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Kate Rusby - 'My Music'

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Ruth Archer 31 May 09 - 12:39 PM
The Borchester Echo 31 May 09 - 01:08 PM
Ruth Archer 31 May 09 - 01:59 PM
The Borchester Echo 31 May 09 - 02:05 PM
Ruth Archer 31 May 09 - 02:15 PM
Bonzo3legs 31 May 09 - 03:41 PM
GUEST,Ralphie 31 May 09 - 04:17 PM
Tug the Cox 31 May 09 - 07:49 PM
Ruth Archer 31 May 09 - 08:03 PM
r.padgett 01 Jun 09 - 02:50 AM
GUEST,Jon 01 Jun 09 - 04:13 AM
Phil Edwards 01 Jun 09 - 04:47 AM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 06:29 AM
Ruth Archer 01 Jun 09 - 06:36 AM
MartinRyan 01 Jun 09 - 06:38 AM
The Borchester Echo 01 Jun 09 - 06:54 AM
Tug the Cox 01 Jun 09 - 07:00 AM
MartinRyan 01 Jun 09 - 07:07 AM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 07:42 AM
Phil Edwards 01 Jun 09 - 07:44 AM
GUEST,Mary Brennan 01 Jun 09 - 07:55 AM
The Borchester Echo 01 Jun 09 - 08:07 AM
Ruth Archer 01 Jun 09 - 08:21 AM
Jack Campin 01 Jun 09 - 08:31 AM
Morris-ey 01 Jun 09 - 08:34 AM
GUEST,Chris Murray 01 Jun 09 - 08:38 AM
Phil Edwards 01 Jun 09 - 09:16 AM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 09:23 AM
Ruth Archer 01 Jun 09 - 09:40 AM
r.padgett 01 Jun 09 - 11:09 AM
Folkiedave 01 Jun 09 - 11:35 AM
Folkiedave 01 Jun 09 - 11:36 AM
Phil Edwards 01 Jun 09 - 11:42 AM
Rifleman (inactive) 01 Jun 09 - 11:56 AM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 01:28 PM
Ruth Archer 01 Jun 09 - 02:02 PM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 02:23 PM
Rifleman (inactive) 01 Jun 09 - 03:37 PM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 03:52 PM
Bonzo3legs 01 Jun 09 - 03:59 PM
Rifleman (inactive) 01 Jun 09 - 04:05 PM
Ruth Archer 01 Jun 09 - 04:14 PM
The Sandman 01 Jun 09 - 04:18 PM
Rifleman (inactive) 01 Jun 09 - 04:19 PM
Rifleman (inactive) 01 Jun 09 - 04:34 PM
Ruth Archer 01 Jun 09 - 04:46 PM
greg stephens 01 Jun 09 - 04:55 PM
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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 31 May 09 - 12:39 PM

Dick, I think there are a few issues here, without (I hope) dredging up all the old AL Lloyd arguments again. Firstly, there is a differce between a body of songs changing organically over a period of time, and one person, with access to mass-market publishing and broadcast media, stepping in and deliberately and substantially changing a number of them in a much shorter period of time.

Secondly, there is the issue of what his responsibility is to the music, given his position. As a fairly unknown singer in a pub, or even as a well-known singer with a recording contract, he would have been free do what he liked to the songs. But as someone who has set themselves up as a researcher, an expert, even a semi-academic, to re-write songs and make up false sources for the new versions is pretty much indefensible. Thirdly, there is the question of motivation. A number of AL Lloyd's "re-writes" were created to serve his own political leanings - where songs did not exist to support his politics, or where he felt their sentiments were not expressed sufficiently strongly, he changed them, and then pretended that these songs, as they stood, were part of the fabric of social history. I can't help seeing this as a betrayal.


I hope you understand my point: anyone who wants to can do anything they like to any song. Just please be honest about it.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 31 May 09 - 01:08 PM

Yes, and Recruited Collier is a prime example of ALL using (and subverting) a text to meet a political purpose. Coalmining as opposed to ploughing had become far more politically sexy and, besides, such a title would fit nicely into Come All Ye Bold Miners.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with basing a song written in the tradition on an existing poem of known authorship, or of updating an existing text. As long as you SAY SO. Origins are interesting and add to understanding. Bert, however, chose to deceive. That is both misleading and disappointing. This is a man who used to read and then correct my Morning Star pieces in single spaced manual typescript and so I wonder now just what else he wasn't quite honest about.

