The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #145654   Message #4187973
Posted By: Brian Peters
12-Sep-23 - 02:58 PM
Thread Name: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
Subject: RE: A.L.Lloyd & Sea Chanties
Do Dave Harker or Georgina Boyes interrogate Lloyd in Fakesong or the Imagined Village, respectively?

Harker's chapter on Lloyd, 'the one that got away' takes him to task mostly for adopting the main tenets of the Sharpian folk song consensus (a fair comment), for inaccurate analysis of North-Eastern working class culture, for flaws in his 'industrial song' concept, and for being the wrong kind of Marxist (Harker was SWP, Lloyd CPGB). Ironically, considering the book's title, Harker doesn't level the accusation of fakery at Lloyd at all, except in the case of 'The Coal Owner and the Pitman's Wife', the broadside text of which Lloyd apparently tampered with. And, like everyone else who's looked at it, he finds implausible Lloyd's linking of 'The Cutty Wren' with the Peasants' Revolt.

Georgina's online commentary on 'The Singing Englishman' is very useful.