Bertsongs? (songs of A. L. 'Bert' Lloyd)

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Rowan
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:17 PM

Thanks for the praise Les; the cheque's in the mail.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:06 PM

Steve,

in a previous post I said you beyond the pail. I think I was trying to say you were peerless.Thanks for you recent post.

Rowan,

I wish I could write like you!

thanks

Les

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Rowan
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 06:05 PM

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.

And I'm still trying (unsuccessfully, so far, as I'm away from my library) to recall the particular Australian song(s) Bert "collected" when he was here and promulgated back in Britain.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:39 PM

Capt B
As far as I can see nobody in any of these related threads on Bert has tried to suggest otherwise. They're all cracking songs. We just wish Bert had said I wrote/adapted these verses/versions.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:29 PM

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Phil Edwards - PM
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:20 PM

The problem for me with 'Recruited Collier' is about the provenance. Here's Bert: "A set of this 18th century song was printed in Anderson's . The present version, from a collier, J. T. Huxtable of Workington, is in Come all ye bold miners".

Here's Steve Winick, from the "Reynardine" essay:
"Lloyd claimed that a man named J. T. Huxtable contacted him with a song he called "The Recruited Collier" (Lloyd 1952, 133). Lloyd's claim is highly suspect, however. Like Tom Cook, Huxtable could not be located by later researchers, although some looked for him in Workington where Lloyd claimed he lived. [4] In addition, it is now relatively clear that Lloyd actually created the song himself by adapting a poem entitled "Jenny's Complaint," written by Robert Anderson, a Cumberland antiquarian and poet. Anderson, who wrote the original in 1803, never claimed that the ballad had come from oral tradition. Indeed, he was quite clear in the preface to his book, Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect, that he was the author of the poems in the volume, explaining that they were copied from life and "composed during the author's solitary rambles on the banks of his favourite stream" (Anderson 1828, vi). Lloyd himself was aware of Anderson's book, noting that it contained "a version" of the song (Lloyd 1952, 133). He must, therefore, have known that it was not a "folksong" in any accepted sense, nor a product of miners' culture. This poem, unlike some others in Anderson's collection, does not appear to have entered the oral tradition until long after Lloyd's publication of it."
still a good song and very much worth singing.and that is my criteria.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:27 PM

Thanks Brian, I think you are right about the purpose of some of his interventions but they seem to be trying to justify a position upon which he had already made his mind. It also seems that rather a lot of songs were actually written by him and not collected.

I guess in the end the value of his contribution will far outweigh the songs he seems to have made from bits of others and just out of his imagination.But I still think for the sake of scholarship we need to know what is what

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:22 PM

Oops. The Lloyd quote should read

"A set of this 18th century song was printed in Anderson's Ballads in the Cumberland dialect (1808). The present version, from a collier, J.T. Huxtable of Workington, is in Come all ye bold miners"

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:20 PM

The problem for me with 'Recruited Collier' is about the provenance. Here's Bert: "A set of this 18th century song was printed in Anderson's . The present version, from a collier, J. T. Huxtable of Workington, is in Come all ye bold miners".

Here's Steve Winick, from the "Reynardine" essay:
"Lloyd claimed that a man named J. T. Huxtable contacted him with a song he called "The Recruited Collier" (Lloyd 1952, 133). Lloyd's claim is highly suspect, however. Like Tom Cook, Huxtable could not be located by later researchers, although some looked for him in Workington where Lloyd claimed he lived. [4] In addition, it is now relatively clear that Lloyd actually created the song himself by adapting a poem entitled "Jenny's Complaint," written by Robert Anderson, a Cumberland antiquarian and poet. Anderson, who wrote the original in 1803, never claimed that the ballad had come from oral tradition. Indeed, he was quite clear in the preface to his book, Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect, that he was the author of the poems in the volume, explaining that they were copied from life and "composed during the author's solitary rambles on the banks of his favourite stream" (Anderson 1828, vi). Lloyd himself was aware of Anderson's book, noting that it contained "a version" of the song (Lloyd 1952, 133). He must, therefore, have known that it was not a "folksong" in any accepted sense, nor a product of miners' culture. This poem, unlike some others in Anderson's collection, does not appear to have entered the oral tradition until long after Lloyd's publication of it."

