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)

Tom Munnelly

We were saddened to hear the news of the death of Tom Munnelly on August 30th, after a long illness.  It was a great pleasure for us to have him speak at the 'Life and Times' meeting a year ago and his passing is a great loss to folk music enthusiasts on both sides of the Irish Sea.  He was a collector without parallel and made an enormous contribution to our understanding of folk song.  You may like to read the obituaries that appeared in The Guardian and in The Times. You may also like to re-look at the paragraph below on the book 'Dear Far Voiced Veteran' - a series of essays which was put together in Tom's honour  

(14th Sep 07)/

News From Members

Sue Allan writes: "I would like to let people know that I have registered to do a PhD with history department of Lancaster University - helped no doubt by a brilliant reference from Johnny Adams! I will to do the PhD part-time, sadly, as my AHRC funding application was unsuccessful. So with my part time work at local arts development agency Eden Arts, and freelance writing for Cumbria Life magazine, I guess it means that I just won't have a life for the next five - six - seven or whatever years!  Any suggestions for sources of funding gratefully received !  My working title is "Creating a sense of place: Cumbrian traditional music, customs and dialect since 1750". I can send more info if you or anyone else is interested, eg short version of the PhD proposal."

Georgina Boyes is working on a new, illustrated edition of her book 'The Imagined Village' which she hopes will be published early next year  (14th Sep 07)

Conference on the European Folk Revival, September 2007, Sheffield

The programme for the conference, ‘The Voice of the People: the European Folk Revival 1760-1914’ to be held from the 6 – 8 September in Sheffield can be found at: http://c19.group.shef.ac.uk/folkrevival.html. There are still places and accommodation available at present (30th July 07)

Dear Far-Voiced Veteran - Essays in Honour of Tom Munnelly

Those of you who attended the meeting ‘Life and Times in Ireland’ last September will recall with pleasure the talk given by Tom Munnelly, the foremost collector of Irish song in the English language. In this book, edited by Anne Clune and published by the Old Kilfarboy Society, twenty-five of his friends and colleagues have provided essays in Tom’s honour and on a range of topics related to Irish song. One of these is from another contributor to the ‘Life and Times’ meeting John Moulden who, in this essay, builds on the talk he gave on that occasion. Other TSF members who have contributed include David Atkinson, Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie. There is a lot of very interesting reading in here and I am enjoying it greatly. You can find more details on the book by going to http://www.oac.ie/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=223 .

The Glenbuchat Ballads

Another new publication, this time from the University Press of Mississippi in association with the Elphinstone Institute, is a collection of ballads made by the Rev. Robert Scott of Glenbuchat in the early 19^th Century. More details on http://www.abdn.ac.uk/Elphinstone .

The Folk Handbook

This book, subtitled ‘Working with Songs from the English Tradition’ was mentioned at the Alton meeting by David Atkinson who is one of the team involved in its production, working with Backbeat Books and in conjunction with EFDSS. This is a very brave and, I believe, successful venture which gives an overview of the English song tradition and what has happened in the revivals both in the UK and the USA. It includes a number of songs selected by David Atkinson and Malcolm Taylor and a number of photographs from the EFDSS collections. You can get a better idea of the scope of the publication by going to the supporting website www.folkhandbook.com where you can see sample pages. For those who buy the book this site also includes midi files of the music to go with the printed copy.

Re-issue of Marrowbones

Frank Purslow’s selection of songs from the Hammond and Gardiner manuscripts has now been re-issued by EFDSS in a new, improved edition with extended notes. The revisions have been made by Steve Gardham and Malcolm Douglas with the co-operation of Frank Purslow who contributed a new preface and biographical notes on the collectors shortly before his death.  There is also a foreword by Vic Gammon and Derek Schofield has contributed an appreciation of Frank Purslow. David Atkinson has compiled a bibliography to round off the book and to make it five TSF members who have contributed to this publication.

The book itself is of the high quality that we have come to expect from this generation of EFDSS publications.  The songs are clearly laid out over 197 pages (the original edition contained 120 pages) and the notes are a great improvement on those in the original publication.  If I have any quibble it is that there is no biographical information on the singers and that there are few photographs.  The editors explain, however, that they have chosen to focus, in this volume, on introductory material and bibliography. It is planned that the second volume in the series, The Wanton Seed, will provide detailed information on the singers.  You can place your order Marrowbones on the EFDSS website (http://folkshop.efdss.org/publications/song/index.htm). (30th July 07)

TSF Spring meeting, Alton

The Spring meeting, organised by Carolyn Robson, assisted by Bob Askew and a number of others, was a great success, pulling in what is certainly the larget audience we have ever had for a TSF Event.  The afternoon session focused on the collecting done by George Gardiner in Hampshire at the beginning of the 20th Century.  Bob Askew talked about Gardiner’s life and work and Steve Jordan took us along the trail that he had followed, unraveling the life of Richard Hall, one of Gardiner’s singers.  We were also treated to a number of live performances of songs collected by Gardiner from Tim Radford, Carolyn Robson and Sarah Morgan (separately and together), Emily and Hazel Askew and the Alton Community Choir.  You can read a full report of the meeting here.   (14th April 07)

The Irish Traditional Music Archive

On a recent visit to Dublin we took the opportunity to visit the Irish Traditional Music Archive at their new premises at 73, Merrion Square.  We were very impressed not only by the facilities and by the content of the archive itself but by the welcome and the help that we got.  If you are in Dublin a visit to ITMA is strongly recommended  -  I'm sure you will be similarly welcomed.   More details at www.itma.ie (25th Feb 07)