AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 10:55 AM

As a singer, Bert was entitled to adapt any song he wished.
The problem came with his 'scholarship' status, and the claims he made for those songs (even as a singer, he stretched things by introducing them as 'typically English" when they were no such thing.
I have been doing some research on Edith Fowke's Canadian collection and have stumbled on several which I have heard Bert describe as "prime examples" of English or Irish songs.
Politically, I always found Bert somewhat wishy-washy, certainly not in the same 'commitment' league as Ewan, but both of them approached traditional songs from a 'class pride' point of view, rather than a political one and believed folk songs were creations of the working classes, mainly rural with some industrial ones thrown in.
Personally, I share that belief - I have been staggered at the number of 'hand-made' anonymous songs that were still being sung here in The West of Ireland up to twenty years ago which never entered the mainstream song tradition because of their local nature and were obvious creations of farmers, fishermen and land labourers.   
I did a little work in Manchester Central Library in the 1960s which threw up songs of the same type from 19th century Industrial Lancashire - working man, it seems to me, has always been a natural song-maker.
To me, Bert did some excellent work which was somewhat undermined by the way he went about things pity.
He may have 'messed about with songs', which didn't please all the academics but, to my ear anyway, he always stayed faithful to the reason they were first created.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 10:13 AM

"While Gamekeepers lie sleeping, a fragment of a song generally speaking, apart from the version Bob Roberts sings..."

I'll take on trust what you say about Bob Roberts embellishing the story, but Bob Copper knew seven verses of the song, which is a pretty large fragment. Anyway Bob Roberts didn't set himself up as the leading expert, didn't write a book, didn't publish his recreations, etc., etc., so there's no comparison with Bert.

"yet they forget that all songs were composed at some point and many trad songs have been altered by anonymous writers..."

The kind of people you were referring to so disparagingly know all of that very well.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:34 AM

And there's the rub. The confusion between a modern or ancient Folk process, and the reporting/collecting from that process.
Bert could and did sing what he liked how he liked with the words he liked, same as the rest of us. We swiped his songs right left and centre. so far no problem.
When you become a collector,and remember I've been there, you report what you find, as well as you know how. Rewrite songs if you want to sing them by all means but publish the originals with honesty.
Bert didn't. Problems begin. It's as simple and difficult as that.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:29 AM

I suspect that most of us agree with most of what you say Dick. but it is becoming clear that Bert was 'editing' songs to make political points about working class culture because he couldn't find what he wanted in the collected tradition of songs.

Most of his interventions were artistically sound. But that is not the point.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:12 AM

"Presenting made up information and passing it off as true is unpardonable."
I am referring to to Lloyd making up songs and passing them off as tradtional, I do not think there is anything wrong with that, in fact Lloyd did us a favour, he enriched our repertoire, at that time it is possible and in my opinion probable, that those songs that lloyd collected or wrote, would not have been sung, if Lloyd had been honest. Lloyds actions have to be seen in the context of the time that they were done, it is sad comment on the UK revival at that time.
Tradtional song has always been made up, altered[consciously or unconciously], that is the nature of a living TRADTION.
Nick Dow says"I would have been devastated if he had been proved to be making some of it up".
ok, lets take the song While Gamekeepers lie sleeping, a fragment of a song generally speaking, apart from the version Bob Roberts sings, which has an interesting storyline, I believe although i cannot prove[anymore than anyone can prove Lloyd wrote the recruited collier] Bob Roberts made it up, I am not devastated, I sing the song on its merits, because it is the best version, that should in my opinion be the criteria for singing a song.. its merits.
Bob Roberts [tradtional singer] sang the song and by not saying anything about its origins gave the impression it was traditional, has or did anyone criticise/ criticised Roberts for doing this, I dont think so, yet people are crticising for Bert for POSSIBLY doing something similiar.
Nick Dow says "If I can do anything at all it's because I have learned from people who can do it better"
here he speaks the truth
like myself he listened to traditional singers as well as revival singers and guitarist like Jones and Carthy, and his blues style has also resulted in listening as he says to" people who can do it better"
but rarely do people in other fields other than UK TRAD get so upset about The so called passing off of songs which are in fact composed and then passed off as trad songs, yet they forget that all songs were composed at some point and many trad songs have been altered by anonymous writers sometimes accidentally, sometimes deliberately, the nature of a healthy tradition is that it evolves and incorprates new songs.
I repeat, no one criticises Bob Roberts[trad singer] for improving songs and not admitting to it, yet we have a lot of talk about Lloyd, double standards?