(Emphasis added)

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:19 PM

As a singer and a researcher I tend to be somewhat schizophrenic when it comes to the whole tradition of song fabrication. The researcher in me is rather annoyed at being bamboozled by people like Bert, Ewan, Baring Gould, Buchan, Scott etc because once we find some examples of what they've done then this taints all the rest of their material. (Exactly how much did they fabricate?) On the other hand another part of me (a mischievous part) actually admires what they've managed to do. Most of them had different motives. I think Baring Gould's main motive for getting one over on Child was his contempt for what he saw as pompous authority, and I can empathise with this.
Bert obviously couldn't resist letting his own creative juices loose on the songs.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:53 AM

"Because of his deceit we don't know what song is genuinely 'traditional' and what is a Lloyd creation."

"It seems quite clear that Bert was doing things to songs with a purpose other than simply creating good songs but he wasn't being honest about it."

I think there's a danger of overstating this. Most of Lloyd's editorial changes seem pretty clearly to have had as their main purpose the creation of what he considered a more interesting song. Steven Winick's paper on 'Reynardine' makes this point very well. Attaching a bit of Balkan rhythm or melody to an old English song likewise served to sex things up a bit.

In the case of 'Recruited Collier', what seems to have happened is an alteration of the lyric, not directly for propaganda purposes, but to help validate the concept of 'Industrial Song'. This was Lloyd's Big Idea, on the one hand establishing that song making and transmission amongst "the folk" had not (contrary to prevailing orthodoxy) died out with the Industrial Revolution and urbanization, and on the other giving the folk revival movement some claim to relevance at a time when heavy industry still operated across much of Britain. As the 'Blackleg Miner' thread shows (and by the way, I'm getting a bit confused with three different Bert-related threads), some of 'Industrial Folksongs' cited by Lloyd and others may not have been sung as widely as the rural folksongs that turned up all over the place in countless variants. But since not too many song collectors spent time amongst the urban working class, we don't really know.

My own interest in "The Handweaver and the Factory Maid" centred on the possibility that the Lloyd version actually did tweak a pre-existing song to imply the downtrodden status of the factroy worker. Having seen the full text Malcolm pasted above, I'd say the jury is still out on that one.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:49 AM

Thanks Jim, Harry Boardman used to sing To the Begging and I seem to remember him casting some doubt on exactly what Ewan had got and what he done with it. Not that me memory adds anything to the discussion.

"what he did to the songs had nothing to do with the tradition - therein lies the problem".

But this does, can you take it a bit further?

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:31 AM

""Ewan collected To the Begging I will go from Beckett Whitehead in the 1950s or did he?"
No he didn't, he and Joan Littlewood collected it 10-15 years earlier from Becket Whitehead for a radio programme called 'The Song Collector' or something like that, produced by Olive Shaply - the details are in one of the indexes of The Ewan MacColl songbook.
They also collected 'Fourpence a Day and 'Drinking' around the same time
Bert may have 'IMPROVED' the songs, or even improved the songs, but he certainly didn't strengthen the tradition, what he did to the songs had nothing to do with the tradition - therein lies the problem.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:12 AM

Thanks Terry, this sums it up rather well:

"create the verses that the people should have sung but carelessly forgot to do so"

And this gives me an idea:

"A couple of years ago I heard Martin Simpson wryly explaining the origins of Peggy and the Soldier, telling us that Bert 'came up with' some extra verses."

Much is made of the many versions of songs that have been collected "from the field". How many versions of Barbra Alan from how many people? If a review of Bertsongs showed a disproportionate number of songs from only one mysterious source what would we think?

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 07:07 AM

Good points Captain, I guess we need to be careful about strengthening the tradition with bogus songs and lines which imply origins to songs that are without foundation.

I think hindsight as 20/20 vision is to be avoided but didn't Bert work in an academic environment that expected honest sources and references and much was made of this in his case?