Surprisingly, the OP claims to have seen at least one of my pieces about Chris Wood. This is a musician who works closely with people in their environment and workplace, fitting his words and music to rhythms of speech. He uses existing work and original composition together to create something new and fresh, but never conceals. That is the difference: respect for the tradition but the freedom to break convention.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 31 May 09 - 01:59 PM

I should add, if it isn't clear from my post above, that despite my misgivings about the songs he may have altered or made up, I still feel that Bert Lloyd contributed a huge amount to the folk revival and we owe him an enormous debt.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 31 May 09 - 02:05 PM

Well, of course I concur entirely with Ruth's assessment of ALL's huge contribution to the revival. It's just that there are often two diametrically opposing sides to a person's character, their motivations and repercussions arising therefrom.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 31 May 09 - 02:15 PM

Indeed. Isn't it nice when we all agree? :)


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 31 May 09 - 03:41 PM

Frankly I've read a load of pompous bollocks here. Many thanks to Lizzie, and how boring is the lady from N11. Why not enjoy Kate for what she does........sings a bit o' folk music very well.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 31 May 09 - 04:17 PM

Hey Bonzo.
Who says that we don't like Kate?
She's a great singer, but I'm sure she (like many other performers) is heartily sick of the rantings of misguided fans who know nothing about her.
She's a fine lady, great player, great singer.....Trying to earn a crust. and doing very well.

Go back to your 5 star hotel in Buenos Aires.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 31 May 09 - 07:49 PM

Oh dear a little bit of sweetness and light breaks out and straight away two size ten boots jump in. Actually, I was an academic all my working life, and of course respect academic integrity. I also applaud political integrity... If I could have mangled some references and allusions to score a telling point against Thatcher, or Hitler, of course I would have done. I would have expected my scholarly folkorist
colleagues to have rumbled my interventions, but would also have expected, at least some of them, to have applauded my actions, knowing that the oppressed folk whose stories the songs tell, needed all the help they could get.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 31 May 09 - 08:03 PM

That's an interesting point, Mr Cox. I was a university lecturer for several years myself, and I'm a socialist. But I find it hard to justify Lloyd's deliberate re-writing of certain aspects of working-class history through his mis-attributions, because it wasn't really necessary and ultimately it undermined his work and his reputation, which is very sad.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 02:50 AM

" I Clearly haven't a clue what you are on about" is a rhetorical statement aimed at me and no other person on this thread (or others herewith!)

I will now have a look to see what you are all on about!

Ray


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:13 AM

Sorry then Ray. I guess I'm getting a bit jumpy over here then. Trouble is people respond to things they think they read, want to interpret as, other threads get started on these things (eg. a criticsm of a program becomes KR getting flack and a desire through trying to be factually correct becomes sort of wanting to keep music away from "the people" and "disallowing" singers to make their own changes to songs) so I guess I can find it easy to assume someone else is doing the same.

From my pov, it is probably best just to accept that any debate on English music, the folk scene in England and those concerning certain artists have become a complete and utter waste of time for me on Mudcat. Ultimately, they will only be allowed to go in certain (and I believe somewhat distorted) ways.

I'll try once again to stay away from here.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:47 AM

I was a university lecturer for several years myself, and I'm a socialist. But I find it hard to justify Lloyd's deliberate re-writing of certain aspects of working-class history through his mis-attributions

Yes. As theleveller said recently on another thread,

"Surely the whole point of folk songs is that they are more than just songs – they are our history, our roots, an oral history as seen from a different perspective to the educated classes who wrote the history book, and they deserve to be preserved as such."

The Recruited Collier isn't part of our history - except that part of it which post-dates Bert Lloyd! The same goes, I strongly suspect, for The Blackleg Miner. And I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past, however good a point you can make. After all, the reason we want to hear stories about the past - in the political context most of all - is that we think the stories tell us something true: we're fighting just like they fought before us. And if some well-meaning activist has created "them" in our own image, then we're just breathing our own recycled air.