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 08:27 AM

> I'm really interested in where the songs came from, who sang them, why they sang them, and so on.

The traditional idioms and premises are so different from those of pop genres that such talking such "ballocks" is necessary to introduce any ordinary person to the songs.

Dance music, maybe not.

The singer who visited our public elementary school in 1957 with his repertoire of folksong showed me as a child that songs and stories were more than just shiny (or sometimes mysterious) surface. I don't know about any of the other kids, but I, for one, remain grateful.

To each his own.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: johncharles
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 08:00 AM

Anyone producing what purports to be a scholarly work should expect to be judged by academic criteria. Presenting made up information and passing it off as true is unpardonable. People exposing such actions are not wankers, they are rigorous academics doing their job.
john

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 07:29 AM

Well put Nick.

One problem on here is many people don't read the whole thread and it often turns sour after 20 or 30 posts regardless of the topic

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 07:24 AM

Dick Please pack it in will you. I have got a very long way on the Folkscene and in life generally by keeping my mouth shut and listening and then asking questions of those, including Bert face to face by the way, who know better than me. The first post in this thread was just that-respectfully asking for opinions, not abusing those who have a different opinion to me.
I learned to sing face to face with a traditional singer who taught me all his father taught him. I would have been devastated if he had been proved to be making some of it up. He wasn't but Bert it appears, was, and that hurts. The people who have kindly replied have been trying to make me understand the bigger picture, and taking the trouble to write some very long posts. they don't need to be called 'wankers'.
I stood up for 5 hours once while a Gypsy painter taught me how to decorate a Gypsy Wagon in 23 1/2 carat gold. He took the trouble because I treated him with respect, despite my schooling and ability to read and write, which is something he could not do. If I can do anything at all it's because I have learned from people who can do it better. So if you have an opinion I want to hear it, but if you feel the need to be offensive I would prefer you kept it to yourself.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 07:16 AM

Brian, like you I am a singer not a scholar, I am also interested in origins of songs, however if song is a good song or it was written by Lloyd and not traditional it does not put me off singing it, my reason for singing a song is the merit of the words or tune its origins are of interest to me but very much secondary.
I do not like your description "charactristic good grace",I did not single out any one person a a wanker, but all those people who appear to wish to discredit Lloyd and concentrate on his negatives rather than positives are in my opinion wankers, it is fairly well established as to which tradtional songs Lloyd probably wrote, but we will never be 100 per cent sure.. as he is dead, far better in my opinion to be grateful to Lloyd for improving the repertoire than going on a detective mystery which in my opinion cannot be solved, however if you wish to spend your time on that, thats your business, mean while I will look at Lloyds positives and enjoy the songs he "collected" chacun a son gout.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 06:17 AM

Dick, Steve Roud has written a very good summary of the arguments regarding the different priorities of 'Editors and Performers' in his introduction to 'The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs'. Some of the people you describe with your characteristic good grace as 'wankers' are scholars first and singers second, or not at all. Hardly surprising that those people should want to examine the scholarship of a man once considered the leader in the field.