It seems quite clear that Bert was doing things to songs with a purpose other than simply creating good songs but he wasn't being honest about it. Many of us were excited by him because he seemed to have identified an historical analysis of traditions that really valued working class culture.

I don't think I can explain in this format what Bert's purpose was and how he changed and created songs to support that purpose but in the year of his Centenary I think somebody should.

It took far too long for the Folk world to unravel what Sharp et al had been doing when they selectively collected songs. It looks we need to unravel what Bert was up to.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Terry McDonald
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 06:47 AM

Strengthened the tradition? No he didn't, Cap'n, he weakened it. Because of his deceit we don't know what song is genuinely 'traditional' and what is a Lloyd creation. I'm now wondering about his version of Creeping Jane - it's a very different melody than the one recorded by Joseph Taylor and has more verses. This latter point seems to be very much a Bert Lloyd trait - create the verses that the people should have sung but carelessly forgot to do so. A couple of years ago I heard Martin Simpson wryly explaining the origins of Peggy and the Soldier, telling us that Bert 'came up with' some extra verses.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 06:38 AM

what Bert did was strengthen the tradition,Nothing wrong with that.
if he was herenow he would probably be operating differently ,he has to be seen in the context of his time,as Cecil Sharp and Baring Gould are.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 06:17 AM

Cap'n:
"Establishment/multinational capatalists do not believe in sticking to the truth.,they use every means at their disposal to maintain their position."

Indeed so – the name 'Murdoch' springs to mind. But I like to be on the side of the good guys. Do we really need to claim that Tories eat babies in order to oppose them?

Malcolm Douglas:
Thank you for chapter and verse on "The Handweaver and the Factory Maid". Perhaps less of a confection than I was suggesting, but the omitted lines are significant nonetheless. I'm curious about Mr. Oliver of Widnes: were other songs collected from him, and was he ever recorded? Where did he find a tune for his broadside of "Handweaver"?

Les in Chorlton:
"Ewan collected To the Begging I will go from Beckett Whitehead in the 1950s or did he?"

Beckett Whitehead sang pretty much what is in the DT under "A-Beggin' I Will Go", which was collected by Seumus Ennis and published in "Folksongs of Britain and Ireland". It doesn't include anything about being "blind in Dukinfield", nor did he sing it to the modal tune that MacColl used. I'm not sure where those came from.

Les again:
"I think these have been added:
Bold Lovell, Jack Orion, Sovay and The Demon Lover...."

Yes, but, as Steve Gardham pointed out, an awful lot of performers have made their own collated, improved or otherwise meddled-with versions of Child Ballads in particular. I don't have any problem with 'Lovell' or 'Demon Lover' (I've just done my own take on the latter, inspired by - but different from - the Lloyd version).

Still, if you want another example of Child/Lloyd, what about 'Lucy Wan' - the one with that weird tune in the Lydian mode or whatever it was?

And I always rather assumed "Fourloom Weaver" (the tune, at least) was MacColl's work rather than Lloyds.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:32 AM

I would like to thanks you all for the quality of contributions to this thread. They have been thoughtful and extremely well informed. I would ask anybody coming to it anew to read from the start.


My original list was:
The Blackleg Miner, Do me Ama, The Recruited Collier, Reynadyne, Tam Lyn, Byker Hill in 9/8, The Four Loom Weaver, The Handloom Weaver and the Factory Maid,

I think these have been added:
Bold Lovell, Jack Orion, Sovay and The Demon Lover, Celebrated Working Man, Working on the Railway, Anathea

I will re-state - "We all recognise the contribution Bert made in all kinds of ways"

But what do we know of him in this year of his Centenary? Some people are going to look silly and the task of scholarship in traditional music will be that much harder if it turns out that Bert was writing more than he was collecting.

I understand a biography is at hand, is that so?

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: nutty
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:23 AM

I'LL TRY AGAIN ....

I think there is a tendancy to judge Bert by modern standards given the knowledge we have today. He was a man who was totally committed to promoting folk music to a relatively hostile and uninterested population.
Would anyone have taken him seriously if he had admitted to doctoring somgs?
Given that the songs had been developed through the oral tradition (ie many versions across the country or continents) did it really make any difference?