Compare The Blackleg Miner with the Yahie Miners (which I believe was Bert's source). Yahie is about a strikebreaking workforce being bussed in, which is a much more clear-cut case than the average "strikers and blacklegs" situation - and even then, it's a significantly less violent song than Blackleg (no tripwires, no "dying day" lines, etc). Yahie comes out of an entire community shunted to the margins by the bosses, and its mood is grumpy and resentful. Blackleg purports to come out of a divided community, and its mood is savagely angry - very much as a radical outside observer would hope strikers would feel. But I don't think it's a song strikers would actually write, given that strikers and blacklegs will always have to work together eventually (not to mention living in the same community). I don't think Bert did us any favours at all with that one.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 06:29 AM

it is necessary to put what Bert allegdly did[there is no proof that he didnt collect the song] in the context of the time.
as a communist/socialist he would have believed that the end justified the means.
to him it was probably more important to get a good song, sung.
he was right.
it is also correct that the performance of a song,is more important than the verbal introduction,the verbal introduction notes and or correct scholastic notes do have a degree of importance,but they are of lesser importance.,when the song is being sung,and do not help the singer to do justice to the song.
quite frankly,I shall continue to sing The Recruited Collier as Bert collected it,because it is a fine song.
It would be ridiculous to stop singing it because it was allegedly not traditional,that is as half baked as not singing it because it was not English.
It all depends where you are coming from ,I sing songs because I like them,I do not stop singing a song because someone has allegdly tampered with it.,or because someones scholarship is dodgy.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 06:36 AM

"quite frankly,I shall continue to sing The Recruited Collier as Bert collected it,because it is a fine song.
It would be ridiculous to stop singing it because it was allegedly not traditional"

Dick, no one said you should stop singing it. If you like it, sing it. That's really not the issue.


"as a communist/socialist he would have believed that the end justified the means."

More Machiavelli than Marx, surely?


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 06:38 AM

There is little to choose, ultimately, between those who WON'T sing songs like The Recruited Collier because the song has been consciously manipulated for political reasons - and those who WILL sing it ONLY or largely because it has! Both miss the point.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 06:54 AM

Martin Ryan above, certainly, completely misses The Point, not that he is alone, this IS Mudcat.

The Point is not whether or not the song is good (it is) or who should or shouldn't sing it (anyone who can and wants to). It is that a TV production company allowed a howler go out on air. For the purposes of anyone researching material, it is important that attribution is correctly recorded.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:00 AM

And I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past, however good a point you can make.

Glad no-one convinced Homer or Shakespeare about that.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:07 AM

Diane

Calm down! I'm well aware of the impact of misattribution and of simple myth-making - particularly in the context of mass media. We've no shortage of examples of it in Ireland, to put it mildly. A recent Irish language TV series on songs of historical interest had one or two programmes which were laughably misleading.

My point was about the impact of agitprop/anti-agitprop attitudes both on singers and on listeners.

Regards


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:42 AM

Martin ,spot on ,I choose to sing the song because I like it.
Ruth Archer
Means and Ends

The dialectic of Means and Ends is of deep historical, ethical and political significance. The "Means" is the activity a subject engages in with the intention of bringing about a certain "End." The "End" has initially only an ideal existence, and the Realised End – the actual outcome of the adopted Means – may be quite different from the abstract End for which the Means was adopted in the first place.

Both Means and Ends are therefore processes which are in greater or lesser contradiction with one another throughout their development – constituting a learning process of continual adjustment of both Means and Ends in the light of experience – until, at the completion of the process, Means and End merge in a form of life-activity, which is both its own End and its own Means. The dialectic of Means and Ends is manifested in certain maxims which express aspects of the dialectic in a one-sided or limited way.

"We do not have the means to achieve our ends" is something which radical socialist groups have been saying for more than a century, reflecting the absolute gulf between their capacity to imagine socialism and the smallness of their own resources. The problem here is simply to mistake the socialist imaginary for an End, and to understand the purpose of socialist agitation to be to bring into being a socialist utopia. The socialist utopia is an ethical precept rather than a state of affairs which has to be brought about. As Marx said in The German Ideology:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." [German Ideology]

Thus, the perception that there is an impossible gulf between ends and means results from an abandonment of the critique of existing conditions, in favour of a hankering after a distant utopia, or simply a role far out of line with a group's actual sphere of activity. Whenever a radical group finds itself with such an absolute contradiction between means and ends (perhaps resulting from a gradual change in conditions, a weakening of its base), then it should consider re-orienting itself towards the critique of existing conditions, since these conditions necessarily provide the means for their own critique.