I'm a singer, not a scholar, but as a singer of old songs I'm really interested in where the songs came from, who sang them, why they sang them, and so on. My pursuit of the roots of the 'Bertsongs' is more like unravelling a detective mystery than trying to discredit anyone. I never met Bert, but every single person I've talked to that knew him spoke in glowing terms of his inspiration, intelligence and humour. Dave Arthur's biography gives a great account of his achievements, without skating over the controversial points.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:44 AM

Brian, you are a good singer and instrumentalist.
I still think it is the problem of scholars if they think
scholastic accuracy is more important than producing good repertoire and improving the overall repertoire.
yes I do think these people are wankers, because in my opinion they have their priorities confused, as a singer and performer rather than a scholar, I believe that the songs Lloyd "collected" have improved the overall folk song repertoire, and from my perspective as someone who is more concerned with performance and having good material to perform, that this is more important than his lack of scholastic accuracy, or the attempts to discredit Lloyd and disacredit his reputation over scholastic accuracy.
it seems to me to be extremely negative for people to go on about this aspect of Lloyds work, in my opinion it is more important to look at the positives of Lloyd, I have no time for negativity of any sort,and i regard people who harp on about lloyd in a negative way as wankers.
Lloyd has been dead for many years ,please give this tedious, negative stuff a rest.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:21 AM

Probably right Derrick

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Derrick
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:12 AM

Are people upset with Bert for his manipulation of material and facts, which led to some great songs or themselves for failing to realize what he did for so long?
I think a bit of both

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:08 AM

I may have said this before:

"If they had to alter songs, make up songs and talk 'seriously' about folk songs then they did - does it happen in any other genre of music that the performers explain the origin and meaning of songs before they sing them?. They did this essentially for political reasons - to raise working class consciousness and bring Revolution nearer."

In fact most of us enyoyed the pre-song chat and the seriousness that it lent to singing old songs in public. Lots of us did it and still do. I think Dave Bishop described Singarounds as "Singing folk songs and talking b*llocks".

It's a bit like the manufactured folklore that is still perpetrated by men who dance the Morris. I guess it's because most men cannot simply dance together in public.

But Brian is spot on about Bert and his book. I have read it three or four times and some of it stands and some of it doesn't.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:58 AM

The point is precisely the one Lighter makes - most of us think Lloyd's song reworkings are excellent, but the problem is that he wrote a bloody great book setting English folk song in a historical context, which many of us lapped up, and which coloured our approach to and presentation of the songs. People can hardly be blamed for feeling let down if that fascinating and colourful account turns out to be a bit dodgy in some respects.

'Scholars and wankers' Which one am I, Dick? Or do you mean the two categories are indistinguishable?

I thought Stuart Reed's post was clever, though.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:44 AM

Dick, why mention "wankers"? Who do you have in mind?

It's not only in academia that bogus information is to be deplored. Brightly shining teeth are a fun concept, but some people have been misled by those words. (Not that Lloyd was the first to produce a spoof: Baring-Gould did it with The Brown Girl.)

It has been pretty clearly demonstrated that Lloyd invented some of his supposed sources. There's a German proverb that translates as "If he tells lies, don't believe him even when he speaks the truth".

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 07:12 PM

LLOYD, is someone that many people of of the revival, owe a lot. he improved many songs and did much good to the tradition,
scholars and wankers, who are more concerned with academia get their knickers in a twist about him, well, that is their problem., he contributed much to,the UK folk revival. sound man, Bert.

Subject: RE: ALloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 06:54 PM

When that sort of person lets you down, you notice. Unless your name is Nick Dow. Then you stumble across the truth and hardly believe it.
I'm still taking consolation in the bigger picture though.
I wonder why Bert felt he had to fabricate information when he was respected and admired by so many

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Stuart Reed
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 06:14 PM

Sorry Steve, I'm suitably chastised. Just stuck in that hazy Woodstock mode - skim the details, thrust hands in the air and shout slogans.

But Times New Roman is a migraine-inducing font...

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 05:46 PM

No need for the CAPITALS, Stuart. We've all already said this.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Stuart Reed
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 05:13 PM

1-9-5-4 what are we waiting for?

Bert Lloyd SELECTED some great songs VARIED them and in so doing contributed to their CONTINUITY in the revival repertoire.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 02:34 PM

Lloyd's position as a conflater, improver, and inventor of songs isn't really comparable to that of post-1960 revival singers.

