Colliery bands
Universal Music today announced that the best Colliery bands in the UK have come together for the very first time and will release ‘The Music Lives on Now The Mines Have Gone’ on 1 March 2010.
The release of the album will coincide with the 25 Anniversary of the end of the miners strike. The 3 March 1985 was a day that saw some of these legendary Colliery bands play as the miners went back to work – they became known as the ‘loyalty parade’.
‘The Music Lives on Now The Mines Have Gone’ is an album featuring the UK’s most historic Colliery Brass Bands including the award-winning Grimethorpe Colliery, Kent’s Betteshanger Brass, Scotland’s Buckhaven & Methil Miners Brass Band, Point of Ayr in North Wales, Carlton Main (Frickley) Colliery, Desford Colliery Band and many more across the length and breadth of the UK.
The album will be released on 1 March 2010 on Universal, some 25 years after the end of one of the country’s bitterest and most divisive industrial disputes. The mines did close but the music stayed on thanks to the Colliery bands – today a potent symbol of a great heritage, the beating heart of many former mining communities.
The quality of the album is not only stunning proof that these historic colliery bands have deserved to survive for 25 years, but also with each of the bands on the album receiving a royalty from the sales, it will help the dwindling colliery bands of the UK survive for another 25 years to come.
‘The Music Lived on Now The Mines Have Gone’ will include tracks of classic songs, such as ‘Largo from the New World Symphony’ to ‘Concerto de Aranjuez’ as well as some unique choices including ‘McArthur Park’ and ‘He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother’. As is evident on the album, the musicianship of the bands is of the highest order with many of them having toured overseas and reached the finals of the annual National Brass Band Championship held each October at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
The Grimethorpe Colliery Band, formed in 1917 in South Yorkshire, achieved international fame from the film Brassed Off (1994), the plot of which was based on Grimethorpe's struggles against pit closures. The band provided the film soundtrack, which was later nominated for a BAFTA award. They have gone on to perform at the Eurovision Song Contest and have recently completed tours in Japan, Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong. In 1970 the band won the National Brass Band Championships and went onto win it a further three times in 1992, 2006 and 2007.
‘The Music Lives On Now The Mines Have Gone’ is released on 1st Rule Records via Universal on 1 March 2010.