Catalogue
Sets the hard boundary: reference number, date, named subjects and surviving part numbers where stated.
Folk Club research / provenance
Folk Club Recording Provenance
A provenance view showing how an individual Chelmsford Folk Club recording moves from catalogue record to published identification and, where available, independent oral or paper corroboration. The chain is deliberately conservative: a later source can corroborate an identification, but it does not silently repair missing tape.
Reading rule: each chain is evidence about the surviving record, not a claim that the whole evening survives. “Independent” means a separate evidence stream; it does not mean that the two sources necessarily describe the same tape content.
Provenance chains
| Session | Primary catalogue | Independent identification/context | Current archive status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1978 Christmas Special | SA 30/6/94/1 | Record Office folk-music guide lists the surviving Christmas Special. | Recorded and catalogued. Programme/performer reconstruction remains open. |
| 18 Jul 1982 | SA 30/6/402/1 | Record Office published research independently identifies Sarah and Mick Graves at Chelmsford Folk Club that date. | Corroborated. The surviving catalogue record remains the boundary for what is actually preserved. |
| 17 Oct 1982 | SA 30/6/425/1 | Published research identifies Martin Carthy; catalogue names Colin Cater as introducer and supplies repertoire details. | Partially surviving. Parts 2 and 4 of 4 are the explicit survival boundary. |
| 7 Nov 1982 | SA 30/6/428/1 | Catalogue identifies Annie Harding and Chelmsford Morris; later Annie Harding oral history independently supports her Chelmsford Folk Club involvement. | Partially surviving + oral corroboration. Parts 1 and 3 of 4 remain the tape boundary. |
| 3 Mar 1985 | SA 30/6/653/1 | Record Office published research identifies Simon and Bobbie Ritchie and “The March Hare”. | Incomplete. Catalogue says the recording ends abruptly. |
| 22 Dec 1985 | SA 30/6/712/1 | Published research identifies Paul McCann and Jill Palmer-Swift performing with East Anglian Dulcimers. | Recorded and catalogued. No complete programme is inferred from the article. |
| 20 Apr 1986 | SA 30/6/736/1 | Published research identifies Jill Palmer-Swift introducing Chelmsford Assembly / Seven Straw Braid. | Partially surviving. Part 1 of 2 is explicit; part 2 is not reconstructed. |
What each layer contributes
Published Record Office research
Can independently identify a performance or person and provide useful context, but does not expand the surviving catalogue record.
Oral history
Can corroborate people, roles, venues and club practice. It remains a remembered account and is not substituted for a missing recording side.
Paper trail
Essex Folk News, guest lists and newsletters may independently establish a bill or venue when the original paper actually names it.
Why provenance matters
The Essex Record Office describes Jim Etheridge's recordings as unusually valuable because he often recorded whole evenings, including announcements, floor singers and applause, with usually two cassettes per evening. Yet individual catalogue entries show that the surviving material can be partial. The provenance chain therefore protects the archive from a common historical error: treating the collection-level statement as if every individual evening were complete.
The Record Office's published research also explicitly connects the surviving recordings to the wider Essex folk scene and to Essex Folk News. That creates several independent routes for future checking, while keeping the catalogue as the primary survival boundary.
Research routes
Recording Collection · Recording Evidence Matrix · Recording Reconstruction · Documentary Crosswalk · Essex Folk News Trail · Source Access Guide