Few of them have had Lloyd's expertise, and few ever suggested they were doing more than making music. They were city people who had learned the songs from books and from Lloyd and MacColl. No one really thought of them as being especially close to "the folk," though they certainly hoped to be.

Lloyd, however, stressed the importance to the songs of history and culture, and the significance of the songs *in* history and culture. He seemed to be just one small step away from a supposedly living tradition. He talked with and learned rare songs straight from ordinary people, or so it seemed. He'd been a whaler. He was the chanteyman in Moby Dick. He was dedicated to folk styles, and he sang unaccompanied or with Alf Edwards's atmospheric concertina. He wrote some of the most knowledgeable and literate sleeve notes in trad music. He had a great stage and LP presence.

When that sort of person lets you down, you notice.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 08:53 AM

So no change there then.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 08:06 AM

Nick, you do realise that every time you sing it, people will come up and say, 'I love the way you sing The Bonnie Irish Boy to that Steeleye Span tune!'

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 07:57 AM

Busy trying to put other verses to 3334 at the moment. reckon I'll adapt The Bonnie Irish Boy words which will make sense with Elizabeth Moggs words. Now I wonder where I'll take my inspiration from??? Somebody told me Bert was good at this sort of thing.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 05:11 AM

OK, I checked Roy Palmer's 'Weaver in Love' paper, and it looks like they printed the tunes the wrong way round. The one given with Lloyd / Mr Oliver's words is the 6/8 one that Nick has identified correctly as the one in Kidson's MS. The one given for the Kidson 'T'Owd Weaver' is the 5/4 one that lloyd/Steeleye used. However, Roy Palmer says in the endnotes that the Oliver tune is similar to Enos White's 'In Sheffield Park' - and that is in 5/4. Not as similar to Lloyd's 'Handweaver' as Nick's Roud 3334, mind.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jul 14 - 02:14 AM

Steve
As you say, one of the problems with discussions like this is that people tend to treat Ewan and Bert as coming from the same direction - they didn't.
Bert was a scholar (!) who sang, Ewan was a singer whose whole aim in life was to help create a situation where folk-song was accepted as a serious creative art.
Most singers I met (including me, when I sang seriously) adapted songs to suit themselves, their personal tastes and their circumstances - often described as being "part of the tradition" - I don't believe it was, but that way be dragons!
Ewan did it extensively throughout his involvement with folksong and if you tackled him, he would admit it and explain what he did (when he could remember).
Some of his discoveries/creations, like Alan Tyne of Harrow, became standards in the repertoire - certainly in mine, and I certainly wasn't bothered which was his and which belonged to the tradition, not as a singer or devotee of song anyway.
If Ewan had any claim to scholarship, it was in the work he did on developing singers, his work on relaxation, on analysing songs to make them part of the singer, his introducing Laben and Stanislavski into singing work - that was MacColl's genius.
Unfortunately, we have never got round to discussing this part of his contribution because of the garbage-mountain that miraculously appears whenever his name is mentioned.   
Ewan wasn't someone who you would automatically think of if you wished to learn of song origins - he was a singer's singer.
Bert was very much a different creature; the few times I managed to talk to him I was left with the impression of somebody who couldn't quite make up his mind what he was, singer or scholar.
I have to admit, I never found him particularly approachable or generous with ideas or information, not in the way I found Ewan and still find Peggy.
I found him remarkably entertaining to listen to, not so much as a singer, but certainly as a speaker (maybe 'talker' is a better word) - his 'Folk Song Virtuoso', 'Songs of the People', and 'The Lament' still have the power to lift the hairs on the back of the neck, after dozens of listenings.
Not sure how academically reliable they are, I suspect somewhat flawed, but certainly inspirational, which was exactly what I and many like me needed when we first heard them.
Both Ewan and Bert played an important part in my enjoyment, and later, understanding of folk song - that neither of then were able to walk on water was immaterial, and it would have been unfair to have expected them to do so.
If Ewan and Bert had anything in common, it was almost certainly their ability to inspire and encourage people to lift the corner of folk-song to see what was underneath.
For that I will be eternally grateful.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 08:29 PM

Good work, Nick. I took another look at the Roy Palmer paper and I don't think I'm mistaken in the attributions he gives. Must check again tomorrow.

