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The Voice Of The People
''The Voice of the People'' is an anthology of folk songs produced by Topic Records containing recordings of traditional singers and musicians from England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The series was first issued in 1998 as 20 CDs, compiled by Dr Reg Hall, a visiting fellow at Sussex University. A second series was issued in 2012 consisting of four volumes (7 CDs) compiled by Shirley Collins, Steve Roud and Rod Stradling. A third series was issued in 2013 comprising 4 albums ( 6 CDs and 1 DVD) of field recordings recorded by Peter Kennedy and selected by Dr Reg Hall. A fourth series was released in 2016 with two albums of three CDs each chronicling the music of the 'London-Irish' from the 1950s to the present day. Introduction The traditional singers and musicians were celebrities within their own community but the majority were unknown to the world at large until the 1950s and 60s when collectors arrived with portable tape recorders. A few of them recorded enough material for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Topic Records
Topic Records is a British folk music label, which played a major role in the second British folk revival. It began as an offshoot of the Workers' Music Association in 1939, making it the oldest independent record label in the world.M. Brocken, ''The British Folk Revival 1944-2002'' (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), pp. 55-65. History The label began as an offshoot of the communist led Workers' Music Association in 1939, selling Soviet and left-wing political music by mail order. After a period of relative inactivity in the Second World War, production resumed in the later 1940s, moving towards traditional music for the emerging revival market. Up to 1949 the composer Alan Bush was involved with choral and orchestral music released on the label. Topic also produced some of the first American blues records to be commercially available in Britain. From about 1950 the two key figures of the second revival, Ewan MacColl and A. L. Lloyd, became heavily involved, producing several records o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Malcolm Laws
George Malcolm Laws (January 4, 1919 – August 1, 1994) was a scholar of traditional British and American folk song. He was best known for his collection of traditional ballads "American Balladry from British Broadsides", published in 1957 by the American Folklore Society. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and joined the English Department Faculty there in 1942. He gives his name to a system of coding ballads; one letter of the alphabet, followed by 2 numbers. For example, "Laws A01" is "Brave Wolfe" also known as "Bold Wolfe" or "The Battle of Quebec". There is no immediately obvious logic, but a broad pattern appears: the letter A is for military songs, the letter D is for nautical songs, the letter F is for murder, and so on. The system is limited to 26 x 99 = 2576 distinct labels, and so tends to bring together similar songs. It is a useful adjunct to Child numbers. He includes many songs that Child excluded, and of course, new ones that were found after Child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phil Tanner "The Gower Nightingale"
Phil Tanner (16 February 1862 – 19 February 1950) was a traditional singer from Llangenith in the Gower Peninsula (South Wales). Songs and singing style Tanner was an invaluable source of several once popular English language folk songs, such as the Child Ballads " Barbara Allen" and " Henry Martin", as well as the songs " Sweet Primroses" and "The Bonny Bunch of Roses", all of which were recorded in the 1930s and 40s. His performance of the local Gower wassailing song became known as "Gower Wassail" and was printed by A.L. Lloyd and covered by popular folk groups including Steeleye Span. His songs were all in the English language, using the Gower dialect, since the Gower of his youth was still culturally distinct from the rest of Wales, and his style of singing is compared to that of English singers. Audience and broadcasts Renowned locally as "the Gower Nightingale", he reached a national audience in his seventies with recordings for Columbia and the BBC and an appearan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Belle Stewart
Belle Stewart, born Isobella McGregor, (18 July 1906 – 4 September 1997) was a Scottish Traveller traditional singer. Her biography, ''Queen Amang the Heather: the Life of Belle Stewart'', was written by her daughter, Sheila Stewart, and published in 2006. Early years Isobella McGregor was born on the banks of the River Tay at Caputh, near Blairgowrie, into a family of Highland Scottish Travellers, who lived in bow-tents (similar to dome tents). Sheila Stewart corrects the frequently cited birthdate of 17 July 1906 to the 18th. As a result of their life-style, the family received much insult and abuse. Belle's father died when she was only 9 months old. Afraid that social workers might take her children from her, her mother stopped travelling and settled in Perthshire. The McGregor family tried to teach Belle how to read palms (fortune telling), but she didn't take to this. The family frequently went to Northern Ireland to do pearl-fishing. In the evenings they gathered at c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seosamh Ó HÉanaí
Joe Heaney (AKA Joe Éinniú; Irish: Seosamh Ó hÉanaí) (1 October 1919 – 1 May 1984) was an Irish traditional (Sean-nós singing, sean nós) singer from County Galway, Ireland. He spent most of his adult life abroad, living in England, Scotland and New York City, in the course of which he recorded hundreds of songs. Biography Heaney was born in Carna, County Galway, Carna, a village in Connemara, County Galway, along the west coast of Ireland. This is an Irish-speaking district. He said he started singing at the age of five, but his shyness kept him from singing in public until he was 20. He learned English at school in Carna. When he was 16 years old, he won a scholarship to attend school in Dublin. While there he won first and second prizes at a national singing competition. Most of his repertoire (estimated to exceed 500 songs) was learned while growing up in Carna. In 1949, he went to London where he worked on building sites and became involved in the folk-music scene. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Seventeen Come Sunday
