A KENDAL musician has released his first record after a fruitful 25-year career putting other people’s music on disc.

Record label boss and singer Bill Lloyd has produced more than 40 albums for other artists and overseen both the Kendal Folk and Jazz Festivals.

But after a quarter of a century of playing in pubs, bars, around campfires, in sessions and at festivals and fairs across the country, he has decided it was time to record his own music.

He said; “I spent most of the last 25 years making recordings for other people, as an executive producer for classical composer George Lloyd and also as a stage manager and promoter. I made over 40 CDs but I never bothered recording my own album.

“I played from Wick to Penzance and love a live audience – but I found it hard to capture that in a studio until now.”

It wasn’t until he met multi-instrumentalist and music engineer Johno Leader during a tour in Ireland that he decided to record his music.

“We spent 10 days in his studio knocking ideas around in between sessions at local bars and ended up with an album,” said Mr Lloyd.

Bill enlisted the help of Mr Leader, Kendal singer Hannah Flynn and Canadian bodhran player Jacob McCauley on instrumental duties, and the full-length album Willy Ruby has been well-received by critics – it has won the Tunecore Platinum Award – and the title track will appear in next month’s Rock ‘n’ Reel Magazine.

Bill says the album – released through his own record label Wildwood Acoustic – is a unique crossover of high-energy folk, country and dance which he calls ‘trailer trash music’.

“It is good-time music with strong lyrics and sweet harmonies,” he said.

“I try not to do dreary. A song about a Mexican cockfight sits alongside tender but upbeat love songs, a reggae number, a full-on dance number, a bluegrass song, folk songs and a couple of pop songs.”

Mr Lloyd will launch the album in Ireland this week and plans to play a gig in Kendal, in January.

Willy Ruby can be downloaded from iTunes and Amazon now.