimers. The Record Office's published research identifies Paul McCann and Jill Palmer-Swift performing on the recording.
20 April 1986
SA 30/6/736/1 — Seven Straw Braid / Chelmsford Assembly. The surviving record forms part of the late-period recording trail currently indexed by the archive.
Earlier recording evidence
| Record | What is established | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| SA 30/6/94/1 | 1978 Chelmsford Folk Club Christmas Special. | The source currently indexed here does not supply a complete performer list, so none is invented. |
| SA 30/6/33/1 | Chelmsford Morris May Day, 1980. | Treated as an associated Morris recording, not silently merged into the ordinary guest-performance index. |
| SA 30/6/478/1 | Blackmore Morris at Chelmsford Folk Club, 1983. | Retained as associated recording evidence rather than a conventional headline-gig record. |
What the recordings can establish
Performance
Named performers, songs, tunes, introductions and parts of sets where the catalogue or surviving listening record identifies them.
Club practice
Where the surviving tape includes it, the collection can reveal MC introductions, floor singers, announcements, applause, raffle and the structure of an evening.
People and connections
Recordings can be cross-read with oral histories and paper records to identify relationships without treating one source as proof of another.
Survival limits
Part numbers, incomplete sessions and abrupt endings matter. “Recorded” and “fully preserved” are deliberately not treated as synonyms.
What the recordings cannot automatically establish
- A complete list of every performer who appeared at the club.
- A complete gig-by-gig chronology for 1978–86.
- The exact venue for every surviving recording without documentary or catalogue support.
- That an associated Morris recording was the same thing as the main Folk Club guest programme.
- That an oral-history memory is a contemporaneous event record.
These limits are part of the archive, not defects to be hidden.
Research routes
Recording Map · Performance Records · Documentary Crosswalk · Source Access Guide · Evidence Matrix · Venue Source Ledger · Archive Questions