Eight Frames a Second is the debut album by British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 folk

Folk music

Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....

 musician Ralph McTell

Ralph McTell

Ralph McTell is an English singer-songwriter and acoustic guitar player who has been an influential figure on the UK folk music scene since the 1960s....

. Released in the UK in 1968, it is notable for being the first record produced by Gus Dudgeon

Gus Dudgeon

Angus Boyd Dudgeon , most commonly known as Gus Dudgeon was an English record producer, most notable for production of many of Elton John's recordings.-Early career:...

, and the first arranged by Tony Visconti

Tony Visconti

Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers; his lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti...

.

Track listing

1. "Nanna's Song" (Ralph McTell)
2. "The Mermaid and the Seagull" (Ralph McTell)
3. "Hesitation Blues" (Trad. arr. Ralph McTell)
4. "Are You Receiving Me?" (Ralph McTell)
5. "Morning Dew" (Bonnie Dobson
   Bonnie Dobson
   Bonnie Dobson is a Canadian folk music songwriter, singer, and guitarist, most known in the 1960s for composing the songs "I'm Your Woman" and "Morning Dew"...
   
    arranged Fred Neil
   Fred Neil
   Fred Neil was an American folk singer-songwriter in the 1960s and early 1970s. He did not achieve commercial success as a performer, and is mainly known through other people's recordings of his material – particularly "Everybody's Talkin'", which became a hit for Harry Nilsson after being...
   
   )
6. "Sleepytime Blues" (Ralph McTell)
7. "Eight Frames a Second" (Ralph McTell)
8. "Willoughby's Farm" (Ralph McTell)
9. "Louise" (Ralph McTell)
10. "Blind Blake's Rag" (Trad. arr. Ralph McTell)
11. "I'm Sorry - I Must Leave" (Ralph McTell)
12. "Too Tight Drag" (Blind Blake
    Blind Blake
    "Blind" Blake was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist.-Biography:...
    
    )
13. "Granny Takes a Trip" (Geoff Boyer, Joe Beard)

Personnel

• Ralph McTell - guitar, vocals
• Mac McGann - double neck guitar
• Mick "Henry VIII" Bartlett - jug
• "Whispering Mick" Bennett - washboard
• Bob Strawbridge - mandolin
• Tony Visconti
  Tony Visconti
  Anthony Edward Visconti is an American record producer and sometimes a musician or singer.Since the late 1960s, he has worked with an array of performers; his lengthiest involvement with any artist is with David Bowie: intermittently from Bowie's 1969 album Space Oddity to 2003's Reality, Visconti...
  
   - arrangements and musical direction

Awards and accolades

Ralph McTell was presented with a Gold Disc of "Eight Frames a Second" during his 60th birthday concert at the Royal Festival Hall in November, 2004.

Release history

Country	Date	Label	Format	Catalogue	Notes
United Kingdom	1968	Transatlantic	LP	TRA165	Mono Monaural Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction is single-channel. Typically there is only one microphone, one loudspeaker, or channels are fed from a common signal path...
United States	1969	Capitol Capitol Records Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...	LP	ST240	Remixed to stereo STEREO STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
Canada	1969	Capitol	LP	ST240	Remixed to stereo
South Africa	1975	Logo Logo Records Logo Records was a British record company formed in the mid-1970s by British record executives Geoff Hannington and Olav Wyper. It was originally funded and part-owned by UK publishing company Marshall Cavendish. In 1977, the company purchased Transatlantic Records which was at that time owned...	LP	LGD6001	Record 2 of 2LP set "2 Originals of Ralph McTell"
France	1978	Transatlantic	LP	TRA89554/5	Record 1 of 2LP set. Record 2 is "Spiral Staircase" Spiral Staircase (Ralph McTell album) Spiral Staircase is British folk musician Ralph McTell's second album. Produced by Gus Dudgeon and released in the UK in 1969, its opening track, "Streets of London", has become McTell's signature tune.-Track listing:...
Australia	1980	Transatlantic/ 7 Records	LP	MLM400
United Kingdom	2007	Transatlantic	CD Compact Disc The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...	TRRCD400	'Expanded Edition' with four previously unreleased bonus tracks.

Many of the tracks on this album also feature in the "Spiral Staircase - Classic Songs

Spiral Staircase - Classic Songs

Spiral Staircase - Classic Songs is a double CD compilation of tracks from Ralph McTell's early Transatlantic LPs Eight Frames a Second, Spiral Staircase, My Side of Your Window and Revisited. It was released in 1997...

" compilation

Compilation album

A compilation album is an album featuring tracks from one or more performers, often culled from a variety of sources The tracks are usually collected according to a common characteristic, such as popularity, genre, source or subject matter...

.

Track variations

The LP released in South Africa in 1975 omits "Nanna's Song", "The Mermaid and the Seagull" and "Hesitation Blues", that are included on Record 1 of the 2LP set.

The UK 2007 CD release includes four bonus tracks:

14. "Suzanne" (Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen

Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

) (1)

15. "I Love My Baby" (Trad. arr. Ralph McTell) (2)

16. "Boodle Am Shake" (Trad. arr. Ralph McTell) (2)

17. "San Francisco Bay Blues" (Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller

Jesse Fuller was an American one-man band musician, best known for his song "San Francisco Bay Blues".-Early life:...

) (3)

(1) From the original album recording sessions

(2) Live concert recording from 1967

(3) Demo recording with Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman

Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...

(piano).