A L Lloyd

EFDSS will be hosting a clebration of A L Lloyd's life at Cecil Sharp House on 15th November 2008. 29th February 2008 is the centenary of Lloyd's birth and the celebration is also tied in with the publication of  a bigraphy by Dave Arthur titled 'Bert: The life and work of A L Lloyd'.  (20th Feb 08)

Vaughan Williams DVD

There is lots of Vaugham Williams stuff going on this year to commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death. Tony Palmers's documentary film 'O Thou Transcendant' was aired by Channel 5 on New Year's Day and is an excellent record of RVW's life and work. Though focussed on the full range of his work it includes interviews with Malcolm Taylor and brief performances by Martin and Eliza Carthy to illustrate his work on folk music as well as demonstrating how he used traditional  themes in his compositions. The film was made shortly before the death of Ursula Vaughan Williams and includes extracts of an interview with her made in the VWML. The video is available from EFDSS or from Amazon.  (20th Feb 08)

Vic Gammon's New Book

At the January meeting Vic Gammon said that his new book, Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song, 1600–1900, would be available shortly. It is now on sale from the publisher, Ashgate. Persuade your local library to buy it if you feel the £50 price tag is a bit much. Details at https://www.ashgate.com/shopping/title.asp?isbn=0%207546%206094%20X from where you (or your library) can also order the book ((20th Feb 08)

TSF Meeting at Newcastle, 19th January 2008

The 10th anniversary meeting of the Traditional Song Forum was held at Newcastle University on Saturday 19th January. The report of the meeting can be viewed here. There were six excellent presentations during the meeting, slides/text for some of which are available on this site, from the following links:

Notes for Dave Eckersley's Presentation
Slides for Peter Wood's Presentation
Slides for Sue Allan's Presentation
Slides for Judith Murphy's Presentation
Text of Gill Cawley's Presentation

In addition, for paid-up TSF members,* a CD-R with the talks recorded as MP3 files can be obtained from the Secretary for a small administration charge - see details in the report. Thanks to the speakers for their diligent work and to Vic Gammon for hosting the meeting. (20th Feb 08)

* A subtle reminder that the 2008 sub is due - though we are grateful that so many people have paid up already this year.

Vaughan Williams Legacy

Members may be interested to hear about a book recently published by the Essex Record Office to celebrate the centenary of Vaughan Williams collecting in Essex. The book, called 'That Precious Legacy', has been written by Sue Cubbin and includes 30 songs as well as background on the singers and the collection. Details here  (3rd Dec 07)

Yorkshire Garland

As reported in the notes of the recent meeting, great progress has been made with the 'Yorkshire Garland' website, which is steadiliy increasing its content. Rather than me tell you about it why don't you take a look at http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/  where you can hear some old Yorkshire favourites sung by Will Noble and John Greaves and read about the background to the songs - and, Steve Gardham tells me, There's a lot more to come yet, (26th Nov 07)

Songs of the West

I have also been busy with the Sabine Baring-Gould website 'Songs of the West' which now has a new host, a new look, a new URL (www.sbgsongs.org)  and lots of new information (with more to come). (26th Nov 07)

Cylinders at the BL

There will be what promises to be a very interesting talk at the British Library shortly. It is called "Forgotten Voices: The English Folk Dance and Song Society wax cylinder collection - Recordings of English, Scottish, and Welsh traditional singers from the early 20th century" and will take place on Wednesday 12^th December 2007  —  18:15–19:45 at the British Library Centre for Conservation, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB. The session will be chaired by Malcolm Taylor.  Andrew King will speak about the provenance and content of the cylinder recordings and Will Prentice will outline some of the problems encountered in retrieving sound from these old and fragile carriers. The evening is one of a short series of events marking the opening of the British Library’s new Centre for Conservation. Please note that places are limited. and that you should send an email to alison.faraday@bl.uk to reserve a place

If you haven't already done so, you should visit the British Libraries 'Collect Britain' pages and go to the section of wax cylinder recordings where you can listen to many of the EFDSS cylinders - go to http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/wax/. There are many delights here but the most unexpected discovery for me was to hear Lucy Broadwood herself singing 'The Trees They Do Grow High' with a piano accompaniment (EFDSS Cylinder No. 21) -  you will find it  on page nine. (26th Nov 07)

TSF Meeting, London 29^th September

Notes from the most recent TSF meeting, which took place at Cecil Sharp House, London on Saturday 29^th September have now been sent to TSF members and are available here. The discussion on the future of TSF was very encouraging - clearly the Forum has an important role to play in support of folk song research and there is plenty for individual members and for groups working together to do for the next few years. The discussion will continue at the next meeting. The General Meeting re-elected the offficers with the welcome addition of Steve Gardham to share the role of Chair with Steve Roud, particularly fo meetings in the North of the country. One agreement reached that affect all of you is that the annual subscription has been increased from January 2008 to £8.00. We have done well in getting members subscriptions paid up over the last few months but it would be so much easier if we could get everyone to pay up earlier in the year.  (26th Nov 07)

News from  Sep 2007 and before has been archived  -  go to 'Old News'

Details of future TSF meetings can be found from here:

The next meeting of the Traditional Song Forum has not, yet, been arranged, though discussions are in progress. Watch this space!

 (18th Feb 08)

Johnny Adams runs the TSF discussion group where you can share information with other TSF members and with a wider constituency.  A good place also to place those queries that you want the numerous experts in the TSF to help with.  Go to

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Tradsong/

 May05