Review: Walter Pardon - Research

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 06:28 AM

pfr

At least somebody, unlike Carroll, bothered to find out about Ord before delivering themselves of a judgement from on high that he would never have sung a song - and, on that basis was excluded from the elect who are destined for heaven (or something like that.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 06:29 AM

"There has been very little decent 'research' on Pardon, the thesis comparing his style with some other singers is about the only thing I have found."

Abject nonsense. Field research is of prime importance here - comparisons can come later.

"The Pardon industry"

Bizarre and quite delusional.

"Carroll"

Beyond pathetic.

Pseudonymous, you do realise you've lost the room, don't you? Your attempt to troll Jim has ironically given him the opportunity to share some interesting information and get a decent discussion going, while you throw rocks from the sidelines. Stop digging would be my advice.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 06:34 AM

Pseud - we couldn't give a toss about academic research conventions..
This is an informal internet forum for ordinary intelligent folks
to enjoy sharing information and ideas.
not a structured University campus where impressionable young adults
are brainwashed into talking elitist academicese...

Cut out your condescending bollocks..
Or have you forgotten how to relate to ordinary folks outside academia...!!!???

I know I did for a few years after post grad..
So I can understand if you are finding it difficult...

Even if only half of mudcatters have degrees or higher,
that's enough folks to see what a dick you are making of yourself
adopting such an inapropriate overtly academic persona in our forum...

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 06:40 AM

I might or might not agree with whoever described the material on Pardon that is available online as 'scraps'. This includes, of course, work by Yates, Stradling, Carroll etc. But they might want to term it 'research'.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,jag
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 06:51 AM

They were, collecting, documenting and cross-referencing to other sources something that they thought to be of worth. Ask them if they considered it to be research.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 08:23 AM

'But they might want to term it 'research'.
Thanks for that guest (but I'd be more comfortable if you could pit in the forenames)
Out troll has been using names as a term of abuse
Jim

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 09:19 AM

Highly amused to see that among the sources cited by Ord is one Mike Yates. This discusses some weaknesses of the phonograph as a recording tool....

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 09:53 AM

I have not read all of this but it certainly appears to contain criticism and some ridicule - from various contributors - of(a) traditional singer(s)and researcher(s)and to be conducted in a vituperative, not to say angry, style. Personally, I have disagreements with many of the ideas and personalities I get from others - as, no doubt, some have issues with me and my ideas, but I see no point in muddying argument and confusing the results of years of research and thought with forms of speech that border on nastiness. Research and debate should be carried on in a spirit that allows differences to be sorted out, to contribute - not to put someone down - even between the lines of discussion. If this thread is to produce a worthwhile c.ontribution to understanding any or all traditional singers it needs not to be expressed so poisonously. Show a bit of respect, whether you think it's due or not; otherwise all you contribute is a nasty taste.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 10:27 AM

'Highly amused to see that among the sources cited by Ord is one Mike Yates. This discusses some weaknesses of the phonograph as a recording tool.... '

Even funnier is the fact that Yates was talking about the Phonograph - an early recording machine that was prone to distortion - and not about modern tape and digital recorders. Pseud's implied argument is invalid.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 11:03 AM

Nice story told about Grainger usin the phonograph in Lincolnshire (apocryphal maybe
One of his singers (George Wray ?) asked fro a recording of Lord Bateman to be played back to him
When Grainger obliged the singer sai "That bugger learned it a damn sight quicker than me"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 12:08 PM

I'll cnace my arm again in the hope I'm not overloading the forum
Feel free to tell me I am
Jim

Walter Pardon.

Given at Eyam Festival, Derbyshire and at Cecil Sharp House 1996.

Today we’d like to talk to you about our good friend, Walter Pardon, the man we knew and recorded for 20 years, singing and talking about his life and music. Walter died last year at the age of 82 and we are assuming that you know a certain amount about him: his 4 LPS, recorded by Bill Leader and Mike Yates, his TV and radio interviews, his part in a John Cohen film, his trip to the States for the Bi-centenary celebrations, his EFDSS Gold Badge, and all the critical acclaim he received during the 15 years or so he was performing. (If you don’t, the display boards put together by Doc Rowe will certainly help)
We would just point out that the recordings we will be playing of Walter singing and talking about his singing were not made for publication purposes and you will find certain amount of background noise, particularly a clock! And Walter sometimes speaks with his pipe clamped in his teeth which doesn’t help with clarity.

