Recorder Home Page

Instrument of Torture or Instrument of Music?

by Nicholas S. Lander

Recordings

There are now very many recordings of recorder playing available. Reference to these can be found in the various trade catalogues available from record stores. Comprehensive indexes (by title, perfomer, composer) to more than 8,000 LPs, MCs and CDs featuring the recorder may be accessed via Recorded Recorders.

Perhaps the best introduction remains David Munrow's The Art of the Recorder issued by EMI as a boxed set on vinyl with a most informative booklet. These records illustrate the various historical uses of the recorder with musical examples ranging from the medieval period to contemporary avant garde.

State-of-the-art consort playing can be heard in the work of the Amsterdam Loeki Stardust Quartet and the Flanders Recorder Quartet, both of which have produced many CDs, and on Landscapes, a truly remarkable multi-tracked CD from the Italian virtuoso David Bellugi.

The recorder has long been featured in recordings of popular music including the following:

Jazz

Don Juan Band (USA), Girl from Impenema, on which Don Fortner (aka Don Juan) plays recorder.
Charles Fambrough (USA), Keeper of the Spirit album
Keith Jarrett (USA), Spirits album. ECM 1333/34 829 467-2.
Jugularity (Australia), Jugularity album on which Tony Bannister & Ernie Gruner play recorders
Roland Kirk (USA)
Eddie Marshall (USA), jazz drummer & recorder player
Lazy Ade Monsbourgh (Australia)
Jean-François Rousson (France), Spinnaker album
Respectable Groove (UK), Respectable Groove album, with recorder players Andrew Collis, Katrina Koski, Barbara Law & Evelyn Nallen
Benoît Sauvé (France)
Nadja Schubert (Germany), Recorder and bass, Nadja, Changing & We will meet again albums
Rodney Waterman (Australian), Agua e Vinho album
Wooden O (UK), Wooden O album, with recorder players James Harpham & Christopher Taylor

Latin American

Clea Galhano (US), Circolo Magico and Distribution of Flowers
Benoît Sauvé (France)
Rodney Waterman (Australia), Agua e Vinho album

