The decision to record a second Friends of Fiddler's Green album was not taken lightly by the group. After all, some suggested, it had only been eight years since the release of the last one. A few feared that a new record would interfere with the sales of the remaining box or two of the old one, and ensure that they would never again be able to get into their basements to play with their train sets. However, in the best traditions of the band, a well-formulated argument, forcibly put, carried the day, and the decision was made.
Throughout the Friends' many years together, one clear principle has remained constant: performances are social events first of all, and everything else after that. With this in mind, they decided to abandon the austerity (and efficiency) of the recording studio, for a more congenial environment. For one weekend in April, 1989, they set up for business in the farmhouse home of Paul Handford and Carol Rees near St. Mary's, Ontario, along with technicians John McCarthy and John Stewart, tons of recording equipment, a veritable Sargasso Sea of cables, and the Hercules transport full of instruments that they generally take along on such occasions. A wonderfully social and musical weekend followed, with two notable results: the album you hold in your hand, and a distinct dearth of return dinner invitations chez Handford and Rees.
However, The Road to Mandalay did not hit the stores, or the Columbia Record Club, or the national airwaves, immediately. Of course there were rumours among the potted ferns in the head offices of international folk music consortia: The Friends were waiting to see if CDs were only a passing fad (it was!); those band members with albums of their own were renegotiating the contract, holding out for headline status; the tapes had been left under a table in the bar at the Flying Cloud; the security forces had seized them and were trying to break the code. Nothing so dramatic. The Road to Mandalay has, as they say, been in the studio getting tweaked and digitized for a few years since. Nothing serious. Tam wanted his voice to be a little more, you know, subtle, Laurence kept trying to add instruments that looked like weapons out of Mad Max, and lan refused to sanction any release until the talent filter was finally perfected. But now it's ready, and we're delighted with it. And we have room in the basement