WALTER PARDON was probably the last of a long line of fine Norfolk singers. In the earlier years of this century, collectors like Ralph Vaughan Williams and E.J. Moeran were finding the county a rich source of traditional song: particularly noteworthy was Moeran’s work in the l920 with Harry Cox, the farm worker from Catfield. The BBC’s mopping up campaign in the1950s was still unearthing singers with a wealth of material despite the fact that, by that time, of course, the singing tradition had entered a steep decline and, indeed, had virtually died out, leaving us with a handful of traditional singers and a somewhat larger number of what Ewan MacColl aptly described as ‘song carriers’ people who had not necessarily been part of the singing tradition but, for one reason or another, had clung on to the old songs and music. However, Norfolk gave us three of this country’s most important singers: Harry Cox, fisherman Sam Lamer from Winterton and, lastly, Walter Pardon of Knapton.
Let’s start with Walter’s version of a song collected quite often towards the South West of England and which also appeared on broadsides. Vaughan Williams noted a version in Essex in 1904 but only quotes the first verse in the Folk Song Journal, stating: “The rest of the words are not suitable for publication and have little interest, except, perhaps, in giving a modern example of the kind of rough fun which we find in Chaucer’s Clerke of Oxenforde.” Thank goodness Chaucer idea of humour was more appreciated by the working folk of rural Norfolk. In fact, Walter himself made the same connection with Chaucer. So here is:
THE CUNNING COBBLER
Walter was born in 1914 into a family of mainly agricultural workers employed on local farms and also as gardeners and groundsmen at Mundesley Golf Links. He was born and lived all his life in Knapton, a small rural village a couple of miles from the sea at Mundesley and the same distance from the market town of North Walsham.
Knapton has no pub and the only small shop closed years back. When Walter was growing up, the roads were unmade so it meant travelling by donkey cart or bicycle through mud in winter and dust in summer, for shopping for instance. There were travelling salesmen who called with bread, fish, meat, etc. even ice cream Also peddlers with household items and Walter once saw a travelling musician but was told there had been more before his time. As a boy, Walter, along with ether children, helped on the land in the evening and weekends: pulling beet, pitching corn up on to the stacks, etc. At that time, the children’s summer holidays were determined by the dates of the harvest; the farmers told the schools when they were going to start so the holidays then coincided. They worked from dawn to dusk 6 days a week.

Both sides of Walter’s immediate family were born in Knapton: 12 Gees (his mother’s family) and 6 Pardons. Walter was an only child so became the focus of attention not: only of his parents but also the two bachelor uncles (his mother’s brothers) who lived with them. Most of the family lived close by but one uncle emigrated to the United States. Walter told of his great grandfather who was sacked by a farmer, he thought for answering back, which meant instant dismissal in those days, and so was blacklisted locally and forced to go to sea and his family into the workhouse.
Walter was apprenticed as a carpenter in the neighbouring village of Paston when he left school at 14 and he worked mainly locally, probably within a radius of 20 miles, cycling to work each day. He never lived away from Knapton except for his four years in the Army but he didn’t go overseas then, being employed as a carpenter on various Army camps about the country. It was the Army ruined his poor feet: square bashing in boots that were too small for him!

The Gees, his mother’s family, were musical - singers and instrumentalists. In the past, they had played fiddles, concertinas and accordeons/melodeons - Walter didn’t differentiate between them - but Walter had only heard his Uncle Walter who played melodeon and Jews Harp. Walter learned songs from his
family; his mother, his Aunt Alice and principally his Uncle Billy. Billy had got a lot of songs from his
father, Tom Gee, who was well known as a singer with a very large repertoire. They obviously learned
songs from anyone and anywhere; Walter knew several Irish songs and he said they learned their songs
because they liked them. The singing was done at Harvest frolics, which died out while Walter was young and at Christmas parties. - Apparently so many people came to the cottage then that they had to have meals in two sittings -. There would be conversation, music, singing and dancing at these parties but always perfect quiet for the songs. The living room had an exposed beam running across the ceiling called the baulk and the shout. would go up, “Our side of the baulk” when someone had sung from one side of the room and they would take turns across the room. They each had their own particular songs for these occasions. For instance: ‘Generals All’ from Billy, his favourite; ‘Jones’s Ale from Uncle Bob, ‘Bonny Bunch of Roses’ from Uncle Tom and so on. Apparently no-one wanted ‘The Dark Eyed Sailor’ so that was Walter’s song or sometimes ‘When the Fields Were White with Daisies’. They all knew the tunes but everybody was very protective of their own songs and did not want others to learn them. Walter, the favourite youngster, was the only one Billy Gee would give his songs to but none of Walters contemporaries wanted them anyway; they would only learn new songs as they came out. Walter had to write the songs out to learn them but they were all in Billy’s head; Walter never saw him write any out.

