ROSC M�rta 1973
How Huw Jones 'waxes' in Welsh
le P�l � Duibhir|
Huw Jones is best known in Wales for two of his protest songs - PAID DIGALONNI (Don't Lose Heart) addressed to Dafydd Iwan in prison, reminding him that he was not alone in his struggle, and DWR (Water) which describes the feelings of a Welsh�man returning to the valley where he was reared only to find his people had been expelled and the valley flooded to make a reser�voir to supply water to English cities. Huw now spends most of his time working for SAIN, a re�latively new recording company which has specialised mainly in protest songs. ROSC: How did you start in the recording business? HUW JONES: Our company SAIN was set up in1969. Up to then Dafydd Iwan and I had recorded on Welsh Teledisc, but we had become unhappy with the quality of the records. I was working on DWR at this time and I went to London and made a tape. We then formed SAIN to release it, the two of us and a financial backer. We are responsable for the quality of the tapes, but we don't cut our own discs , although we have now got to the stage where we are thinking of this. I am running the company from my own house at the moment and I couldn't take on any more work. ROSC: How big is the business? HUW JONES: So far we've released thirty discs, mostly EPs , some singles, and just recently two LPs. The main artists who have recorded for us include Meic Stevens and Heather Jones, who've both been on Teilif�s �ireann, and the Hennessies, who are second generation Irish from Cardiff. ROSC: What is your biggest problem? HUW JONES: Although our market is small we have to pay competitive rates for facilities. In a situation like this it's great to have someone like Dafydd Iwan who sells. ROSC: Just what scale of costs are you talking about? HUW JONES: They vary quite a lot, depending largely on the size of the backing and the sophisti�cation of the studio set-up needed. For example, PAID DIGALONNI was done in a bit of a hurry and we only had to lay out �10 for studio costs Dafydd's PAM FOD EIRA cost �200 between paying iinstrumentalists and studio time. A middling expensive record would cost up to �450 and we would need lo sell nearly 1,000 to clear this. ROSC What are your sales like? HUW JONES: Like the costs these vary a lot too. Our biggest sellers have been PAM FOD ERA (6,000) , PEINTIO'R BYD (4,000), MYN DUW and MAWREDD MAWR (3,500), and PAID DIGALONNI and DWR (3,000). ROSC: Are you full time on this work?
HUW JONES: I spend most of my time on it, but I don't get any money from the company. So far I have been living off TV earnings, a show culled DISC A DAWN and a children's series. Dafydd lives mainly on concerts and occasional TV appearances, although he is a qualified architect he does hardly any of this type of work. |