John Wild Recording Archive

We have been pleased to have been given the opportunity to restore some recordings of Reuben Shaw, Wilfred Pearce and Herbert Hague and share them here. These recordings were provided by John Wild.

They have been restored using audio tools from iZotope (RX8), and not only has this allowed noise to be removed and levels corrected to broadcast standards, but tape wow and flutter has also been reduced.

John explains how he came to have custody of the recordings:

“An original reel-to-reel tape was recorded on to a cassette by Reuben Shaw, and Reuben kindly sent me a copy of the cassette after I attended several of his workshops at Witney or Kilve.

Much later I digitised the cassette as WAV and MP3 files. And finally, ICA has cleaned them up, to give the result we now have”.

REUBEN SHAW/WILFRED PEARCE/HERBERT HAGUE

RS = Reuben Shaw, playing 67-key MacCann duet concertina
WP = Wilfred Pearce, playing 64-key English concertina
HH = Herbert Hague, playing 48-key English concertina

Wilfred Pearce

01-JW Thoughts Waltz
02-JW In The Gloaming

Reuben Shaw/Wilfred Pearce

03-JW End of a Perfect Day/Somewhere a Voice is Calling/Asleep in the Deep
04-JW Lorelei
05-JW Colonel Bogey
06-JW Waldteufal waltzes selection
07-JW Cavaliera Rusticana
08-JW The Lost Chord
09-JW Hymn (Heanor?) (enhanced by reverb)
09-JW Hymn (Heanor?) (raw, after restoration)
10-JW New Colonial March
11-JW Marie My Girl
12-JW Macushla
13-JW How Great Thou Art

Reuben Shaw

14-JW La Golondrina
15-JW Asleep in the Deep
16-JW Ave Maria (enhanced with reverb)
16-JW Ave Maria (raw, after restoration)

Reuben Shaw/Wilfred Pearce/Herbert Hague

17-JW Silverhill
18-JW Leamoor
19-JW New Colonial March (enhanced with reverb)
19-JW New Colonial March (raw, after restoration)
20-JW The Glow Worm

The ICA would like to thank John Wild for making these recordings available to the association and also Jeremy Hague for giving permission for allowing his grandfather’s playing to be shared.