WALTER TALKING ABOUT OWNERSHIP OF SONGS, etc.

There was no pub singing in Walter’s time but he knew there had been in the past which Billy had taken
part in; the Mitre Tavern in North Walsham in particular at the end of the last century. (Billy was born
in 1863) Walter only heard him sing once in a pub, after an Agricultural Workers’ Union meeting at the
Crown in Trunch, the next village, when he was asked to sing the song about “smoke and fire”. Billy did
not recognise this description but Walter prompted him: it was ‘Generals All’. Here’s Walter singing it:

GENERALS ALL.

Walter was very proud of his family’s association with the early Agricultural Union movement; When George Edwards restarted the Agricultural Workers Union in Norfolk in 1907, the first one started by Joseph Arch in the late 19th century having folded, Walter’s father had the second Union card issued, No.1 going to a man from Gimminqham, a nearby village. 40 years later, both men were awarded silver medals for their services to the Union. Walter learned a number of songs, parodies and rhymes connected with the Union; here is one such:

OLD MAN’S ADVICE

Influenced by his family’s love of song and music, Walter developed a deep interest in the songs – he
said he supposed he’d inherited it - and he used to write down the words on scraps of paper and in
exercise books. One book we got from him is dated 1948, six years after his Uncle Billy’s death. He was
aided in putting together the songs - which he had never sung - by his prodigious memory. He could
remember local lore and events not only from his own experience but which had been recounted to him by his elders. It was sometimes not until later that you realised you had been listening to a tale of something that had happened before Walter was born. He could recall long vanished field names, dialect words and names of animals, farm implements, etc. He related some family toasts: here are two of Tom Gee’s:

“Here’s a toast to Malcolm. May God bless him, the devil miss 'im, the wife kiss 'im and the child piss ‘im”
And:

“Here’s to those who love us and those who don’t love us. To those who don’t love us, may God turn their hearts. If he don’t turn their hearts, may he turn their ankle bones so we know the buggers when they walk”.

Walter had always read a lot and probably even more so after his father died in 1957 leaving Walter living alone for nearly 40 years. Dickens, Hardy, H.E. Bates, Zane Grey - he had quite catholic tastes, probably with a preference for the Victorian writers but mainly just for a good story and he remembered the stories with amazing clarity. He could quote from a book that he hadn’t read for perhaps 20 years or more. And he got so involved with them. Thomas Hardy was a favourite but -“They shouldn't have done that to Tess - terrible”.

Walter’s cousins’ nephew, Roger Dixon, had been interested in the songs from a boy and endeavoured to persuade him to put some on tape.

Eventually, having bought a tape recorder Walter set about it in the autumn of 1972 and later described to us his efforts at recording himself:

“I WAS DRUNK”; AND HIS IDEA OF FOLK CLUBS.

Here is a part that first tape:        -

BRITISH MAN 0’ WAR

Roger Dixon passed these tapes to Peter Bellamy, a former pupil of his when he had been teaching and, recognising Walter for the superb singer that he was, Peter introduced him to the world that, as he said, he had no idea existed. Without Roger’s persuasion and involvement, we might never have heard that unique singer, Walter Pardon.

It is perhaps surprising that the collectors working in Norfolk missed such a family of singers like the Gees but it was certainly quite phenomenal that, out of the blue, appeared a singer of such ability with such a large, rich and varied repertoire and such splendid tunes. For Walter Pardon was very special. The ease and conviction with which he handled his material, ,either classic ballads, bawdy songs, Victorian parlour ballads, union or Music Hall songs was striking, as was the informed, intelligent and emotional response to his songs, particularly the depth of emotional involvement with ALL his songs. It has been said that his style was impersonal but this was far from the case. His understanding of and feeling for the songs was highly personal and it showed.
While he did not necessarily place a greater value on any category, he was articulate in defining the different types of songs. This ability to differentiate was once scoffed at by a noted folklorist in conversation with us: “How could he do that - a simple countryman?”
When asked to choose 6 songs to sing, it is interesting to note Walter’s selection:

WALTER CHOOSING SIX SONGS.

Walter maintained that a good imagination was essential to the singer; just listen to this - an artist describing his art:

TALK OF EXPRESSION AND PICTURES etc.

