The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #64543   Message #1055892
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
17-Nov-03 - 10:59 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: the worcestershire wedding
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the worcestershire wedding
That's Marina Russell, née Sartin (1833-1908). She lived at Upwey in Dorset, and sang 100 songs for Henry and Robert Hammond in the course of a mere two visits in January -or February- and December of 1907. Being quite elderly, her memory for the words was a bit vague, and many were quite fragmentary. She had a lot of interesting and unusual tunes, and, it seems, a fondness for the Dorian mode. She must have had a formidable repertoire in her youth. A lot of her versions of songs are still sung today; in the main, sadly, by people who don't bother to acknowledge her, or who have learned them from others who didn't bother. Martin Carthy is an exception, and always gives her proper credit.

Quite a few songs that come from her have been posted here at one time or another. There are others, too, not traditional as such but collated from traditional and printed material, which are set to tunes noted from her. I've listed some of these in previous threads.