Pop, Rock

Alan Parsons Project (UK), Eve album (1979), ? Winding me up on which the recorder player was probably Alan Parsons himself
Amazing Blondel (UK). Terence Alan Wincott was the recorder player.
Aquarium (Russia), Navigator and The Favorite Songs Of Ramses The IV albums, on which Oleg Sakmarov plays recorder
The Ashqelon Quilt (Israel), The Event album on which Sharon Rinat plays soprano recorder on The Event and alto recorder on One By One
Association (USA), Renaissance album, on which the bittersweet ballad No Fair at All, inspired musically by the 1940s tune Return To Paradise, features recorder; Insight Out album, on which Windy (1967) features recorder; and the And Then, Along Comes The Association album, on which Along Comes Mary (1966) features recorder; on all three tracks the soprano recorder player is Terry Kirkman.
Kate Bush (UK), Lionheart album, Oh England My Lionheart in which Kate herself and Richard Harvey played recorders.
The Beatles (UK), Fool on the Hill in which Paul McCartney was the recorder player. Apple/EMI 7243 8 34448 2 3, 1996.
Blackmore's Night. Although both guitarist Ritchie Blackmore and singer Candice Night have worked with bands such as Deep Purple, their style has featured acoustic renaissance dance music since their first album Shadow of the Moon. The recorder player is multi-instrumentalist Chris Devine.
Blood Sweat and Tears (USA) with whom Jerry Hyman played recorder
Bonzo Dog Band (UK), whose single I'm the Urban Spaceman feature recorder
Jimmy Buffett (USA), Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes album, on which Billy Puet plays recorder in Margaritaville.
The Carpenters, ? Sing a Song
Cream (USA), Wheels of Fire album, on which Jack Bruce plays recorder
King Crimson, In the Court of the Crimson King album, Dance of the Puppets in which Ian McDonald plays recorder
Bob Dylan, Live at Budokan album (1978) on which Steve Douglas plays recorder
El and the Weannies (Netherlands), with whom El plays recorder
Falling Leaves (UK)
Frente! (Australia), Marvin the Album (1992) on which drummer Mark Picton plays recorder in Labour of Love
Gnidrolog, Lady Lake album (1972) and Gnosis album (2000) on both of which the recorder player was Colin Goldring who also featured as a guest artist with Yes (see below).
The Jimi Hendrix Experience (UK), Axis: Bold As Love (1967) album, If 6 Was 9 – the classic Easy Rider anthem in which Hendrix himself improvises wildly on 'flute'. Reprise Records (LP, 1968), reissued as MCA Records MCAD-11671 (CD, 1998). The high tessitura, the typical 'breaking' between octaves, and other characteristics are more suggestive of a soprano recorder. On the track notes Hendrix says "That's me on the flute", but possibly some record company executive decided that recorder was too uncool to name, so they just put "flute" (Rodney Waterman, pers. comm., 2002). Indeed Vanderford (2000) describes the instrument concerned as a recorder. However, another commentator describes Hendrix' instrument as "flute indienne qu'il a acheté pour 2 shillings" – see here. The authority for both claims is unclear. You can hear a mercifully brief excerpt and judge for yourself here.
John Holm (Swedish), Ett enskilt rum på Sabbatsberg / För att va oss spå / Frågor, which can be heard here. Single LP TIBETT TS3 (1972). The recorder, which can be heard prominently after the introduction of the first side (A Private Room at the Sabbatsberg Hospital), is played by Stefan Golvig.
Mary Hopkin (UK), Postcard album (1969) on which The Game featured recorder players Jeanne & Marguerite Dolmetsch; Brian, Christine, Paul & Peter Blood
Indigo Girls, Closer to Fine
Jars of Clay, with recorder player Sam Levine
Jefferson Airplane (USA), Surrealistic Pillow album, Comin' back to me in which tenor recorder is played by either Grace Slick or Marty Balin
Jethro Tull, Aqualung album, on which recorders are played by Ian Anderson and Martin Barre in Mother Goose
Joe Jackson, played recorder on a late night talk show a few years ago discussing How the West Was Won
Billy Joel, 52nd Street album, Rosalinda's Eyes, with recorder player George Marge; Cold Spring Harbor.
Annie Lennox (USA), Diva album, on which Peter-John Vettese plays recorder
Led Zeppelin (UK), Stairway to Heaven, the most played song in radio history, features a recorder consort in which the instruments are all played by John Paul Jones by overdubbing.
Manfred Mann (UK), As Is (1966) album, Trouble and Tea, Semi-detached suburban Mr James (Klaus Voorman was the recorder player)
Mannheim Steamroller (USA), all 7 Fresh Air albums, Holiday Musik and Holiday Musik II albums on which recorder is played variously by Chip Davis, Eric Hansen & Roxanne Layton
Pell Mell (Germany), Marburg album (1972), in which Rudolph Schon plays recorder on the title track; and Rhapsody album (1975), on which Rudolph Schon plays recorder in Wanderer, a quiet acoustic ballad with recorder accompaniment, recalling Led Zeplin's Stairway to Heaven.
Rolling Stones (UK)
- All Sold Out and Ruby Tuesday (1966), Brian Jones was the recorder player. Ruby Tuesday was recorded in Olympic Studios in November, 1966 and was released in January, 1967 on the B-side of Let's Spend The Night Together. It spent twelve weeks in both the U.K. and U.S. charts, reaching the number one spot in the U.S. In her autobiography, Marianne Faithfull refers to Ruby Tuesday as Jones' swan song and recalls the recording session when it was conceived: "Brian . . . played a folkish, nursery rhyme melody on the recorder. It was nothing more than a wispy tune, but it caught Keith's attention . . . he had heard a riff and went at it like a dog with a bone . . . it was really Brian and Keith's song … I'd noticed that this song had taken on an almost desperate significance for Brian. This collaboration between Keith and him was to be the last, and perhaps he could sense that. He knew it was one of the best things he'd ever done …" (Faithful & Dalton, 1995).
- Something Happened to Me Yesterday (1967), supposedly about Mike Jagger's first experience with LSD, Keith sings and Brian Jones plays the recorder while Bill Wyman fingers it in a crude parody of those delicately suggestive 18th-century paintings and porcelain figurines (eg Boucher) in which a pretty shepherdess blows a recorder whilst a shepherd fingers the notes for her. See here.
Melanie Safka, Born to Be album (1968) on which Mr Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan) has a haunting recorder solo that fades into the distance at the end of this arrangement
Bon Scott (Australia), vocalist, recorder & timbala player of "bubble-gum" 60s rock music with 'The Spektors', 'The Valentines' and 'Fraternity', later leader of 'AC/DC', died tragically in 1980. See here and there (video).
John B. Sebastian – She's a lady
Bruce Springsteen (USA), 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy), studio version, from The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle album on which Springsteen himself played recorder
Van Morrison (Ireland / USA), Days Like This album (1995) on which Perfect Fit and Ancient Highway include recorder playing by Teena Lyle; Too Long in Exile album (1993) on which Before the World Was Made includes recorder playing by Teena Lyle.
Vanity Fair (UK), whose single Hitchin' a Ride (1969) has an intro featuring recorders
Wings (UK), with recorder players Jeanne & Marguerite Dolmetsch; Brian, Christine, Paul & Peter Blood
Roy Wood (UK) played recorder with The Move and The Electric Light Orchestra, Curly, The Words Of Aaron, No Time
Yes (UK), The Yes Album (1971) on which guest artist Colin Goldring is the recorder player in I've Seen All Good People: Your Move. Goldring is better known for his own band, Gnidrolog (see above).
Mick Ronson, glam-rock guitarist, producer and arranger played multi-tracked recorders on David Bowie's Life on Mars? and on Lou Reed's Satellite of Love
Gary Brooker and Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum played recorders on the track Boredom on their third album, A Salty Dog
Roy Wood from The Move played recorder frequently on their albums
Steve Page of the Barenaked Ladies played the recorder in Helicopters on their Maroon album

Folk

Capercaillie (Scotland), Sidewaulk and Crosswinds albums on which Marc Duff plays recorder
Fairport Convention (UK), with whom Judy Dyble played recorder
Gryphon (UK), recorder player Richard Harvey
Shirley Jacobs (Australia)
Benoît Sauvé (France)
Emma Christian (UK), native Manx Gaelic singer and folk artist, plays the recorder in place of the more traditional tin whistle
Jowan Merckx (Germany), plays many recorders and also whistles in folkgroup Amorroma

New Age

Nicholas Gunn (USA)
Hans-Jürgen Hufeisen (Germany)
Karl Jenkins', Adiemus, Songs of Sanctuary and Imagined Oceans albums, on which Pamela Thorby (UK) is the recorder player
Volker Leiß (Germany)
Brad White (USA)
Minchung Wu (USA).
David Young (USA)