Martin We met Frieda Morrison at the TSF meeting in Edinburgh and she told us about her work as Artist in Residence at the School of Scottish Studies. Frieda has now written to tell me about one of the outcomes of her work: performances of 37 songs from the Greig-Duncan collection have been put online. You … Read more
Probably the biggest news of the year (Decade? Century?) is the launch of the Full English project. There are three main elements to the project. There is an extensive educational programme for both adults and children, of which one of the components is the series of ‘Folk Song in England’ workshops being led by Steve … Read more
We greatly enjoyed the TSF meeting hosted by ITMA in Dublin a couple of years ago and would like to congratulate them on having reached their 25th anniversary. If you have not visited their website (www.itma.ie) recently you will be delighted to discover how it has grown, with a large quantity of important recordings, videos … Read more
The greater part of Sabine Baring-Gould’s personal library was lent to the National Trust to fill the empty shelves at Killerton House, near Exeter, in the early 1970s and, after 40 years, the Trust has requested the Baring-Gould family to take the books away, so that they can create a new library, more closely linked … Read more
Steve Roud recently discovered this website, operated by the Harvard Law School Library, which has someexcellent examples of broadside ballads about crime, criminals and consequences. Goto http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/home.php (Please be aware the site does not have a security certificate)
A group associated with the Gloucestershire folk music enthusiasts, GlosFolk have launched a new site of folksongs and related activity collected in Gloucestershire. It is at www.gloschristmas.com. This modest site is a Christmas pilot and a launch-pad for a bigger effort next year when they hope to put as many songs from Gloucestershire as possible … Read more
Georgina Boyes let me know that the new edition of her book, The Imagined Village, is now available. Thislong-awaited revision of her influential book has some lovely illustrations as well as some other newmaterial. You can see details and buy the book at the No Masters website.
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 agrandson of John Johnson of Fittleworth (d. 1941). I decided to see if I could find John Johnson’s exercisebook in … Read more
The series of Cecil Sharp’s diaries covering the years 1915 – 18 when he visited America to collect songsin the Appalachian Mountains can now be viewed on the EFDSS website. To view the diaries, go here. Dotake the opportunity to have a look at the slide show about Sharp’s work and the diaries prepared by … Read more
Talking of the Internet Archive on Archive.org, I discovered the other day that a new tranche of texts bySabine Baring-Gould has been added to the archive, bringing the total to 377 (though some areduplicates). One of the new texts is the 1891 edition of Songs and Ballads of the West’ – the first versionof the … Read more