"The End justifies the Means" is a maxim which originated in an accusation made by Protestants against the Jesuits. Although few would openly proclaim such a cynical maxim, it is clearly the conception which justified the atrocities of Stalinism and the use of terror by some who claimed to be pursuing the socialist objective. The idea that some means (such as the use of violence against political opponents, or lying to the working class) which is inconsistent with the aim (socialism, world peace) can in some way serve that end is untenable. There is always some "tension" between Ends and Means – Means refer always to existing conditions as they are while the End refers to how things ought to be. But the means must be adequate to the ends; that is to say, the means must be such that attaining the End will mean the fullest development and flowering of the Means. So the idea, for example, that deceiving the working class could be any part of the struggle for socialism is an absurdity, because the fullest development of the Means (deceiving the working class) could only be the disorganisation and subordination of the working class, the opposite of socialism. On the other hand, a picket line in support of a wage-rise is a far cry from socialism, but insofar as a picket line is a manifestation of the self-organisation of the working class and manifests elementary class discipline, it is a "means" which can be understood as an "embyronic" expression of an admittedly distant "end."

Base political methods however, such as lying, conformism, personal denigration, which are to be found within the workers movement, would find their fullest expression, not in socialism, but only in some kind of Stalinist gulag. So a claim that such unprincipled means are justified because they serve the End of socialism is false; in fact, base means can never serve noble ends.

Eduard Bernstein (the former collaborator of Marx and Engels, for whom the term "revisionist" was first coined) said: "To me that which is generally called the ultimate aim of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything." [Evolutionary Socialism] This is going to the other extreme and is equally as wrong as "the End justifies the Means." If a movement has no "end" – an ideal or vision – which is in contradiction to existing conditions, including the movement itself, then such a movement can be nothing more than a celebration of existing conditions and a support for the status quo. The deception involved in the idea of the "movement is everything," the rejection of any ideal which contradicts what exists, is not only incompatible with Marxism; such a reconciliation with the existing world is actually contrary to human life itself, which is always striving for something.

The process of Means and Ends is a process of the manifestation of Means in the form of the Realised End, and the contradiction between Abstract End and Realised End transforming the conception of Means and Ends, much like the continual adaption of species in a changing environment of which the species is itself a part. The adequate Means becomes itself an End, the discovery of which itself entails certain Means; on the other hand, an adequate conception of the End is a powerful Means in its own right. The dialectics of Means and Ends is referred to as Teleology (purposive development), and in Hegel's terminology, passes over into the dialectic of Life and Cognition – "history as a learning process."

Further Reading: See Trotsky's Their Morals and Ours on the subject of "The end justifies the means," Hegel's Shorter Logic and Means and Ends.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:44 AM

And I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past, however good a point you can make.

Glad no-one convinced Homer or Shakespeare about that.


Sigh. I'll clarify:

I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past and passing them off as true, however good a point you can make.

The Recruited Collier is a good song. "The Recruited Collier is a folk song from a mining community" is a false statement.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Mary Brennan
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 07:55 AM

I think that the Point of this thread is to discuss Kate Rusby and 'My Music'.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:07 AM

My Music is an old TV film. Among other flaws, it perpetuated an error of attribution of the song Recruited Collier. Since it has been dredged up again, people are:

(a) correcting the error and
(b) examining ALL's ethics (or lack thereof).


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:21 AM

"Base political methods however...would find their fullest expression, not in socialism, but only in some kind of Stalinist gulag. So a claim that such unprincipled means are justified because they serve the End of socialism is false; in fact, base means can never serve noble ends."

Indeed. Stalinism rather than Marxism, and not an inherently socialist perspective. So what's your point, Dick?


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:31 AM

I don't think it's a song strikers would actually write, given that strikers and blacklegs will always have to work together eventually (not to mention living in the same community).

In this village, in 1926, a bunch of striking miners got together to make a bloody great gravestone with "BLACKLEG" on it and stood it up in a blackleg's front doorway. Is that so different from what "The Blackleg Miner" says? And is it so unusual for a village to contain groups of people who hate each other's guts?

(I've no idea how far back the song actually goes - but you can't decide on the basis of expressed attitudes in that way).


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Morris-ey
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:34 AM

>>>I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past and passing them off as true, however good a point you can make.<<<

In the context of a programme about folk music, I seriously doubt that any misinformation could constitute "a real danger" to anything or anyone.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Chris Murray
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 08:38 AM

I often think it's a class issue. The songs originated among the working classes and are now being preserved by the middle classes.

