TRACTOR S/T LP UK ORIG RARE PROG PSYCH DANDELION

	£		152
	$		201

Item :

TRACTOR ~ S/T LP.

Original 1972 U.K. first issue pressing released on the Dandelion label 2310 217.

Description :

Monster rare prog album featuring the legendary talents of Rochdale's Jim Milne and Steve Clayton.

In the early days, the main marketing tool of unsigned hopeful bands was to send demo tapes to sympathetic DJs. Accordingly a tape was sent to John Peel who had a fondness for Rochdale, having worked in a cotton mill there before becoming a DJ. Peel sent his label manager, Clive Selwood, from London to Rochdale in order to sign up the band.

The group was booked into London's Spot Studios and finished the sessions within two days, and in January 1971 the band's debut album, A Candle for Judith was released, credited to The Way We Live. The release, named after Clayton's then girlfriend, later wife, earned immediate critical acclaim "...impeccable in both technique and emotion"... Al Clark writing in Time Out in London in 1971.

Meanwhile Peel bought the band recording equipment and a stereo PA system. He also convinced the band to change their name. Looking out of his kitchen window at Peel Acres in Suffolk, he spied a tractor in the fields adjacent to his house and recommended it as a name to them. Tractor's first release after the name change from The Way We Live was a 7 inch maxi single "Stoney Glory"/"Marie"/"As You Say" for Dandelion. They also backed up another Dandelion act called Beau led by C.J.T. "Beau" Midgley on the album Creation. All of this recording was done in an attic and bedroom studio of a terraced house in Edenfield Road Rochdale, which John Peel named Dandelion Studios, Rochdale to tie in with his record label Dandelion Records.

The duo's first full-length follow-up, named simply Tractor was released in 1972. By January 1973, the album was earning positive reviews. Melody Maker stated "albums don't come any better than this", Bob Harris, Anne Nightingale on BBC Radio One and Kid Jensen on Radio Luxembourg all gave heavy airplay to the album and it climbed to 18 in the Radio Luxembourg album charts and to 30 in the Virgin Bestseller charts. Longtime sound engineer John Brierley was eventually replaced by former The Way We Live singer Alan Burgess and, along with Milne, Clayton, and new production manager Chris Hewitt, the group began building a studio in a 3rd Floor / attic in Dawson Street, Market Street Heywood, Lancashire, named Tractor Sound Studios, again partially financed by John Peel. This studio would feature in a BBC film about Rochdale, Heywood, and John Peel, when the band and Chris Hewitt revisited the studio in December 2006. The third album for Dandelion, which was to be eventually released in the 1990s as Worst Enemies, was recorded at both Chipping Norton Studios, Oxfordshire and Tractor Sound Studios, Heywood. Standout track is the 21-minute piece about the Peterloo Massacre.

Tractor eventually left the Dandelion label which had effectively ceased to operate by late 1973 and they are still performing to this day.  

Condition ~ Vinyl :

The vinyl is in virtually perfect NEAR MINT condition. Gorgeous !!!

Condition ~ Sleeve :

The sleeve is in VG+ condition with a tiny clip off the top left-hand corner and a small area of wear on the upper spine. Otherwise the sleeve is in great shape.

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ABOUT ME

I have been trading in new and used vinyl for over twenty five years beginning in the early eighties with record fairs all over the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada and the States. Since 1995 I have been the proprietor of Rooster Records which is a retail store currently located in Exeter, Devon in the south-west of England. We sell all kinds of vinyl, CDs and DVDs. I have always treated customers honestly and fairly and like to think that I get it right when grading a record. What you see is what you get !

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