LANDMARK ALBUM RE-RELEASED ON CD

Towards the Sunset, a landmark album in the folk and traditional music revival in Newfoundland when it was released twenty years ago by Pat and Joe Byrne and Baxter Wareham, is now available for the first time on CD. Originally released on vinyl and cassette, and out of print for some years, it has been re-released by Newfoundland's SingSong Inc. recording label.

Musician and songwriter Pat Byrne says the popularity of the original recording, and drastic changes in technology since the original release, prompted him to bring it out in the new format. "We hope that it will be welcomed by those who first heard it on record and cassette as well as find new listeners among those for whom turntables are museum pieces," he said.

Byrne says the recording paints an honest but not entirely pretty picture of days gone by. "A lot of it has to do with the fact that the three of us come from resettled communities in Placentia Bay," he said. "This is not a romantic longing to go back to the old ways, but more of an attempt to recall that period in our personal histories and in the history of the island."

These issues are addressed in songs like The Government Game and The Rocks of Merasheen, while the lighter side of the repertoire includes a set of rollicking accordion tunes and the original version of the now famous Rubber Boots. The album is rounded out by the classic The Land God Gave to Cain. The re-release of Towards the Sunset is dedicated to the memory of the late Newfoundland poet, Al Pittman, who wrote or co-wrote several of the songs.