I know it's silly to overgeneralise, but the working classes couldn't give a toss about the Tradition.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 09:16 AM

I know it's silly to overgeneralise

Not always.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 09:23 AM

Base political methods however...would find their fullest expression, not in socialism, but only in some kind of Stalinist gulag. So a claim that such unprincipled means are justified because they serve the End of socialism is false; in fact, base means can never serve noble ends."

Indeed. Stalinism rather than Marxism, and not an inherently socialist perspective. So what's your point, Dick?
my point is this, hear I speak from experience.
that phrase was a common mantra amongst communists of the 1950s,including my parents who knew Bert Lloyd well,I am sure that would have influenced Berts thinking[IF he did not collect the song]and did it slip it into the tradition,he would have thought it is more important that the song is sung.
Bert handed out many songs to singers in the late fifites early sixties.
I dont know where you were Ruth[living in America?]
but I was there at BERT llOYDS HOUSE,at his childrens birthday parties etc,I remember clearly phrases like the end justifies the means being used by COMMUNIST Friends.,it may have been originally a phrase used by machiavelli,but it was a phrase still used by communists even after Stalins death.
Bert lloyd claimed in 1952[That was before Stalins deathin 1953 ]that he had collected the song,the mindset of many communists at this time was the end justifies the means.
that should be clear enough Ruth


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 09:40 AM

Oh honey, I wasn't even born in 1952! In fact, it was some considerable time before I arrived blinking into the light. But I've talked to several people who knew Bert Lloyd, and they all have different theories as to why he took the approach he did - one of which is that his misattributions were more a matter of poor memory than anything else. Someone else suggested that he never realised how seriously his pronouncements would be taken so he just made up any old nonsense - he never thought these things would become a matter for posterity. The idea tha the misattributions were borne of a political agenda is almost the opposite concept - trying to have a direct impact on history.

So there you go - different ideas, different theories, by people who all knew Bert Lloyd. However, one thing IS for sure: the great work he did for the folk revival is undermined (to what degree you can decide for yourself) by these issues, which is a shame.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:09 AM

WEll I have had a look at myspace Kate Rusby!

The countryside around Barnsley is quite delightful and I found the clips very interesting

It is about 3 miles from me

I think that it is important to include the earliest sourced set of lyrics and indicate where known along the way if changes have been made

I have no doubt as has been said that Bert Lloyd and Ewan Maccoll et al changed things to make 'em fit!

If songs from the tradition are used and changed then from the academic side of things these should be stated (probably by the academics here! on mudcat

In the meantime we need to sing the songs and make new uns

Ray


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:35 AM

Bert lloyd claimed in 1952[That was before Stalins deathin 1953 ]that he had collected the song,the mindset of many communists at this time was the end justifies the means.

There is a long paper from an academic here discussing Bert's tinkering with songs.

Although it concerns itself mainly with "Reynardine", there is a discussion about "Recruited Collier" is discussed over pages 3 and 4.

It might be helpful to those who wish to join in this discussion to read this first.

For those interested in where Dick's long definition about Ends and Means came from it is here.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:36 AM

Sorry, that was posted before I had finished editing it.

But the sense is there.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:42 AM

I have no doubt as has been said that Bert Lloyd and Ewan Maccoll et al changed things to make 'em fit!


We all do that - when I sang Jenny's Complaint I did it in Standard English, which is the last thing its author would have wanted (it's from a book of dialect poems). The charge against Bert Lloyd is that he not only altered songs but disguised where they came from, to the point of making up the names of the singers he'd supposedly collected them from. Steve Winick's article, linked from Dave's comment, has the details.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 11:56 AM

"Bert lloyd claimed in 1952[That was before Stalins deathin 1953 ]that he had collected the song,the mindset of many communists at this time was the end justifies the means."

Bert Lloyd would have claimed he invented the wheel as well, but someone else had already done that.

Ashley Hutchings noted on the liner notes for Hark! The Village Wait about The Blackleg Miner

"It is strange that a song as powerful and as singable as this should be so rare, yet it has only once been collected, from a man in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1949."

and

"This is the most modern traditional song on the album, possibly dating from the early part of the 20th Century...."

Hardly surprising considering it is thought that Lloyd wrote the song himself.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 01:28 PM

Hardly surprising considering it is thought that Lloyd wrote the song himself.[Thought, by whom?]
but not proven.
neither has it been proven that he did not collect The Recruited Collier.
The Penguin book of English folk songs was edited not just by Bert Lloyd ,but also Ralph Vaughan Williams.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 02:02 PM

Dick, read the link that Folkiedave posted at 11:35. It tells you who thinks Lloyd wrote it, and why - and gives some insight into what his motives mayhave been.