I doubt that he envisaged a world where access to source material was so readily available and once having created the myth how could he retract without losing all credibility?

Don't lose sight of the enormous impact he had ...... his only fault was that he was human.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: nutty
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:14 AM

I

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:12 AM

should read,the means is justified by the end.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Apr 08 - 05:07 AM

Bert, must have given considerable thought to what he did.
I see it as an extension of the philosophy the end justifies the means,which is the philosophy of communists and also the ruling classes of the capatilist system.
the two just have different ends.
Bert presumably[and Ithink he was right]considered his own songs and his alterations a bonus to the tradition .,he clearly wanted his songs to be part of the tradition,and at the time he composed them,perhaps he thought ,they wouldnt be judged on their merit if he announced them as self compositions.
was the attitude to modern songs perhaps different at this time.?
one person who may be able to throw light on Berts reasons,would be Jim Carroll.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 09:17 PM

We've had discussions of Anathea, as recorded by Judy Collins & others, here before, and I believe someone suggested Bert Lloyd may have been involved in the construction of that ballad.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Rowan
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 07:04 PM

It's always disappointng to find your idol has feet of clay, even if the clay only affects the toes; the rest of us (not being idols) can have as much clay as we like in our constitution and nobody fusses.

I've always liked Bert's singing and value the songs he (and others, since) have made important, but it's the possible taint of false scholarship that bothers me. That may well be just my problem but I come from and operate in a tradition where respectable scholarship is valued.

Without going into the veracity of Steve's 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 it reminded me of Brian Peters' situation I perform from time to time for local schoolchildren a repertoire designed to tell them something about the history....

I've done similar classes myself and 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.

I suspect most of us would love to exercise the same magic as Bert's and would feel happy to be cast a bit in Bert's mould and that's where the possible taint of dodgy scholarship bites those of us who value that aspect.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:44 PM

"if Bert lloyds composotions were so authentic that every one was fooled,Then they must be good songs."

Because, quite simply, we have been lied to by many, and we thought Bert would tell the truth

Ah well ...........................................

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:34 PM

ah yes Ihave found him ,sorry.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:33 PM

BB where does Wee Little Drummer come into this.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 06:26 PM

Traditional songs, are all songs that were written by somebody,many have been altered and added to,by the singers.
modern songs may possibly be sung in 200 years time,they may also get changed,and it is possible that some may get mistaken for traditional.
if Bob Roberts altered Gamekeepers lie sleeping,or A. L.Lloyd altered a song,or even wrote a song and passed it off as traditional,if it was a good song,I am sure none of the singers on this forum,would not sing it because it was not traditional.
most people sing songs because they like the song.
as a singer ,that is the only thing that concerns me.IF a song is a modern composition the only reason, I need to know is to ensure the author gets credited with his/ her royalties.
if Bert lloyds composotions were so authentic that every one was fooled,Then they must be good songs.
Scholars only need to know because they have a different criteria from singers like myself,or from past traditional singers[all of whom sang a song because they liked it],they[trad singers] did not refuse to sing a composed music hall song,a few like Walter Pardon had great knowledge about their songs,but most did not,their criteria was, it did something for them.

   Brian says he believes in trying to stick to the truth while changing the world,well the Establishment/multinational capatalists do not believe in sticking to the truth.,they use every means at their disposal to maintain their position.
I do not need to know which were Berts songs ,because he never claimed them to be his own,obviously he didnt want the royalties.
Finally we are talking about two very different times. lloyds world,the1950s folk revival, and the world of the 1950s was very different,to our own 21 century computer world.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: BB
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 05:58 PM

"if we've got down to the point where this music and these songs, are just about history and who said what to whom and with exactly what words, the folkscene is really up shit creek."

Ah, but it isn't *just* about history, etc., as many of the posters above have indicated.

I'm somewhat puzzled, wld, as to why you read or post to these threads about the more academic matters and about the tradition if you don't really care about such things. If all you're concerned with is the folk scene, why don't you restrict yourself just to discussion on that, and let those who are interested in such things get on with it? You wouldn't get so frustrated then.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 05:42 PM

Steve,

you are beyond the pail.

