The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #103190   Message #2101323
Posted By: GUEST
13-Jul-07 - 03:02 AM
Thread Name: how were source singers influenced by revival
Subject: RE: how were source singers influenced by revival
The basic agenda of collectors, as far as I can make out, has never really changed; it has been to gather in what they saw as a rapidly disappearing body of songs before they disappeared altogether.
In the early 20th century Sharp adopted this attitude; Irish collector Tom Munnelly working into the 21st century described his work as 'a race with the undertaker'. Both were right in their way, though Tom was more right than Sharp. Tom's fieldwork has now virtually slowed down to a standstill, even though he lives in West Clare where, twenty odd years ago you couldn't throw a stone without hitting a traditional singer with a version of 'Lord Lovel' 'Captain Wedderburn's Courtship', or 'The Suffolk Miracle' (three of the most popular ballads to be found here).
Certainly, thanks to Sharp, Tom Munnelly and the rest of them, the songs haven't gone; rather, what has disappeared is the oral tradition which gave them their vital life and function. Modern technology has ascertained that the renditions of the old songs have become more-or-less fixed and unchanged.
Personally, whatever the final objectives of the collectors were, be it preservation, publication or simply to pass the songs on to singers so they will cotinue to be sung, I have always been extremely grateful to the Sharps, Greigs, Duncans, Kidsons, Lomaxs, Munnellys et al; they have certainly stopped me from hanging round the street corners over the last forty years - prosit to all of them!
I have to say I find the 'no names, no pack drill' remark as offensive as I do terms like 'folk police' 'and finger-in-ear'. If we don't take people's statemets at face value and treat them as honest opinions, there is little point in discussion.
Such hole-in-corner language is far more suited to Monty Python's 'nudge-nudge' sketch than it is to the open, honest, friendly and informative (if sometimes overheated) discussion I have come to expect on Mudcat threads.
Jim Carroll