Editing Topic Records

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2015}}
{{Infobox record label
| image = 
| parent = 
| founded = 1939
| founder = [[Workers' Music Association]]
| status = Active
| distributor = [[Proper Music Distribution]] - City Hall Records<ref>{{cite web|first=Mike |last=Demmers |url=http://www.CityHallRecords.com |title=Cityhall |publisher=City Hall Records |date=2011-09-08 |access-date=2013-02-24}}</ref> - SRI Canada - [[Claddagh Records]] - Planet Distribution - Southbound Records Australasia - Office Sambinha - IRD Spa - Central Distribution
| genre = [[Folk music]] and [[World music]]
| country = [[United Kingdom]] 
| location = [[Uppingham]], [[Rutland]]
| url = [http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/ Topicrecords.co.uk]}}

'''Topic Records''' is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second [[British folk revival]]. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in [[1939 in music|1939]], making it the oldest [[independent record label]] in the world.<ref name=Broken2003>M. Brocken, ''The British Folk Revival 1944-2002'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 55-65.</ref>

==History==
The label began as an offshoot of the [[communist]] led Workers' Music Association in 1939, selling [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] and [[left-wing]] [[political music]] by mail order.<ref name=Broken2003/> After a period of relative inactivity in the [[Second World War]], production resumed in the later 1940s, moving towards traditional music for the emerging revival market.<ref name=Broken2003/> Up to 1949 the composer [[Alan Bush]] was involved with choral and orchestral music released on the label. Topic also produced some of the first American [[blues]] records to be commercially available in Britain.<ref>R. Freund Schwartz, ''How Britain Got the Blues: The Transmission and Reception of American Blues Style in the United Kingdom'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 32.</ref> From about 1950 the two key figures of the second revival, [[Ewan MacColl]] and [[A. L. Lloyd]], became heavily involved, producing several records of traditional music. One of the earliest albums of UK traditional music was ''Street Songs and Fiddle Tunes of Ireland'' by [[Margaret Barry]] and [[Michael Gorman (musician)|Michael Gorman]], issued in 1958.

With the decline of [[British Communist Party]] membership in the late 1950s, financial aid to the label began to dry up and, under director Gerry Sharp, they were forced to pursue an entrepreneurial strategy to survive.<ref name=Broken2003/> In the early 1960s, Topic Records separated from the Workers' Music Association, but those involved still had [[socialist]] credentials. A new company was registered in 1963. Financially, the company was in a precarious state until that year, when they had substantial sales from the album ''[[The Iron Muse]]'', a ground-breaking thematic<ref name = "Three Score and Ten Accompanying Book">{{Cite web|url=https://www.topicrecords.co.uk/category/three-score-ten/|title=THREE SCORE & TEN – Topic Records|website=Topicrecords.co.uk|access-date=2 September 2020}}</ref>{{rp|29}} programme of [[industrial folk song]]s.<ref name=Broken2003/> This success allowed them to produce a greater and wider range of records until tastes began to radically change again in the 1970s.

After the arrival of managing director Tony Engle, Topic released a series of albums by ground breaking artists including [[Nic Jones]], [[Dick Gaughan]], [[The Battlefield Band]], as well as major figures on the folk scene including [[Martin Carthy]] and Roy Harris. They also began to reissue their back catalogue on cd. In the late 1990s, with the resurgence of traditional folk, spearheaded by children of the revival like [[Eliza Carthy]], Topic managed to gain both commercial and critical success. In the inaugural [[BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards]] in 2000 the label received the Good Tradition Award in recognition of their role in the folk music movement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/r2music/folk/folkawards2004/previouswinners.shtml |title=Radio 2 - Radio 2 Folk Awards |publisher=BBC |date=2004-11-24 |access-date=2013-02-24}}</ref>

Other major figures who recorded for Topic included [[Peggy Seeger]], [[The Watersons]], [[Shirley Collins]], [[June Tabor]] and [[John Tams]].<ref name=Broken2003/> The breadth of the Topic catalogue was evident in the release of ''[[The Voice of the People]]'' (1998), a twenty-part series sampling the earliest and greatest of folk singers of the British Isles.

In 2009, the label celebrated 70 years of activity with the release of a seven-CD hardback book set entitled ''[[Three Score and Ten|Three Score & Ten - A Voice To The People]]''.

In 2012, this venerable old label began to re-release many of the LPs from its early catalogue in digital form. However, in a departure from the norm, it accompanied the music with a digital booklet containing all the original artwork and sleeve notes from the original album. These are downloadable free from their website.

Tony Engle went into semi-retirement in 2012, and the day-to-day running of the label was taken over by David Suff. In an interview in early 2017, Suff explained that he would also be entering semi-retirement in February 2017, and that the everyday management of the label would be handed over to [[Proper Records]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.grizzlyfolk.com/2017/01/23/david-suff-future-topic-records-what-is-folk-music/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170201193457/http://www.grizzlyfolk.com/2017/01/23/david-suff-future-topic-records-what-is-folk-music/|url-status=usurped|archive-date=1 February 2017|title=David Suff on the future of Topic Records and answering the eternal question: what exactly IS folk music?|last=Wilks|first=Jon|date=2017-01-23|website=Grizzly Folk|access-date=2017-01-25}}</ref>

==Anniversaries==
The label's 70th anniversary was marked by the issue of a boxed set ''Three Score and Ten, A Voice to the People'' consisting of a 108-page book and 7 CDs from their back catalogue. [[Alexis Petridis]] said in ''[[The Guardian]]'', "not bad for a Marxist party offshoot that started in a basement".<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/aug/23/topic-records-70th-anniversary|last=Petridis |first = Alexis |author-link=Alexis Petridis|title = Topic records – 70 years of giving a voice to the people |work=The Guardian |date = 23 August 2009|access-date = 7 April 2015}}</ref>

The label's 75th anniversary was marked on 23 August 2014 with a special concert at the 50th [[Towersey Village Festival]], near [[Thame]] in Oxfordshire. Artists performed songs from the Topic catalogue, and included [[Norma Waterson]], [[Eliza Carthy]] & the Gift Band, [[Lau (band)|Lau]], [[Fay Hield]], Martin Carthy, [[Saul Rose]], [[Blair Dunlop]], [[Josienne Clarke]] and [[Ben Walker (musician)|Ben Walker]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.towerseyfestival.com/artists/75-years-of-topic-records-norma-waterson-eliza-carthy-with-the-gift-band-and-very-special |title=75 Years Of Topic Records at Towersey Festival 2014 |publisher=Towersey Festival |date=2014-04-27 |access-date=2014-04-27}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[List of record labels]]
* [[List of independent UK record labels]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{Official website |http://www.topicrecords.co.uk}}
* [http://www.mustrad.org.uk/discos/discog.htm Topic Records Discography]

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Folk record labels]]
[[Category:British independent record labels]]
[[Category:Record labels established in 1939]]
[[Category:1939 establishments in the United Kingdom]]