Bert played games. This is not honest

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 05:30 PM

This is a very frustrating but interesting thread. People keep repeating over and over two facts which are not really connected. What Bert did as a performer surely we can't question, he altered/improved songs which we all do. If we don't we're simply walking museums.
A totally separate issue is his behaviour as a scholar and writer. Here he followed the very ancient tradition of fabricating songs from oral tradition....Percy, Scott, Ford, Cunningham, Buchan, Baring Gould, Tongue, Niles, MacColl.....He was equally naughty.

Someone asked for more examples.
I'm from Hull.
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.

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.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 05:23 PM

Could it be that he didn't always remember fiddling? Woody Guthrie forgot that Gypsy Davey was around way before him.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 05:10 PM

The Gresford Disaster.

John Tams, formly of The Albion Band, did the research into the song, and found that it had been written in the form of the great, black-lettered, broadside ballads to raise funds for those who had been
widowed and orphaned by the accident He also discovered that the colliery band was at the pithead as the bodies were being brought out, playing to try and raise the spirits
of the wives, children and friends who were waiting. One tune the colliery band is known to have played, according to Tams, was How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds (in a believer's ear)

I've no reason to believe that John Tams is in anyway mistaken.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: John Routledge
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:47 PM

Many thanks for this informative link Nutty

It confirms that Bert was helped in his mining song collecting by The National Coal Board around 1950. In practical terms songs were "sent" to Bert by working miners.

Two of these songs Blackleg Miner and Banks of the Dee were among the first half dozen songs that I learned around 1963-4.The more I sing them the more that I am convinced that they were not conceived much before 1950

In a similar vein Gresford Disaster was "collected" in Sheffield and again repeated singing since 1966 confirms my gut reaction as to the origin of the song.

They are still wonderful songs and none the less worthy of being sung!!

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: nutty
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:17 PM

can i suggest that this article may shed some light on Lloyds intentions
A. L. Lloyd and the Search for a New Folk Music, 1945-49

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:11 PM

Dick says: "I am not dismayed at all,I fully agree with LLoyds politics,and agree with what he was trying to do and consider that more important than scholarship.
Most people who are driven by a desire to change the world,be they Muslim fundamentalists ,Fascists,communists, socialists,are prepared to try and camouflage scholarship,to further their own beliefs."

This is why I do not trust ideologues and fanatics of any stripe.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:49 PM

To return for a moment to weavers and factory maids:

Palmer (FMJ, 1977, reference above) quotes a text 'Kindly communicated by A L Lloyd; collected by him from William Oliver of Widnes, September, 1951. "Mr Oliver's recollection was that the song was on a broadside printed in Oldham and formerly in his family's possession" (A L Lloyd, private communication).' Palmer goes on to say that he has not succeeded in locating an example of this broadside, adding that the 6/8 tune (which, for the article, was transcribed 'as sung by A L Lloyd', though the text was that provided by Lloyd as from his informant, thus:

I am a hand weaver to my trade.
I fell in love with a factory maid,
And if I could but her favor gain
I'd stand beside her and weave by steam.

The factory maid she is like a queen,
With handloom weavers she'll not be seen.
[two lines missing]

[two lines missing]
When you could have girls fine and gay
And dressed up like to the Queen of May.

For all her finery I don't care (or: For the fine girls...)
Could but enjoy me dear
I'd stand in the factory all the day
And she and I'd keep our shuttles in play.

How can you say it's a pleasant bed,
When nought lies there but a factory maid?
A factory maid what though she be,
Blest is the man that enjoys she.

[line missing]
And makes me wish I'd never been born,
I sit and grieve at my loom all day
For the lass that stole my heart away.

Now where are the girls? I'll tell you plain,
The girls have gone to weave by steam.
And if you'd find 'em you must rise at dawn
And trudge to the factory in the early morn.