Personally I want no part in a Bert witch-hunt, but it's good to set the record straight and, well, it's just interesting.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 05:31 PM

Hi Jim,
I'll start by saying I agree with everything you've contributed here.

However we shouldn't treat MacColl and Lloyd as the same in this context. In many ways they did similar things. I'd say probably right upto 'Travellers' Songs' no scholar this side of the Atlantic would have looked at anything produced by MacColl as necessarily having come verbatim from a source singer. However I have seen writings from American scholars even upto quite recently that take MacColl's Child Ballads for instance as unmediated, perhaps because he picked up fragments of them from his parents.

Until about 10 years ago however Lloyd's songs were treated by the majority of singers and scholars alike as unmediated and Bert should have known better. What he did was brilliant (I don't think anyone would argue with that!) but it was a deception.

The big problem with all deceivers, particularly those that have a large output, is we will never know the extent of their deception fully and therefore their work is forever tainted.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 12:54 PM

"Jimmy Miller was his real name, McColl his stage name."
Actually it wasn't - MacColl actually officially changed his name and never made a secret of that fact - not to those who knew him anyway.
His name-change had far more to do with his army career than his stage career.
I'm never sure why it's such an issue - never seems to be with that Zimmermann feller.
"What annoys me is how Bert and McColl 'allegedly' invented people to authenticate their words and songs."
Do you have any flesh and bones to this legend Mike?
I once spent an afternoon with two friends, Ruth and Eddie Frow, both of whom I'm sure you will know.
They regaled me with information of the huge number of songs Ewan's parents both had, particularly the number of 'bits of queer Scots ballads' William Miller used to sing - both Eddie and Ruth were contemporaries of Ewan's parents.
For instance, one of Ewan's sources, Harold Sladen, was a lodger with the Miller family, and well known as a singer.
I have become convinced that Ewan took many of those 'bits' and built them into full songs for the revival.
Never get tired of quoting this - the first contact Ewan had with the arts world,
"Ewan MacColl was himself a victim of the Depression. The son of an unemployed Glasgow steelworker, who had moved to Salford in search of work during the twenties, he had suffered every privation and humiliation that poverty could contrive for him from the age of ten. His memories of his early years are still bitter—like his recollection of how to kill aimless time in a world where there was nothing else to do: "You go in the Public Library. And the old men are there standing against the pipes to get warm, all the newspaper parts are occupied, and you pick a book up. I can remember then that you got the smell of the unemployed, a kind of sour or bitter-sweet smell, mixed in with the smell of old books, dust, leather and the rest of it. So now if I pick up, say, a Dostoievsky—immediately with the first page, there's that smell of poverty in 1931."
MacColl had been out busking for pennies by the Manchester theatres and cinemas. The songs he sang were unusual, Scots songs, Gaelic songs he had learnt from his mother, border ballads and folk-songs. One night while queueing up for the three-and-sixpennies, Kenneth Adam had heard him singing outside the Manchester Paramount. He was suitably impressed. Not only did he give MacColl a handout; he also advised him to go and audition for Archie Harding at the BBC studios in Manchester's Piccadilly.
PROSPERO AND ARIEL (The rise and fall of radio, a personal recollection – D G Bridson 1971)"
Adam's meeting with MacColl was circa 1934, at least a decade and a half before the Folk Song Revival was a twinkle in anybody's eye.
We are at present working on two radio programmes to commemorate the 100th anniversary of MacColl's birth.
One of the problems has been cutting through the urban legends surrounding the man - pretty much, "if it doesn't fit modern preconceptions it must have been invented".
Coincidentally - or not - we have met the same problems with comparing the information we received from field singers we interviewed with modern theories as to who wrote the folk songs.
There must be a great deal of researched information on these subjects that the rest of us aren't privy to - yet - perhaps one day....!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 12:12 PM

