Our meeting in London last week was a reminder, firstly, of how much has changed during the lives of many of us 'old folkies' and, secondly, of the debt we owe to those who thought to film some of the old singers in action. Some of these films, like old phonograph recordings, seem primitive and amateurish, but they open up a window on our past. We have been very focused on recorded sound and, I suspect, less appreciative of the moving image. Recently collectors have been using video more and this is now a standard for collecting. Like the phonograph recordings of the early C20th, the film record from the 50s and 60s is a vital resource for the future and should be treasured - and enjoyed!

 

Web resources updated

At the last TSF meeting I said that I would update the list of web reources on the site - that job is now done and you can find it in 'The Library' or here. It is not (and is not intended to be) complete, but gives a good sample of what is available for those who are coming to folk song research for the first time.. If you find any sites that you think should be added to the list, please let me know. And, please, let me know of any broken links or other problems.  (10th Aug 2010)

 

A Sussex singer

In response to my request for news Mike Tristram has written to say:

You ask for news – my exciting news is that I have got to know a lovely man called Ron Johnson who is a grandson of John Johnson of Fittleworth (d. 1941). I decided to see if I could find John Johnson’s exercise book in which he wrote down his songs, and find what else was in it, apart from the songs which Bob Copper recorded from 3 of John Johnson’s children (Gladys Stone, Leslie and John Johnson).

I had originally expected to find it in a museum somewhere but even better, it is being treasured still in John’s family. I found Ron after a lucky break in an enjoyable series of random phone conversations with people by the name of Stone or Johnson across Sussex, through which I found a totally unrelated person called Johnson whose wife had known Ron when a child. I am a very lucky person! Ron turns out to be a retired vicar a village or two away from me. He tells me that John worked on Street Farm Fittleworth opposite the Swan (where he no doubt sang), and had responsibility for over 30 working horses there.

Ron has kindly allowed me to make a copy of the song book and to share it with other interested people so I will be getting a copy to VWML some time in the next few months, and then it can be Roud-indexed. I need first to get my digital copies of the pages into order and photo-edited for clarity and then I will type up at least a list of  titles and first lines to send to Tradsongers.

We don’t know when John wrote the songs down but I presume it to be some time in, say, the 30 years before his death, this would be 1910-1940. There are some music hall type songs in there, so there might be a song composed in say 1930 and then we would know it was after 1930 that he wrote out the songs at least up to that point. Some of the songs are very similar to other collected versions where I am familiar with those, which is not surprising as he was a singing companion of Bill Sebbage George Attrill and others. Others have variations of their own (John was writing them down from (at least mainly) oral tradition). One of the Johnson songs Bob collected 'Poor Lonely Widow' seems to be the only instance of its Roud number? So there might be some other rarities in there.

Whether so or not, 'twas quite delightful just to have John’s book in hand and sing a few of the songs with his grandson. All thanks to Bob’s inspiration leaving another trail to follow, and to John’s family’s respect for the inheritance they have been treasuring.  (21st June 2010)

 

Internet publication of sheet music

Lewis Jones has sent me a revised version of his notes on the publication of high quality sheet music on the Internet. This replaces the article that he provided for the site some years ago and which he updated last in January 2009. You can find these notes on the 'Articles' page within the 'Library' on this site - but, if you are desperate to get there now, click here.  (21st June 2010)

 

Notes from TSF meeting at Cecil Sharp House, London, 12th June 2010

The meeting notes from this enjoyable meeting are now on the site and can be found here.  (21st June 2010)

 

East Anglian Traditional Musical Trust - Traditional Music Day

EATMT are holding the 9th of their traditiona music days on Saturday 4th September 2010. There will be a mix of Story-telling, dance, music and, of course, song, with a number of well known performers of traditional songs on the bill. Details here.  (21st June 2010)

 

Recordings from the Blaxhall Ship

Talking of East Anglia, while I was searching on the net, I came across the Blaxhall Village website which includes a nice set of recordings made in 1973 for the brewery, Tolly Cobbold, that used to own the pub. Singers include Cyril Poacher, Bob Hart, Bob Scarce, Tony Hall, and several others. There is also some interesting background information elsewhere on this site - well worth a visit. Go to http://www.blaxhall.com/archive/shipsongs/   (21st June 2010)

 

