Two questions:

First of all, The Rose of Allandale (or "Allendale," I've seen it spelled both ways). I had heard the song a number of times—even have it on a couple of CDs—but somehow the song always managed to slip by me. Good song, but it just never jumped out at me and said. "This is a terrific song! Learn it!"

Then, not all that long ago, I discovered The Corries on YouTube. They've been around since the early 60s and have disbanded with the death 0f Roy Williamson of a brain tumor in 1990. But I had never heard them before, and was strongly taken with a number of songs they do, such as Jock o' Hazeldean and The Loch Tay Boat Song, which I hauled off and learned. I also like several other songs they do, and are on the agenda of songs I want to sing myself, such as Ronnie Browne's rendition of Eric Bogle's The Green Fields of France (a timely song, considering. . . .).

One of those songs is The Rose of Allandale, which, as I said, I'd heard, but it hadn't grabbed me. The Corries' rendition of the song did reach out to me. But I find here on Mudcat that several people say "Ther're doing it all wrong! Wrong rhythm, wrong tune! It schtinks! Ptui!!" So I set about listening to other performances of the song. Some people perform it in 4/4, as The Corries do, and some perform it in 3/4. To me, the 3/4 rendition drags, and lacks momentum—which is why I hadn't particularly noticed the song before. In my judgment, The Corries' rendition puts across the feeling of the song quite well, and the 4/4 rhythm fits the words of the song better than the 3/4 rhythm. Also, everybody I've listened to varies the notes of the melody slightly, but the overall melodic curve of each phrase is the same. I put that down to simple "folk process."

One of the performances I've listened to is The Dubliners, and although they sing it a tad slower than The Corries and a note or two may be different, they do it almost exactly the same way.

So what's wrong with the way The Corries do it?

Second, some folks here seem to dislike The Corries in general. This I don't understand. It's not as if I haven't heard a lot of folk singers and folk groups. I've been deeply involved in folk music since around 1951, so I've heard a whole variety of singers and groups, all sizes, shapes, and abilities. And I find that I'm fairly impressed by The Corries. Is it, perhaps, the same kind of feeling that, say, many American folk aficionados of the more purist persuasion feel toward such commercial groups as the Kingston Trio, The Limeliters, and the New Christy Minstrels? Not sufficiently "pure?" Although they didn't strike me that way, do some people regard them as "too commercial?"

Since I know very little about them, and all I have to go on so far are my own ears, how are The Corries generally regarded by most folkies?

Don Firth