In a conversation with the late Pete Elliott some twenty odd years ago we were discussing Bert's version of "Celebrated Working Man" which he recorded on "The Iron Muse" which differed considerably from Jack Elliott's version which came from Yankee Jim Roberts with whom Jack worked. Knowing how the Elliott family would have gone to the wall for Bert, Pete dismissed his version of the song as "wangling" but stressed that it was the only occasion that he was aware of Bert doing such a thing. The only other instance that I could cite as being an obvious Lloyd "creation" is his variant of "When a Man's In Love" which is the only version of this Irish ballad which contains any erotic content; I have heard lots of other singers perform this song, often citing different sources, but with a far more platonic ending than Bert's.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 10:11 AM

OK all points taken on board, and understood, not in any way dismissing anything that's been kindly said, and really not clevering and trying to have the last word, I've just tracked down T'owd Weaver in Kidson. ROUD 17771 and hate to say it the tune ain't that which Bert used. It's in 6/8 not 5/4. BUT the newly informed Dow will gladly concede that the Somerset tune is a great deal better, so thanks Bert, which sort of sums it all up. And now this irritating old fart is desperate to know what was the original song entitled 'The Irish Boy Roud 3334 is it any wonder I'm on medication. Please feel free to have two of the red pills and a lie down

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 09:22 AM

Sorry Nick, you posted whilst I was blathering. Brian Peters pointed the way - Read everything by Roy Palmer

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 09:19 AM

Ok, I guess this has been said a million times before:

Bert & Ewan were Marxists with a whole bag of ideas about class, culture and performance. These ideas grew out of their pre-war experiences of life, theatre and of what we now call folk songs.

After they met Alan Lomax, another Marxist, song collector and folklorist, they became even more committed to performing and popularising folk songs and they were determined to show the political content of songs as they moved from their rural origins into the Industrial Revolution.

If they had to alter songs, make up songs and talk 'seriously' about folk songs then they did - does it happen in any other genre of music that the performers explain the origin and meaning of songs brfore they sing them?. They did this essentially for political reasons - to raise working class consciousness and bring Revolution nearer.

Yes, I know I said this all above but 'sometimes' people joining in late date read earlier posts.

Well, maybe some class consciousness was raised but not a lot and The Revolution?

But we have loads of great songs. Thanks to them and bigger loads of others

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 09:06 AM

So where does that leave our understanding of Industrial Folk Songs.
(Not asking for much am I?-Next thread the meaning of life}

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 08:58 AM

I recall hearing the late Peter Bellamy saying that one needed to take Lloyd's findings with a grain of salt. On my part, I like many of his song settings.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 08:55 AM

The ultimate question, perhaps, is whether Lloyd's songs were "fakes." Well, no, they weren't. They are just not very typical and not very reliable sources of information about nineteenth-century song culture.

As somebody once asked ironically, "Are the Arabian Nights a fake?"

The question's relevance depends on what you want. What we call The Arabian Nights is a translation (or a modernization of a translation)of various translations of various dates from various cultures. ("Aladdin" is Chinese, and "Sindbad" doesn't even appear in the earliest editions.) That makes it a real problem for scholars studying the stories and the cultures, but not for anybody else.

And there's a time-related element as well. Take Lloyd's "Reynardine." We feel cheated and hoaxed to learn that Lloyd deliberately suggested that R. was a were-fox by slyly adding a detail about teeth that only the folklorically inclined would be likely to notice. But in a hundred years, their descendants may be fascinated by the idea that "horror films were so popular in the mid-twentieth century that even 'Reynardine' was turned into a were-fox."

Some of them will undoubtedly add, "by the folk."

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 07:58 AM

And so should we all Nick!