'Although it concerns itself mainly with "Reynardine", there is a discussion about "Recruited Collier" is discussed over pages 3 and 4.'

One of the sources cited is Roy Palmer, another is Vic Gammon. Both have done a lot of research on the subject.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 02:23 PM

I have read it and as far as I am concerned,there is no proof that Lloyd did not collect the Recruited Collier,if you will excuse me,I am off to do some singing.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 03:37 PM

"from a man in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1949."

Considering how thorough song collectors tended to be, how come a name for this "man from Bishop Auckland" was not obtained? Im sure the good captain will enlighten us.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 03:52 PM

it is not for me to enlighten anybody ,it is up to those who doubt it to prove it.
innocent till proven guilty.
BertLloyd is dead,he is not here to defend himself,if it cant be proven,it is better not to besmirch his name.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 03:59 PM



Good for him, it only seems to upset the obsessed and beguine the begun!


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:05 PM

Sorry I'm no fan of Bert Lloyd.(or Ewan McColl come to that).

I wasted money (albeit only a small amount, I'll admit) on his incredibly self serving book, Folk Song in England (1967). It's considered a masterpiece by some, I understand.

".....it is better not to besmirch his name."

Just because someone's dead doesn't make them immune to criticism


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:14 PM

"it is not for me to enlighten anybody ,it is up to those who doubt it to prove it."

Which is why the academic articles exist, and why research has been undertaken by people like Roy Palmer, who has enormous respect for Bert Lloyd's achievements. Did you get to his talk about Lloyd at Glasson last year, Dick? You may have been singing at the time and therefore unable to attend. If you had, you would have seen that Roy Palmer does indeed know a huge amount about Bert Lloyd, and has great respect for his achievements. Yet still he clearly feels it is right to interrogate these sources and these songs, because ultimately it's not really about Bert Lloyd, it's about the social history behind the songs and their basic integrity.

It does no service to either Lloyd or the music to unquestioningly accept everything he said, even where there is strong evidence to the contrary. I think I was once told that a lot of the research into the less likely claims was actually held back until after Lloyd's death, purely out of respect.

As the article Dave posted says at the beginning, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - but there IS a convincing weight of evidence and research. Personally, I think the case has pretty much been proved, Dick.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:18 PM

criticism has to be justified,no one has proven he did not collect the recruited collier,until it is proven ,then it is better not to attack him.
mean while no one has attacked Bob Roberts,for POSSIBLY passing off his own material as traditional.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:19 PM

The fault was partially mine for not identifying the fact that I had read that article before posting. None the less I stand by what I say.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:34 PM

These old traddies....What are you going to do...

Sorry I'm convinced he was passing his politcal propaganda off as traditional, and propaganda it is!

and interesting side bar (at least to me)The missing Radio Ballads

the two Radio Ballads were not considered part of the canon....why you may ask? The answer's simple, Ewan McColl wasn't involved with either of them...reminds me rather of Roger Waters's response when he heard Pink Floyd had reformed without him. "It's not Pink Floyd"


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:46 PM

really interesting, Rifleman! I knew Ian briefly about 15 years ago, and had no idea that these programmes had been made, but it's interesting that he'd included on his most recent album a song from a folk opera/radio ballad-style show.

The subject matter sounds really interesting - I wish we could hear them.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: greg stephens
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 04:55 PM

Rifleman's posting re Ian Campbell and his two non-canonical(apocryphal?) Radio Ballads was very interesting. There was also a third, that Charles Parker made with Alisdair Clayre(SP? I always get it wrong!). I worked on that programme a bit, locating and recording singers. The subject was the Cowley car-making trade.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 05:07 PM

Towards the end of his life I worked briefly with Charles Parker when he was putting on productions of radio ballads at colleges. He did mention other scripts but unfortunately I never got to see them. Coincidentally, I found myself working alongside Ian Campbell in a TV production office just a few years later. Again, even more unfortunately, I never got round to talking to him about the scripts. However, I do see Ian's son David from time to time and I'll be sure to ask him if they are still in existence. As they're not in the Charles Parker Archive they may well be chez the Campbells . . .


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 05:16 PM

that's quite possible - he'd got loads of interesting stuff in the house.


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Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 05:31 PM

Kate singing 'Planets' - Youtube


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