At no point does Palmer question the authenticity of Lloyd's text as printed (though he does provide a caveat where Frank Kidson's, with 5/4 tune, is concerned; however, no part of that text was used in the song as Lloyd sang it); the short article is simply an investigation of the song and its broadside antecedents. It is only in Lloyd's text that the girl is 'a factory maid': in earlier forms she is a servant, and it is from one or more of those that the missing lines were adapted, and additional verses inserted, by Lloyd for performance.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:33 PM

This is a very powerful song of the coal miners I learned from Steeleye Span

Like it. Crossing over with another thread ('Source singers'), when I started performing I was utterly convinced that everyone else had learnt their repertoire from a passing ploughman, or failing that from Bert Lloyd in person, or at the very least from another folkie who'd learnt it from another folkie who'd learnt it from... To put it another way, I was convinced I was the only person there who'd picked up songs from (gasp!) records. I was eventually disabused of that notion.

Getting back to the topic, Steve Winick's article seems to suggest that Folk Song in England is basically pukka with regard to this one - if Lloyd says in FSIE that a song's traditional, then it probably is. (And if not, quite possibly not.) I haven't got FSIE myself - do other people think it might be a good place to draw a vague and fuzzy line?

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:08 PM

I feel sure that is an excellent summary of where we have got to with respect to Bert's honesty and where it leaves us.

For those who don't know Brian is a good as it gets when we talk about English songs, their performance and the background that those songs spring from.

I would ask people to stop re-stating how good and how important Bert was. I think we all agree on that.

I would like to know which songs were his and which were traditional.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:59 PM

"...there is no false propaganda in writing a song about the very hard times working people had in the 19th C (as Bert Lloyd seems to be accused of). Is anyone going to claim that 19th C labourers did not have a hard time?"

No, I'm not - I've read my Engels as well. If Bert Lloyd or anyone else had written original songs about those hard times, no one would be objecting.

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" (not for nothing did Topic use this title for their traditional song boxed set) 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. When intellectuals start meddling with them at a hundred and fifty years' remove - and particularly when the meddling is with the substance rather than the detail - they lose that claim to authenticity. When we don't know how much meddling has gone on, it's easy to lose faith with the whole canon.

I perform from time to time for local schoolchildren a repertoire designed to tell them something about the history behind those great cotton mills that still cast their shadow over this town. I show them old photographs and explain to them how children of their age would have been crawling underneath working machinery (with no safety guards) at severe risk to life and limb, and trudging off to work before the break of dawn. Perhaps one or two of them may be a fraction less likely to turn into Tory voters as a result (or perhaps I flatter myself). But I would like to feel that the songs I use to help tell the story do actually represent the people who worked those mills. Unlike Dick [above] I think it's better to try to stick to the truth in trying to change the world.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:52 PM

'Will you talk about the origin of the song? '

ummmmm...how does this sound?

'This is a very powerful song of the coal miners I learned from Steeleye Span, the background and origin of the song are currently the subject of much debate at this time' (do I get off the hook? *LOL*)

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:45 PM

Fair enough Charlotte, people should sing what they like and so they will. Will you talk about the origin of the song? I don't know what it is anymore and I don't like the feel of that.

People singing in clubs often say a bit about the songs.In Manchester, the first Industrial City, we have a wealth of songs from broadsides that record something or other that happened to Mancunians 1 to 200 years ago.

Ewan collected To the Begging I will go from Beckett Whitehead in the 1950s or did he? Ewan and maybe Bert collected a very odd version of Working on the Railway from an UNNMADE railwayman in Newton Heath Manchester, or did they.

Honesty?

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 02:05 PM

"Did he invent a bit or a lot?

Currently we don't know and so we don't really know the scale of the deception"

I thought quite a bit about this, overnight, and re-read some passages from Folk Song in England, and I really don't think we'll ever know the full scale, and in the end, I wonder if it really matters. I will still sing the songs, indeed , this Friday I'll sing The Black Leg Miner (see the eponymous thread) after listening the driving version by Steeleye Span.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:58 PM

The "Do Me Ama" thread contains my final rant of the day about the point of all this. Lloyd's importance is only underscored by our concern with his reliability as a teacher and our disappointment when he, er, disappoints.

Wish I'd met him and heard him tell that story.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:56 PM

Did he invent a bit or a lot?