"Seventeen Come Sunday", also known as "As I Roved Out", is an English folk song (Roud 277, Laws O17) which was arranged by Percy Grainger for choir and brass accompaniment in 1912 and used in the first movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' ''English Folk Song Suite'' in 1923. The words were first published between 1838 and 1845. According to Roud and Bishop "This was a widely known song in England, and was also popular in Ireland and Scotland. It is one of those which earlier editors, such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Cecil Sharp, felt obliged to soften or rewrite for publication. It was also common on broadsides throughout the nineteenth century" An earlier version was first printed on a broadside of around 1810 with the title ''Maid and the Soldier''. Early broadside versions were sad songs focused on the abandonment of the girl by the young man. Later broadside and traditional folk versions celebrate a sexual encounter. A censored version published by Baring-Gould and Sharp su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harry Cox
Harry Fred Cox (27 March 1885 – 6 May 1971), was a Norfolk farmworker and one of the most important singers of traditional English music of the twentieth century, on account of his large repertoire and fine singing style. His music inspired folk revival musicians including Shirley Collins, The Dubliners and Steeleye Span. Life Harry Cox was born in Barton Turf in 1885, the seventh of thirteen children born to Robert Cox (1837-1928), a seaman, and Sarah Cox (''née'' Nobbs) (1850-1944). His father and his paternal grandfather, also called Robert Cox (1807-1891), were noted singers in the local area. His family moved to the Potter Heigham / Catfield area in the 1890s. He served in Royal Navy in the First World War, worked at various farms in the local area and sang in pubs in Sutton, Potter Heigham and Ludham. In 1927 at the age of 42, Cox married Elsie Amis, who died in 1951. The English composer E.J. Moeran visited Harry Cox in 1921, incorporating some of his songs in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paddy Tunney
Paddy Tunney (28 January 1921 – 7 December 2002) was an Irish traditional singer, poet, writer, raconteur, lilter and songwriter. He was affectionately known as the ''Man of Songs''. From Glasgow to Garvery Tunney was born in Glasgow to Irish parents, Patrick Tunney from Mollybreen, County Fermanagh, and Brigid Tunney (née Gallagher) from Rusheen near Pettigo, County Donegal. His mother came from a strong musical background going back several generations in her parents' families and had a huge stock of traditional songs. Within a few weeks of his birth the family returned to Ireland to his maternal grandfather's cottage in Rusheen. His maternal grandfather, Michael Gallagher, was his first song teacher and Paddy recalled learning his first song, "The Lark in the Morning", from him at the age of four. The following year the family moved a few miles across the border and settled in the townland of Garvery, in the parish of Mulleek, County Fermanagh. Throughout his childhood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy MacBeath
Jimmy MacBeath (1894–1972) was a Scottish Traveller and Traditional singer of the Bothy Ballads from the north east of Scotland. He was both a mentor and source for fellow singers during the mid 20th century British folk revival. He had a huge repertoire of songs, which were recorded by Alan Lomax and Hamish Henderson. Life Jimmy MacBeath (pronounced the same as Macbeth) was born to a family of Scottish Travellers in the fishing village of Portsoy, Banffshire, Scotland. He learned songs such as "Lord Randall" (Child Ballad 12) from his mother. At the age of 13 he started work as a live-in farm hand at Deskford. He was a bachelor all his life and learned many songs in the bothies, or farm huts where the male farm workers lived. He was to be a traveller for much of his life; in 1908 he took his first long walk, from Inverness to Perth. In the First World War he joined the Gordon Highlanders and fought in Flanders. Later he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Irish ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bonnie Lass O' Fyvie
The Bonnie Lass o' Fyvie (Roud # 545) is a Scottish folk song about a thwarted romance between a soldier and a girl. Like many folk songs, the authorship is unattributed, there is no strict version of the lyrics, and it is often referred to by its opening line "There once was a troop o' Irish dragoons". The song is also known by a variety of other names, the most common of them being "Peggy-O", "Fennario", and "The Maid of Fife". Lyrics Of the many versions, one of the most intricate is: Meaning The song is about the unrequited love of a captain of Irish dragoons for a beautiful Scottish girl in Fyvie. The narration is in the third person, through the voice of one of the captain's soldiers. The captain promises the girl material comfort and happiness, but the girl refuses the captain's advances saying she would not marry a foreigner or a soldier. The captain subsequently leaves Fyvie. In two different variations of the song, he threatens to burn the town(s) if his offer is rejecte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willie Clancy (musician)
Willie Clancy (24 December 1918 – 24 January 1973)Sleeve notes by Peter Brown, from ''The Gold Ring'' CD, (RTÉ 276CD), RTÉ 2009 was an Irish uilleann piper, flute player and whistle player. Early life Clancy was born into a musical family in the outskirts of Milltown Malbay, County Clare. His parents (Gilbert Clancy and Ellen Killeen) both sang and played concertina, and his father also played the flute. Clancy's father had been heavily influenced by local blind piper Garret Barry and passed much of Barry's music on to Willie.Mac Mathúna, Ciarán (1980) "Willie Clancy" (sleeve notes from ''The Pipering of Willie Clancy''; volume I). Career Willie started playing the whistle at age 5, and later took up the flute. He first saw a set of pipes in 1936 when he saw Johnny Doran playing locally. He obtained his first set of pipes two years later. His influences included Leo Rowsome, Séamus Ennis, John Potts, and Andy Conroy. Clancy won the Oireachtas competition i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Captain Wedderburn's Courtship
"Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" is an old Scottish ballad dating from 1785 or earlier. It is Child Ballad #46, Roud 36. It is known by a number of titles, including "Lord Roslin's Daughter" and "The Laird of Rosslyn's Daughter". The song was collected in the United States, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia. The first known publication, probably, dates from 1780s (''The New British Songster'').Sehere Synopsis Versions differ, but generally a captain meets a lady walking in the woods or through an estate. Sometimes he takes her to where he is staying. In all variants, she says she will not marry or sleep with him without his answering riddles. She asks them. He answers them all, and they are married and/or he takes her to bed. Motifs The ingenious suitor who can answer every riddle, or nonplus the heroine, is not as common as the clever maid, but occurs quite frequently in folklore.Francis James Child, ''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'', v 1, p 416, Dover Publicat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |