Mention is made of a few of these recordings in the notes to Topic's A World Without Horses. The Listing of Walter's 78rpm gramophone records includes of all the records that were in Walter's home in 1979. Where the word 'tape' is shown after a song title, this indicates that an unissued recording is known to exist. Details are given of which songs were issued on commercial recordings. The Walter Pardon Repertoire contains the titles of 182 songs we are aware that Walter knew. The Walter Pardon Discography lists all of Walter's recordings that have been issued on record albums, cassettes or CDs. Walter's Recorded Legacy outlines how Walter's recordings were made and includes some impressions of what it was like to record him. I also rediscovered pages of notes that I had made whilst talking to him, and these were used as the basis for my sleeve notes.īut I was not able to incorporate all this material into the sleeve notes, and so I have selected and edited some of my notes into several of the sections which follow, in the booklet to this MT production: Most of the recordings on this CD had been recorded either by Bill Leader or myself and I found that listening to Walter again brought back many memories of him. It seems that Topic felt that these later recordings failed to show Walter at his best and so Jim and Pat withdrew from the project, leaving Topic with a single CD that was without notes or documentation. The original producers, Jim Carroll and Pat MacKenzie, had originally hoped that Topic would issue a double CD using many of their recordings of Walter.
I had not been involved in the production of the album, nor had I chosen the songs that were to be included. In 1999, Topic Records asked me to write the notes to their forthcoming Walter Pardon CD - A World Without Horses (TSCD514). Up the Chimney Pot / Slave Driving Farmers / Bound to Emigrate to New Zealand.