Internet resources listing

At the London meeting, it was agreed that we would update the TSF list of online resources, which appears on this site (go to the 'Library' to see it or click here). We would be very grateful if you could have a look at the list and suggest any additions or changes that you think should be made, bearing in mind that the intention is to provide newcomers to research into traditional song with places to go to find out about it. Please e-mail your suggestions to me - martin.graebe@btinternet.com   (21st June 2010)

 

Notes of TSF meeting in Newcastle 6th March 2010

The notes of our meeting in Newcastle were written by Peter Wood, to whom I am very grateful, as I knew that other commitments would prevent me from doing them in as timely a fashion. You can read the notes here. A recording of the presentations is available from Martin Graebe on a CD-R for £1-50. If you would like a copy please contact me (martin.graebe@btinternet.com). I will not, now be able to send this to you until late May, but if you let me know now I will get in touch with you then.
Copies of the speaker's notes from the meeting will be made available when I have them. At present I have two of them: Susan Tilley's Presentation is here, Pete Woods notes are here. I will add the other two in the next update. (20th Mar 2010)

 

Cecil Sharp's Diaries on-line

The series of Cecil Sharp's diairies covering the years 1915 - 18 when he visited America to collect songs in the Appalachian Mountains can now be viewed on the EFDSS website. To view the diairies go here. Do take the opportunity to have a look at the slide show about Sharp's work and the diairies prepared by the EFDSS for the BBC with a commentary by Malcolm Taylor. There is also a link to an excellent article by Mike Yates on Cecil Sharp in America, which is on the Musical Traditions site.  (20th Mar 2010)

 

Future TSF Meetings:

The next TSF meeting will be held at Cecil Sharp House in London on 12th June 2010. Apart from the usual forum discussion the main feature of the day will be a presentations of rare films of traditional singing. Full details will be made available in the next few weeks.

On the 13th November we are planning a meeting in Dublin, where we will be the guests of the Irish Traditional Music Archive, a remarkable institution that is one of the key centres for studying folk song in Ireland. Because we expect peoplewill want to arrive on Friday and leave on Sunday we are arranging a 'social programme' with singing sessions and a bit of sightseeing. We will make full details available in good time so that you can make your arrangements for travel and accomodation. This should be an outstanding meeting. (20th Mar 2010)

 

Folk Song in England

EFDSS and TSF are jointly organising a series of six evening classes to be led by Steve Roud. Intended for new comers to folk song, the classes will explore the history and development of English traditional song over the last 200 years.  The classes will run from 19:00 - 21:00 on Monday evenings, starting on 15 Feb 2010. To find out more contact Steve Roud. To book places contact EFDSS (Phone: 0207 485 2206 extension 25).
If these classes prove a success, then it is hoped to roll them out to other UK locations and, possibly, folk festivals. Further details can be found here and on the EFDSS website .(5th Feb 2010)

 

Upcoming conferences

I have heard of a few conferences coming up in 2010, that you might like to know about. They include:

Celebrating Scot(t)s Voices - Schonberg, Germany, 9 - 12 Sept 2010

Subtitled ''An International Conference in Honour of Mrs Brown of Falkland (1747-1810)' , this conference is being organised by Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz (contact Dr Sigrid Rieuwerts). More detailsand the call for papers here.

40th Ballad Conference - Amsterdam and Terschelling, Netherlands, 5 - 10 July 2010

The theme for next year's Ballad Conference is simply 'Water' - a topic that should allow for a very interesting range of papers. The event will commence at the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam and then continue at the maritime Institute in Terschelling. There will be a full range of visits and social activities associaited with the conference. More details and the call for papers can be found here. (23rd Nov 09)

 

Broadsides meeting - London, 10th Oct 2009

The meeting held at Cecil Sharp House on the 10th October was a great success. The morning session was focused on members activity and on discussing some particular issues of interest to members. The afternoon session, held jointly with EFDSS, was focused on broadside ballads and printed literature and their influence on traditional song. The report of the meeting, including a summary of the content of the talks by Roy and the Steves  can be viewed here. A number of members have expressed an interest in having a copy of a recording of the talks and a copy of them. as MP3 files, can be obtained by sending me a cheque for £1-50 (to cover the cost of the disk and UK postage). Alternatively pay this amount through PayPal, using the e-mail address martin.graebe@btinternet.com.