Currently we don't know and so we don't really know the scale of the deception.

For what it's worth I saw him a couple of times and thought he was brilliant but that means nothing in this context, as most of us who saw him think so as well.

What we want is the truth about which songs were mostly his passed of as something else.

We are talking about folk song and folk culture. This is an aspect of our culture in which people have a habit of saying all sorts of things with out much evidence!

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: JeffB
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:39 PM

Lighter says that "traditional songs are supposed to be 'about' history". I would put a slightly different emphasis on what sons means to me and say they are about people - for the much greater part, about ordinary people who had to work with their hands to earn a living. From this point of view, there is no false propaganda in writing a song about the very hard times working people had in the 19th C (as Bert Lloyd seems to be accused of). Is anyone going to claim that 19th C labourers did not have a hard time? In some cases an atrocious time. Was Lloyd being factually inaccurate in his versions? He certainly would have been if he had written about how happy factory weavers were intheir work, with their generous wages and conditions.

It is all very well saying that we would like to sing (or even should only sing) the exact words as sung by singers from the past, and along with many another I appreciate the kind of continuity and contact over time that this experience can give. But singing is not an exercise in historical re-enactment. Singers chose the versions they like, from wherever they get them, because the song affects them and they want to communicate that same affect to their audience. From a singer's point of view, it might be interesting to know that, for instance, Lloyd or some other changed the verses of a particular song in various ways, but that is not of first importance. Singers are not always the genuine scholars of Ruth's comment, but it is the singers and not the scholars who keep the tradition (however you choose to define it) going.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:18 PM

Most people who are driven by a desire to change the world,be they Muslim fundamentalists ,Fascists,communists, socialists,are prepared to try and camouflage scholarship,to further their own beliefs.

I don't think that will work. Les, Ruth and I are (by our own admission) pinkoes of the deepest dye, who might be supposed to sympathise with the kind of line Lloyd was trying to get across. But we've all expressed concern about scholarship being 'camouflaged' (or rather distorted).

this very day Muslims have managed to get the holocaust removed from the english school curriculum[so I have been informed by email].

I think your source is probably mistaken - more on this well-circulated story here. (But let's minimise follow-ups on this non-musical but highly contentious topic.)

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:17 PM

Ruth, as one whose politics are dead center (no pun intended) I never got a sense from the songs themselves that I was being manipulated - though I admit I haven't listened much to Lloyd's industrial songs, "Blackleg Miner" being the most obvious exception.
Songs like "Do Me Ama" and "Reynardine" and even "The Weaver and the Factory Maid" come off as humanistic rather than propagandist documents.

Lloyd's unacknowledged manipulation of his material is ridiculously low on the scale of human wrongdoing. The truth remains that he often misrepresented facts of tradition when he knew better.

Which has costs for folksong scholarship.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:13 PM

I agree with those who are a bit impatient with Bert's legacy. He wasn't very forthcoming about his sources and this is at odds with his reputation as a scholar.

Nevertheless, here's a slightly different perspective on Bert as an artist. Some 40 years ago I heard him sing at my local folk club in my home town. I have this vision in my head of this quite ordinary looking, somewhat portly little man getting off the London train, one Sunday evening, and walking through deserted streets to the pub where the club was held. He carried no instruments or equipment, just the songs in his head.

Amazingly a tape of that evening survives and I got to hear it recently. As well as the songs he sang, Bert told one of his incredible 'shaggy dog' stories. In the story a mysterious stranger turns up at an outback sheep station in Australia. He performs numerous 'miracles' and by the end of the story gets to 'roger' everyone on the station - including the owner! Now, as far as I know (and what do I know?) Bert didn't get to 'roger' anyone that night, but I couldn't help but draw parallels between him and the mysterious magician in his story. Bert Lloyd evenings in a folk club were magical and perhaps, like all good magicians, he didn't want his audiences to know how the tricks were done (?)

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:09 PM

Brian, it looks like Roy Palmer may have done some more research into the song after the publication of A Touch on the Times - the publication dates would suggest this.

No axes here, either - I still think his contribution was huge and look forward to the Centenary Concert at Cecil Sharp House in November.