From: GUEST,bigJ Date: 27 Apr 05 - 03:36 PM

"At the (English) National Folk Festival on Saturday the 9th April, Brian Dawson gave a talk on Grainger's visit to Brigg with Lucy Broadwood a century ago. During their visit the two of them noted down eight songs from such singers as Joseph Taylor, Dean Robinson and William Hilton, among them Brigg Fair, Creeping Jane, T'oud Yowe Wi One Horn and Come All You Merry Ploughboys. Grainger went back to Brigg later that year."

In April 1905 Percy Grainger and Frank Kidson attended the sixth North Lincolnshire Music Festival. A folk-song section offered a prize for the best unpublished old Lincolnshire folk-song or plough-song. The judge, Frank Kidson, awarded the prize for the best song to Joseph Taylor of Saxby All Saints for Creeping Jane. Grainger returned to Brigg in August 1905 to collect more songs.

Although the liner notes to the LP Unto Brigg Fair also add Lucy E. Broadwood, her diary says that she wasn't there before 1906 - Reinhard Zierke. At the 1906 Festival, Joseph Taylor was again awarded first prize, but this time he had to share it with George Gouldthorpe of Goxhill. The judge, Miss Lucy Broadwood, felt justified in awarding eight prizes. Mr G. Gouldthorpe sang a ballad entitled Six Dukes. Brigg Fair and a beautiful tune to William Taylor obtained the next prize for Mr Joseph Taylor.

The 1907 Festival was cancelled following the death of the mother of Gervase Elwes. It restarted in 1908 but without Elwes family involvement and without a folk-song section.

From: GUEST,padgett (at home) Date: 29 Apr 05 - 11:48 AM

"The LP Unto Brigg Fair vinyl 1972 Leader 4050 mono (Bill Leader)
Sleeve notes say that Percy recorded in 1906 and 1908 in Lincolnshire and it is the 1908 recordings which formed the basis of the vinyl record."

Grainger knew Broadwood and they became close friends. He began to use the phonograph during nine days' collecting in Lincolnshire in July-August 1906, and bought his own phonograph in 1908. Grainger revisited Lincolnshire in May 1908 to make more phonograph recordings, and in June and July 1908 brought Joseph Taylor to the studio of the Gramophone Company to make commercial disc recordings of his songs. The songs on the LP Unto Brigg Fair come from the cylinders and discs from these 1908 sessions.