Dancing English

As attention focuses once again on English country music, Oak: Country Songs And Music is timely. A double CD incorporating their only LP Welcome To Our Fair, it includes virtually everything they ever recorded and underlines the importance of their link between the old dance music and the new. "What pleases me," says Stradling, "is that there are a number of good musicians playing today who might not have been had it not been for the record."

He is gratified by the current surge of interest in the music - and the quality of the musicianship in the new wave of bands - with one reservation. "To tell you the truth I haven't heard too many of the new bands, but some I've heard don't seem to have much of an appreciation of how the old guys used to play it. That's fine for them, but from my point of view I think they'd get a better result if they spent more time at the beginning, rather than right away trying to move it in their own way."

That may sound a bit rich. One of the reasons Rod Stradling is held in such deep respect is his willingness to move the music forward, but he contends that was only undertaken after full acclimatisation with its source. "I get the impression that many of the new bands have listened more to people like us than to the sources that we listened to. I've found that mucking about with something you don't understand doesn't produce the best results."