Topic Records 80th Anniversary
Barbican, London

TOPIC, the oldest independent record company in the world, was founded in 1939 by the Workers Music Association under the wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain and had its first release in 1939 with Paddy Ryan’s The Man That Waters the Workers’ Beer.

Shortly after, the second world war broke out and most of its activity stopped. But since the end of that conflict, Topic has been delivering handsomely on its pledge “to use popular music to educate and inform and improve the lot of the working man.”

Although the label has had its troubles over the years, all currently seems well and this two-hour 80th anniversary bash, well constructed under the musical direction of Eliza Carthy — a Topic artist since 1997 — brought together an impressive line-up of musicians in celebration of that happy circumstance.

While a good proportion of the audience looked old enough to have been in at the foundation of Topic, on stage there’s a conscious effort to bring in younger voices among the 20 or so featured artists, including Sam Lee and Olivia Chaney who, though both in their late thirties, qualify as fresh faces in the folk world.

Separately, they deliver a couple of the most moving moments of the evening — Lee with The Deserter and Chaney with Polly Vaughan.

Both songs are on a new album Vision & Revision: The First 80 Years of Topic and a selection of others from that record are performed, including I Wish My Love was a Cherry from Lisa Knapp and Bay of Biscay from Emily Portman.

But most energising is the intervention by the ever-irreverent Chris Wood, who wonders why he’s there in the first place, given that he’d not actually recorded for Topic until their latest release.

Nonetheless, he takes the early part of the show by the scruff of the neck with a rousing version of William Blake’s Jerusalem and a rendition of Keith Christmas’s poignant Fable of the Wings that’s superior to the original.

Carthy delivers three songs, including one in combination with her cousin Marry Waterson, while the four-piece instrumental group Spiro delivered an uplifting suite of three songs from the Copper Family.

The only disappointment is that a planned contribution from Topic stalwart Norma Waterson failed to materialise due to illness. Waterson is herself 80 this year and it would have been nice to see her in joint celebration with Topic.

But even without her this was a fine tribute to a label that has given breath to the likes of Ewan MacColl, Anne Briggs, Peggy Seeger and June Tabor. Hopefully, it will introduce us to many others of that quality in the future.