Back in the late 1990s, I was employed as a freelance consultant by reissue label Castle Communications, who were constantly attempting to find fresh ways of repackaging the various back catalogues that they owned. I was asked to take a look at the Dawn label, which Pye had set up in 1969 as their 'underground' imprint. Going through the paperwork relating to the Dawn catalogue, I was intrigued by the mention of an album that, despite years of collecting and dealing in rare late Sixties/early Seventies albums, I'd never previously come across – Starting As We Mean To Go On, by a band with the singularly unremarkable name of Mason. Castle's archives gave a catalogue number (DNLS 3050), track listing, running order and even a date of release (October 1973), but there was also a note to the effect that the album had been "for export only". Suitably curious, I asked Castle's archives department to run off a copy of the album. But nothing was delivered, and so I shrugged my shoulders, forgot all about Mason's alleged existence, and set about compiling two or three Dawn various artist anthologies from the material that was readily available.
Fast forward to January 2007, and I receive a CDR through the post from an American friend whose musical tastes - McCartney-esque melodic pop from the late Sixties/early Seventies - aren't a million miles from my own. The CD contains a couple of tracks by a band called Mason, including a fragile little beauty by the name of 'J'ann Here Is A Song'. That title rings a bell. So I go back to my Dawn paperwork, and, sure enough, 'J'ann Here Is A Song' is one of the tracks from the missing-presumed-lost 1973 Mason album. So I fire off a quick email to said friend. How did you get hold of this? Oh, he says, a friend of a friend found an Apple custom label acetate in Japan of an album by a group called Mason - soft rock with a Crosby, Stills and Nash feel, but maybe more melodic. Good, isn't it?
Curiouser and curiouser. The (allegedly) unreleased Mason album has turned up - but in Japan?! And as an Apple acetate?!?! Anyway, by now Castle have been acquired by Sanctuary, but I'm still freelancing for them. So, once again, I bring up the subject of the Great Lost Mason Album. The response isn't encouraging. Sanctuary are in dire financial straits, I'm told, and they need to concentrate on reissuing their big guns - the Kinks, Black Sabbath, Emerson Lake & Palmer etc - rather than taking a chance on some hugely obscure Dawn album. Maybe some other time…
It's now September 2009. Sanctuary have been swallowed up by Universal, and I'm now overseeing a couple of labels for Cherry Red, including their folk-cum-singer/songwriter imprint Cherry Tree. Out of the blue, I get an email from Cherry Red HQ. Universal have just chanced upon an unreleased Dawn label album by a band called Mason, and are keen to see it come out. Do I know anything about it, and would I be interested in releasing it on Cherry Tree? Well, wipe my nose and call me snotty - the now-legendary-in-my-little-world Mason album unexpectedly rears its head once more. It must be fate, or something very much like it. Anyway - yes thanks, I certainly would be interested in releasing it, and yes thanks, I certainly do know something about Mason.
And yet, really, I don't know anything about Mason, do I? All I know for sure is that a band called Mason recorded a 1973 album for the Dawn label that may or may not have come out at the time. It's not much, is it? Fortunately, it turns out that, as well as unearthing the original tapes, Universal have also located titular band member Peter Mason, who is ready, willing and able to guide me through the whole Mason story.
DAVID WELLS, February 2010