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 07:39 AM

My left hand is buggered. can't hold a C chord very well have sort of adapted everything, and done a Django on the basic chords, using loads of open strings. It's all I need now, the old voice is better than ever. Getting back to Bert, I agree about his storytelling and club gigs, he could be fascinating. Look at this! I'm falling back in love with his legacy.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 06:57 AM

Enjoyed your article in Living Tradition Nick. As a humble guitar player I feel reassured.

I remember seeing a guitar player, who's name may return to me in a while, he played a guitar piece written and performed by the guitar player out of the Prog Rock Band Yes. It was truly astonishing. He did everything physically, musically and emotionally that it was possible to play on a guitar. A few years later I saw him again. He was acompanying a famous Irish Harp player. He chatted between songs and tunes and explained that once having seen a famous singer appear on stage with 4 Martin guitars - all in different tunings - he decided things should be simpler. So he went back to standard tuning and playing where ever possible in C.

Thanks again

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 06:16 AM

That's the bigger picture, Thanks

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 04:06 AM

We discussed Bert very briefly last night at our Singaround. Dave Bishop, who has been singing and inspiring us all in Manchester and many other places for about a thousand years said he remembers Bert turning up at a club in Peterborough sometime in the 1960s and singing to an audience of teenagers and mesmerising them with his songs and stories.

John Routledge, singer and smallpipes player, another millenian,if that's a word, made the point that when Bert worked for the Coal Board - writting in Coal Board publications and asking for any songs connected with or sung by miners he recieved a lot of material. Some were complete songs with and with out tunes and some were fragments. This became on editing , I think, Come all you Bold Miners.

Bert left a heritage of folk music much richer than he found it. What we do with it is up to us isn't it?

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 30 Jul 14 - 03:22 AM

That's better we're back on track. On a serious note, I am learning a lot here, and sort of going along with most of the posts. If I had kept up with the rest of you, my own discovery would not have been such a bombshell. So many thanks and please keep replying

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 09:38 PM

Nick-

Don't lose any sleep over "Guest's" post above. He or she doesn't have the courage to post as a real or even a fictitious person, and has an old ax to grind with Ewan/Jimmy.

I think A. L. Lloyd was playing fast and loose with many of the songs he "collected" in England and Australia. But I really enjoyed listening to what he recorded.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 08:52 PM

Hey, I'm an academic!

Uh-oh, perhaps I've said too much....

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 08:10 PM

I think that people are basically agreeing with the premise of your original post, Nick. And it probably wasn't just the industrial songs (Laslo Feyer comes to mind.....)

Kitty

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 07:44 PM

How the bloody hell have we got from Bert fabricating songs to the post from Guest above. I've just remembered why I don't like academics
And it was all going so well.....

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 06:02 PM

Don't you mean Sir James George Frazer?

"Mark Twain" was really Samuel Clemens, and "Boris Karloff" was Bill Pratt. "MacColl"/ Miller strikes me as being equally innocuous.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 14 - 05:45 PM

Well, the most obvious invention is the name of "Ewan McColl" himself. Jimmy Miller was his real name, McColl his stage name.

What worries me is that this fabulation extends beyond the permissible allegory of political activism into our understanding of the folk heritage. Some aspects of the dark end of satanicism were worked on in those periods, in things like The Wicker Man and some of the work of Benjamin Britten, and these may have twisted the white side of faith as well. It already suffered from the aftermath of Victorian Romanicism in the neo-Gothic, typified by fabulations such as the communal adoption of a jingoistic form of Chivalry which bears little if any relationship even to the norms of the Court of Eleanor of Aquitaine, and which drove the flower of European youth into the trenches of WWI. It was a broad school, running from James MacDonald Fraser to Rudyard Kipling via the likes of Harrison Ainsworth, but was followed to some extent by the likes of the Quiller Couch family as an inspiration to RVW's generation of collectors. We then see the work of Robert Graves' circle in the foundation of modern paganism.