 

Bronson re-issued

When I was in the USA in June I met Dick Greenhaus who was in a state of high excitement because he had just received the first copies of the reprinted 'The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads,'. Loomis House Press have worked with Dick and his CAMSCO operation to produce a facsimile edition of all four volumes of Bronson at a very sensible price in both soft and hard-cover editions. As an indication of UK price Dick is saying £23-75 for each soft cover volume and £28-50 for the hard cover. Postage and packing on a set of four will be £11-00. These prices are currency dependent  so you should contact Dick  (dick@camscomusic.com ) or Loomis House Press (http://www.loomishousepress.com/) to place your order. I understand that tea and sympathy may be available for those (like me) who paid large sums of money for second-hand copies

Meanwhile Mark assures us that progress on the 5th volume of their re-working of Child continues.  
(17th Aug 09)

 

Devon Traditions Project

Further With the appointment of project worker Mel Smith by Wren Music the Devon Traditions project has now started its work to digitise key song manuscripts from the Baring-Gould collection and the recordings made by Paul Wilson in Devon. The projecyt has been made possible by a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Wren will be issuing full details of the project shortly. (17th Aug 09)

 

The 'Take Six' project

The 'Take Six' Archive website is now live on the VWML section of the EFDSS website. Go to http://library.efdss.org/archives where you will find an outstanding collection of images of the original manuscripts behind a very well designed database driven index. An outstanding piece of work and a very useful resource. Well done everybody! 17th Aug 09)

 

Peter Kennedy's 'folktrax' website

I reported below that Peter Kennedy's 'folktrax' website was available through the 'Wayback machine' of archive.org. Sadly we didcovered shortly afterwards that the new owners of the URL had blocked access and that it was no longer available. Mark Heiman of Loomis House Press kindly offered to host a version of the site and it can now be found at http://folktrax-archive.org/. I am very grateful to mark for agreeing to provide a long-term home for this useful resource. The home page of the site has been rewritten as a small memorial to Peter and Beryl Kennedy. Otherwise the site remains as he left it with a number of useful resources that throw light on his colection and those of others.  (17th Aug 09)

 

Report of the Exeter meeting, 21^st Feb 2009

The meeting held in Exeter was enjoyed by all who attended and brought in a number of new people to hear some talks with a West Country theme. The morning discussuin was also lively and you can read all about it in the notes of the meeting which you can find here.

Details for the next three meetings are current;ly being thrashed our and it is likely that we will be meeting in London, Suffolk and Newcastle over the next 12 months - probably in that order. Details will be confirmed as soon as we know ourselves.   (12th mar 09)

 

Peter Kennedy - Archived Website

After Peter Kennedy's website was taken down in September 2007, following his death and that of his wife, Beryl, I agreed with his family that I would try to find a way to launch a modified version of his 'folktrax' website as a memorial to Peter and Beryl and to answer the calls from a number of people who had found it a useful resource, because of the huge amount of information that it contained. I approached a number of people but had not been able to secure a permanent home for the site. I have just disciovered, though, that it can be accessed on the web through the 'Wayback Machine' on Archive.org. There are versions of the site there that date back over many years, though not all of them are complete replicas. For the purpose of reference I would suggest using the last version which appears to be all there. It can be found here.    (21st Jan 09)

 

Songs and Ballads of the West - now available online

Talking of the Internet Archive on Archive.org, I discovered the other day that a new tranche of texts by Sabine Baring-Gould has been added to the archive, bringing the total to 377 (though some are duplicates). One of the new texts is the 1891 edition of Songs and Ballads of the West’ – the first version of the collection, with Henry Fleetwood Sheppard as musical editor. Baring-Gould himself preferred this version and wished, in old age, for it to be republished as a memorial to Sheppard. It’s taken 75 years, but this is a welcome republication, in a medium that would have amazed but delighted it’s author. It is an agreeable coincidence that it should appear so close to the 175th Anniversary of Baring-Gould's birth. You can find it here.   (21st Jan 09)

 

Resources in Essex:

Sue Cubbin has written to me from Essex to tell me that she will be retiring from Essex Record Office at the end of March. You will probably have seen the excellent publication that Sue produced on Vaughan Williams collection of folk songs from Essex and she has also given a lot of support to others working in the area. She also talked at the recent day focused on Vaughan Williams collecting in the East of England which was organised by East Anglian Music Trust. Sue is now tidying things up before she retires and she has sent me two very useful lists of folk song and dance resources to be found in the Essex Record Office. I have added them to the items in our 'Library' but you can access them from these links as well

Essex Record Office - Folk Music and Song Resources

Essex Record Office - Folk Dance Resources

Thanks, Sue!  (11th Feb 09)

 

