Les in Chorlton asked "I'll leave my comments about how such behaviour allowed others to engage in unwarranted arrogation of "authenticity" for their own purposes for another time."

Rowan, this sounds rather interesting could you describe briefly what you mean?

On 22 April Brian Peters wrote The problem is that, for many of us who love traditional songs and choose to sing them, the fact that they are "The Voice of the People" […] is a part of their appeal. We like to feel, realistically or otherwise, that they may offer some kind of insight as to what life was really like, as seen not by historians but by ordinary folk

This elicited (inter alia) a post from Steve Gardham, who wrote Bert went out on a whaler from Hull and claimed to have learnt a version of the shanty 'Heave away my Johnny' from a seaman off Stoneferry in Hull. The explanation of this example Steve used was given as One verse runs 'Fare ye well, ye Kingston girls, farewell St Andrews Dock'. Nobody from Hull (With the sole exception of one Mike Ramsden)would ever call anybody from Hull 'Kingston'. The only things called Kingston are the stadium, a few local firms and a rugby team, but even they're either Rovers or KR. Kingston stadium is KC. Most people from Hull can't stand the bloody name Kingston. St Andrews dock is a relatively new dock and would only have been built a few years before Bert was sailing out of her on his one trip whaling on a very modern boat. It was the fish dock, now filled in.

This struck a chord with me and, although most of my post addressed Bert's magic, I commented there are people who've made successful careers, in and beyond the folkscene, out of their ability to imitate Bert's apparent authenticity (even when their depth of scholarship extends no further than LP covers), while not similarly imitating his politics.

The next day, because various posters seemed to have not separated the issue of Bert's scholarship authenticity from his artistry I wrote The Trojan Horse concept worked for the Greeks and produced, in their opinion, a great result so it should be no surprise that others should imitate it. I don't think anyone here has any criticism of the quality of Bert's artistry, judged by the results around us; the extent of the criticism is the intent of that artistry. The real bother for me is that others used similar techniques to arrogate "authority" to their background so their presentation of "tradition" would be more readily received.


In Oz we have a person who is greatly respected in the folk scene (both here and internationally) and who, early in his career in Oz, presented himself as having similar "authority" in his background, intending it to enhance his presentation of "tradition" so it would be more readily received. I recalled that Mudcat had already hosted some discussion of this and, as you can see, various esteemed 'catters have sprung to his defence. As one who has known all the protagonists in the 'ballad' discussed there I have great respect for the substantive abilities of all of them.   I gather the ballad was regarded in Victoria as a bit of a hoot, although people who weren't part of the Melbourne scene at the relevant period have taken it more seriously.

Danny got an Honorary Doctorate out of it so "all's well that ends well."

Cheers, Rowan