SLEEVE NOTES FROM IRISH AND COUNTRY STEEL GUITAR

Basil Henriques

The Lost Album.

I thought you might like to know the story of how this album came to be recorded, lost and found again.

In 1989 whilst I was touring with Foster and Allen, the manager of their record company Sen. Donie Cassidy, asked me to record an album of songs of F&A and also other artists on the CMR record label.  Donie had spent vast sums of money recording his artists with backings by the Radio Telefis Eireann Concert orchestra and thought it would be a good idea to take me into the studios and using the original multi-track masters, record instrumental versions of the songs. 

This we did, and as I was producing the records for Foster & Allen and Louise Morrisey, Tony Stevens and most of Donie's artists, it was left up to me to decide on the mix.The tunes were finished and whilst mixing them I recorded a cassette copy from the desk to give to Donie so he could decide the ones to use and the running order.(I also made a copy of the copy)

Subsequently, the main master and the multitrack  masters were lost in a fire, and the only copy that existed was my copy of the original cassette . By this time I no longer had this cassette, I had sent it to my friend Ernie Tough in Aberdeen.I then promptly forgot about the album for the next 12 years, UNTIL, one day last year when Pat and I were rummaging through a box of old cassettes we came across a copy that had been sent to Pat from John Marsden.The tape was a 4th generation copy and quite noisy, but, spurred on by the find,  I contacted Ernie and 'Borrowed' his original copy of the copy.Because the original was in such good condition, I've managed to restore it and make a CD master. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed resurrecting it !!

Having returned to my first love "Hawaiian Music", this album is probably the last album to be recorded of my Country style playing. Pat, myself and Michael are collaborating to produce a new album of   "The Waikiki Islanders"  with a fresh new interpretation of the Golden Hawaiian Hits.