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Author: admin

Early Vinyl Recordings

Posted on August 10, 2008November 17, 2021 by admin

Leon’s early vinyl recordings listed below, are now available as downloads on all major digital retail outlets, including iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and Napster.

SONGS FOR CITY SQUARES  TOP 77 Topic Records ep 1962

 

VOTE FOR US (with assorted actors & musicians) TRA 120

Transatlantic Records LP 1964

SONGS FOR SCEPTICAL CIRCLES BY 6029 Elektra Records LP 1966

A LAUGH A SONG & A HANDGRENADE (with Adrian Mitchell)

TRA 171 Transatlantic Records LP  1968

THE WORD IS HUGGA MUGGA…. (with Martin Carthy guitar)

LER 3015 Trailer Records LP 1971

PALACES OF GOLD CF 249 Acorn Records LP 1975

THAT’S NOT THE WAY IT’S GOT TO BE (with Roy Bailey)

CF 251 Acorn Records LP 1975

LOVE LONELINESS LAUNDRY (with Roy Bailey) CF 271 Acorn Records LP 1977

 

IF I KNEW WHO THE ENEMY WAS (with Roy Bailey)

CF 284 Fuse Records LP 1979

FOR THE GOOD OF THE NATION CF 381 Fuse Records LP 1981

NUCLEAR POWER NO THANKS (with Frankie Armstrong, Roy Bailey, Martin Carthy, Chris Foster, Sandra Kerr…) Inter-Action LP 1981

TEMPORARY LOSS OF VISION CF 384 Fuse Records LP 1983

BRINGING THE NEWS FROM NOWHERE CF 390 Fuse Records LP 1986

I DIDN’T MEAN IT CF 392 Fuse Records LP 1988

 

  

A Proper State CD Cover

A Proper State – 2008

Posted on June 27, 2008August 26, 2023 by admin

FUSE RECORDS CFCD024 

Tracks:
Conversation on a Mobile
The Ghost of Georges Brassens
Barney’s Epic Homer
Barney’s Got a Job Now
A Proper State
When They Ask Me
The Third Intifada
See Life’s Road Before You
Like Love
Faslane 365
The Power of Song

“This new album is predictably angry but at times startlingly original and sophisticated. It starts with a well-performed, bitter story about mobile phones, which veers between cabaret and a thoughtful observation on non-communication in a communication-obsessed world. Then comes a song about the great French songwriter Georges Brassens, and a series of political and social comment songs that deal with everything from fame and the consumer society through to death, the Middle East and nuclear disarmament, using an elaborate mixture of stories and musical ideas.” – GUARDIAN (See the full article at the guardian.co.uk) 

“Another triumph of the craft of wordsmithery and full of typically nifty and barbed wordplay… Another splendid set” – fROOTS

“He’s had a long career but this is one of his best.” – MOJO

“The songs on A Proper State, like those throughout his half century of singing and writing, obstinately defy category… The title track excoriates the bread and circus world of celebrity obsession, fashion-fetishism and the ‘heart-shaped emptiness’ of liposuction and botoxification…. When They Ask Me casts a lyrical-satirical eye on death, whose complete antithesis, Like Love, is one of the sweetest simile sequences imaginable for that indefinable, yet often over-defined, human condition.” – SOCIALIST LAWYER

“Rosselson is on great form here and has lost none of those qualities which have made him for so long such a fascinating and uplifting presence: a wonderful ear for melody, a poet’s skill with words, a subtle and highly intelligent humour and a brilliant ability to make his theme poignant by concealment.” – THE PENNILESS PRESS

“No composer of songs in our native tongue, it seems to me, gets close to his level of eloquence.” – COLIN RANDALL SALUT LIVE

Price: £12
Postage to the UK included in the price.  
Send a cheque as per Mail Order instructions here or click the Buy Now button below.
 
PayPal — The safer, easier way to pay online.