New Carol Book

Ian Russell has written about a new publication from Village carols. He says:

You may like to know that The Sheffield Book of Village Carols, ed. Ian Russell (Sheffield: Village Carols, 2008), casebound ISBN 0-9524871-3-6, 192pp. is available from Village Carols, P.O.Box 2099, Sheffield S35 0XU (01224 645486), £16.00 plus £6.00 p&p (UK). See http://www.villagecarols.org.uk/    (11th Feb 09)

 

TSF Subscriptions

Subscriptions are now due for 2009. If you haven’t already done so please send your cheque for £8 (made out to Traditional Song Forum) to Doc Rowe at 4, Vesage Court, Leather Lane, London EC1N 7RE.  (21st Jan 09)

 

Publishing music on the web

Lewis Jones has updated his article ‘How to publish music on the web as high quality sheet music’. You can find the article in the ‘Library’ section of this website or click here.  (21st Jan 09)

 

Folk SouthWest

Emily Antell has written from Folk Southwest to say that their Easter School, ‘Extending the Tradition’, will again be running from 16^th – 19^th April at Chantmarle in Dorset. For details visit their website www.folksw.org.uk . (21st Jan 09)

 

Report on TSF Meeting in Sheffield - 8th Nov 08

My apologies for the delay in reporting on the last meeting of TSF. I have been swanning about Australia, New Zealand and Japan for two months, shamelessly enjoying myself and failing miserably at being a hyper-efficient TSF Secretary. In fact, things were so bad that I rebelled against taking the notes for the last meeting, knowing that I wasn't going to be able to write them up. I am very grateful, therefore, to Pete Wood who very kindly stepped into the breech and wrote the notes for the meeting. Not only that, but he did them in less than a week, setting a standard of excellence that I could only aspire to. I have now uploaded the notes to the site and you can read them here  (18th Jan 08)

 

Vaughan Williams in the East

Katie Howson has written to say that the East Anglian Music Trust are organising a day of talks with a concert to celebrate Vaughan Williams collecting in the Eastern counties. See the details here. (1st Nov 08)

 

"Murder They Wrote" ...

... is the title of the 20th International Folk Song and Ballad Seminar to be held in Inishowen on the 20th - 23rd March 2009. Apart from some great singing sessions and concerts there are two talks that will be of particular interest to TSF members. The first will be given by Nicholas Carolan and is called "Where did you get all those? - Song collections of the Irish Traditional Music Archive." The second talk will be given by Peta Webb under the title "Poor Murdered Woman in English Songs and Ballads." Details from inishowenseminar@eircom.net

 

Festival of Village Carols

Ian Russell has sent me details of The Festival of Village Carols which will be held in Grenoside Community Centre, Sheffield on Saturday 29th November 2008. There is a full days programme of singing and instrumental workshops and there will be a 'Grand Sing' in the evening with guest spots for invited choirs. Admission by ticket only from Village Carols, PO Box 2099, Sheffield S35 0XU or ring Ian and Norma Russell on 01224 645486.

 

Conference - The Voice in Oral History

Doc Rowe has sent me details of the Oral History Society Annual Conference, to be held at Strathclyde University, Glasgow on 3rd/4th July 2009. The title of the conference is 'The Voice in Oral History'. Further details and the call for papers can be found here

 

TSF meeting - Sheffield, 8th Nov 08

The next TSF meeting will take place at the Music Department of the University of Sheffield Taptonville Road) on Saturday 8th November. Details of the meeting are being worked out but, as well as the usual sharing of information about projects and other activity, there will be presentations from Sheffield students, and a celebration of Yorkshire song, marking the successful launch of the 'Yorkshire Garland' website. This will take the form of a seminar/forum interspersed with songs and with bags of opportunities for questions and other involvement with the audience, Singers confirmed include Will Noble (Holme Valley), John Greaves (Littlebeck nr Whitby) and Roger Hinchliffe (west Sheffield) - all farmers/ source singers with Steve Gardham sharing songs from the  East Riding and his own family songs. It should be another great day so put the date in your diary now! 

 

Pete Wood's book on 'The Elliotts of Birtley'

Pete Wood's new book "The Elliotts of Birtley" was launched at Whitby Folk Week and Birtley Folk Club with great success, and the reaction from the North East was been overwhelmingly positive. Published by Herron Publishing at £15.99. For more details and purchase see Pete's website www.petewood.co.uk, or email davidherron98@yahoo.com.