the Forster charlton archive
The late Forster Charlton was a prominent member of the traditional and folk music scene in the North East who recorded many events and concerts. The Society was given a large number of his tapes and cassettes. They are fragile and are gradually being digitised to preserve the recordings (It is an expensive process due to the number of tapes). The recordings including Northumbrian pipers such as Billy Pigg, Joe Hutton and Tommy Breckons, local singers and other musicians and also famous names from the Uillean and Scottish piping worlds such as Leo Rowsome and Seumas MacNeill. The NPS has produced a website which makes these tapes freely available to researchers. It is at https://npsforstercharltonarchive.org.uk/ This link takes you to a different site owned by the NPS but kept separate to avoid technical issues.
other sound archives
The following sites are independent of the NPS. There have been technical problems which affected access to some tracks. Hopefully that will be sorted out.
FARNE: Folk Archive Resources North East http://www.farnearchive.com/ And see https://www.gateshead.gov.uk/article/9793/FARNE
British Library Sound Archive: This too has had problems due to cyber attack. See https://folktradcollections.org/world-and-traditional-music-collection-the-british-library/
https://bl.libguides.com/reference-services/sound-and-vision
some classic recordings
A very small selection of some of the best known recordings…
IN 5615 “Spirit of the Border, Northumbrian Traditional Music”
“Cut and Dry Dolly” then “Cut and Dry #2” mostly reissued on Topic as “The Wind in the Reeds”
Topic TSCD487 The Northumbrian Smallpipes
LERCD4006 Billy Pigg, the Border Minstrel