I think Howard seems to be talking a lot of sense. His comment that liner notes don't always get things right is apt, though it comes too late for the many many web sites that cite the notes to the Unfortunate Rake LP on Folkways by Goldstein as if they were historically accurate and reliable.

Regarding mainly Norfolk, sorry, Freddy Heady, if the comment that there were 'some good bits' struck people as a bit dismissive. The intention was to allow that some entries are very useful. I can see I should have worded my comment differently.

But by chance when it came to the specific song I was interested in - The Unfortunate Rake, it turned out that Mainly Norfolk had relied for information on sources that turned out to be unreliable. These included a mixture of A L Lloyd and Goldstein as both appear to have been involved in the incorrect information given in the liner notes.


For example, the liner notes state that a song called My Jewel My Joy was collected in Dublin. It was collected in Cork from somebody who heard it in Cork.   This mistake also occurs in one of the journal articles cited by Goldstein. This shows not only that liner notes and discogs need to be taken with a pinch of salt but also that journal articles also need to be checked out for accuracy. Mainly Norfolk, accurate though it may be in many places, has not checked back to see whether Goldstein got stuff right, as if they had done so they would have seen that the earliest source on My Jewel My Joy ( a collected called Joyce) says Cork not Dublin. Joyce took the song from an unpublished collection made by an antiquarian called Forde and published it with the notes made by Forde. These clearly say Cork not Dublin.

To the person who told me to 'go read Mainly Norfolk', this would be a bad idea if accurate information about the history of the song 'The Unfortunate Rake' was what was wanted. There is no record of any broadsheet containing a song of that name. Goldstein claims that A L Lloyd is singing a broadsheet version, but he is not. The only broadsheet verson A L Loyd ever quotes accurately from is of a song called The Unfortunate Lad. But that is not the song A L Lloyd sings on that LP.


So go do some background research matey.