Martin Long-time members of TSF will be accustomed to my frequent apologies that the notes of a meeting are late, followed by a ‘the dog ate my homework’ style of explanation. After the April meeting I surprised myself by writing up the meeting notes in only three weeks. I am embarrassed to realise that I then … Read more
We were saddened to hear that Paul Marsh had died. He was a very active supporter of traditional song and singings and I asked his friend, Steve Roud, to write a few words about him. PAUL MARSH: A PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONSteve Roud (24th April 2018)It was a complete shock to everyone in our field when Paul’s … Read more
Traditional Song Forum members have been busy publishing new books, so here is a round-up. Faber has published Steve Roud’s mammoth (764 page) Folk Song in England – go to the Faber website for details. Best deal is at the Book Depository (an Amazon subsidiary) where you can get free postage to anywhere in the World. While the ink on that was … Read more
A wonderful website that has been put together by Peter Cooke. Whalsay is a small island, lying a few miles East of the Shetland mainland and has a distinct culture. There songs from a number of singers with both texts and recordings and photos and details of the singers. A very enjoyable site to browse … Read more
When I was traveling in Iceland in June (leading a party of Baring-Gould enthusiasts who wanted to follow the journey he made in 1862) we visited Siglufjordur, in the north of the country. Towards the end of our time in the town we discovered the Folk Music Centre – a permanent museum of Icelandic folk … Read more
Continuing in the Napoleonic vein, Ian Russell has sent a link to a page on the website of the National Library of Scotland, on which they have collected digital images of 78 chapbooks from their collection, which contain songs from the times. Go to http://tinyurl.com/NLS-chapbooks.
At the TSF meeting in Kings Lynn we heard about the visit of Ralph Vaughan Williams to the town in 1905. Alan Helsdon, who organised the meeting, has now released a digital book Vaughan Williams in Norfolk through Musical Traditions. This can still be downloaded from the Musical Traditions website: website.https://www.mustrad.org.uk/download/covers.htm [RS]
Carolyn Robson sent me this brief report on the ‘Full English’ educational programme that she thought you might like to hear about: ‘The Full English is possibly the most exciting and significant thing to happen to British folk music in at least a generation…It is the creation of the largest searchable digital archive of early … Read more
Gwilym Davis has sent me a note reporting that the ‘Single Gloucester’ project, which seeks to digitise and put online all the songs collected in Gloucestershire is now going fll steam after obtaining the funding that had been hoped for. Gwilym writes: Single Gloucester, a folk archive project developed by Gloucester Traditions, has been awarded … Read more
David Atkinson’s new book, The Anglo-Scottish Ballad and its Imaginary Contexts, has just been published by Open Book Publishers. You will find that it is available for purchase (at sensible prices) as a paperback, a hardback, as a PDF and in e-book formats. But you can also access an online edition free of charge – … Read more