 

nd They All Sang Rosselsongs album cover

And They All Sang RosselSongs – 2008

Posted on June 22, 2008August 26, 2023 by admin

FUSE RECORDS CFCD 012 

A stunning new release featuring 15 of Britains finest acoustic music performers singing 15 Rosselson classics.

STILL IS THE MEMORY Nancy Kerr & James Fagan
WHOEVER INVENTED THE FISHFINGER John Kirkpatrick
DON’T GET MARRIED GIRLS Elizabeth Mansfield
INVISIBLE MARRIED BREAKFAST BLUES Barb Jungr
WHO REAPS THE PROFITS? WHO PAYS THE PRICE? 
Chris Foster

STAND UP FOR JUDAS David Campbell
SONG OF THE OLIVE TREE Janet Russell
THE WALL THAT STANDS BETWEEN Martin Carthy
LET YOUR HAIR HANG DOWN Daniela Rosselson
MY DAUGHTER MY SON Sandra Kerr
WILLIAM Roy Bailey
THE MAN WHO PUFFS THE BIG CIGAR Eliza Carthy
JACKBOOT DEMOCRATS Des de Moor
THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN Robb Johnson

All songs by Leon Rosselson

‘He has the passion of Brel, the commitment of Brecht and the wit of Lehrer.’ SONGLI NES

‘This is an important album of songs written by England’s greatest living songwriter.’ THE LIVING TRADITION

‘The man is a songwriting colossus’  fROOTS 

Price: £12
Postage to the UK included in the price.  
Send a cheque as per Mail Order instructions here or click the Buy Now button below.
 
PayPal — The safer, easier way to pay online.

 

Guardian Reviews A Proper State

Posted on April 11, 2008 by admin

The Guardian today reviewed the latest album, A Proper State. “..he has continued to perfect his skills, with surprising results. This new album is predictably angry, but at times startlingly original and sophisticated”. See the full article at the guardian.co.uk

Turning Silence Into Song cover image

Turning Silence Into Song – 2005

Posted on June 21, 2005August 26, 2023 by admin

FUSE RECORDS CFCD 009

14 Rosselsongs ranging over 40 years from around 1963 to 2004: 

Jumbo the Elephant
Song of the Free Press
The Wall That Stands Between
Remembrance Day
General Lockjaw Briefs the Troops
Monsters
Dead Men Never Die
The Enemy’s Poised to 
Attack
I Don’t Want Your Red, Red Roses
Strange the Things We don’t 
Remember
Brass Band Music
Song of the Olive Tree
They Said…
My Father’s Jewish World.

With Frankie Armstrong, Bill Amatneek, Martin Carthy, Robb Johnson, Elizabeth Mansfield, Camilla Saunders, Fiz Shapur, 
Jody Stecher & Miranda Sykes.

‘… lyrics of genuine wit and poetic value’ – DAILY TELEGRAPH, 24 July 2004
                       
 ‘Buy this album and ruin a dinner party with a heated political debate. Not many people can do that.’ fROOTS  – Aug/Sept 2004
       
‘Rosselson defines the power, musical eloquence and history of politicised song’ – RECORD COLLECTOR Nov 2004

‘… he holds the attention through sharp writing that deploys anger, irony and wit in appropriate measures’ – THE LIVING TRADITION Sept/Oct 2004

 

Price: £11
Postage to the UK included in the price.  
Send a cheque as per Mail Order instructions here or click the Buy Now button below.
 
PayPal — The safer, easier way to pay online.

 

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This is my letter to the Guardian which it refused to publish though it had well over 100 signatories:

"Since Gaza is uninhabitable, because Israel has made it so, and since most of Gaza’s citizens are refugees or the children of refugees, because Israel has made them so, the only just and humane solution is for them to be allowed to return to their homes in what was Palestine until Israel usurped it. Another Great March of Return, only this time without the violence inflicted on the marchers by Israeli snipers."

Leon Rosselson is a singer, songwriter and children's book author.
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