Walter’s always thoughtful evaluation of songs was interesting. He said that, if he performed before a big crowd (which he did at a Fairfield Hall concert), he liked to sing The Pretty Ploughboy because it ends happily; so many ended with being transported or shot or something going wrong. Like Van Dieman’s Land - a SAD old song. He also said it “was a LONG old song but it was a long old journey - a marvelous analysis of it.
Walter had only fragments and tunes of several songs so he put them together from books and broadsheets, for example ‘Rakish Young Fellow’ and ‘Down by the Dark Arches’. He had two verses, chorus and tune for ‘Dark Arches’ and he asked us to try and get him a text. Mike Yates kindly supplied a broadsheet copy but this had no chorus, and the words of the verses he had did not match. He virtually reconstructed the song to fit his tune and chorus. He said he had to “cut the words to fit his tune; he “liked the words to go out with the nice flow of the tune”. This is a recording made by Sam Richards at the Torquay Folk Club in 1982.

THE DARK ARCHES

Welter learned a few songs in the Army but said that most he heard were “rubbish - outright rude”. In fact the version of ‘The Topman and the Afterguard’ he heard in the Army was “obscene’, so he had to learn a new text for that. This next song is one of the parodies he learned at that time. The 39/45 Star was a medal awarded to everyone who served in the War and was apparently treated with a degree of contempt by its recipients. It was known as the NAAFI or SPAM medal; Walter wasn’t sure which.

THE 39/45 STAR

The only song which, to our knowledge, was completely new to Walter was, in fact, a poem. He had done a World Service interview with the Music broadcaster, John Amis, who subsequently sent him a book of Thomas Hardy’s poems. Walter made a tune for The Trampwoman’s Tragedy, which is written in ballad form, and sang it to us - from the book so we don’t think he ever learned the words. Here is a sample of it:

THE TRAMPWOMAN’S TRAGEDY

Walter did learn some songs from gramophone records, 78s, for example, ‘When The Fields were White with Daisies’ and ‘The Old Rustic Bridge By the Mill’. Some Music Hall material he learned from a family friend, Harry Sexton, who was quite a character. A local Jack of All Trades, Harry went north to work at one period and often visited Middlesborough Music Hall. This is song ‘The Steam Arm’ that Walter got from Harry who, in turn got it from a local man, which Walter sang to us with a description of the performance at a Christmas gathering, complete with the necessary gestures, like this:

THE STEAM ARM


Here he is parodying the way Harry Sexton sang:

GENEVIEVE

Including fragments, we recorded from Walter Pardon some 200 odd songs. With a solid base of some 100 songs, largely traditional, it is interesting to study Walter’s tunes which are often similar to familiar versions but subtly different. It is difficult to say that this is exactly how he learned them, although Walter thought so; or have they been ‘Walterised”? During the long period of not hearing them - at least 20 years, as Walter went into the Army in 1942 which was the, year his Uncle Billy died and the last Christmas party was 1952 when his mother died - he kept the songs alive for himself by playing the tunes on the melodeon. Did they perhaps get changed then? Were certain phrases easier for him to play on the Melodeon? Or was it simply his own creativity? That he preferred certain musical phrases to others? We’ll never know, of course, but certainly Walter’s tunes are that bit different and very recognisable. And he did say he could tell the age of songs by the tunes; listen to this:

AGE OF TUNES

Walter gave a lot of thought to his singing as you have heard and, although he always stressed the importance of singing NATURALLY, as you spoke, - this was a carefully thought out response, quite the opposite to commonly held views – aired at some length in Dance and Song on one occasion - that singing is as natural to the “peasantry” as to the birds; you just open your mouth and this beautiful music flows forth all by itself.
Walter had his own positive ideas about singing and he did get very disturbed at the way in which a lot of audiences would completely ignore, for instance, the speed at which he was singing and would draw out the choruses painfully slowly so that Walter was way ahead and trying to adapt to the audience.        He considered, quite rightly, that this was very discourteous if nothing else. He actually dropped one song from his working repertoire for that reason. He        told us that his
Uncle Billy, his greatest influence, sang quite steady and straightforwardly and, although Walter did not think he sang as fast, he must have been affected by Billy’s style to a degree. Listen to
the way he paces ‘The Trees They Do Grow High’; he always resisted the temptation to drag out ballads.

THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH

Walter always showed a natural professionalism on stage. To him it was a job to be done properly and for which he prepared so that he did not forget words, or pitch wrongly in performance, and he only ever drank shandies,- slowly. And this was a man who became a public performer in his sixties after living a fairly sheltered or insular life, probably never having seen many live performances; suddenly propelled into this strange new world, which he took calmly and modestly in his stride. However, he did find performance quite draining so, at the age of 75, he felt it was getting rather too much for him and difficult for him to keep to the high standards he set himself so he decided to stop singing in public. Walter was always very definite about his decisions; no umming or ahhing - just a straightforward Yes or No.

We first met Walter in 1975 or 76; can’t remember exactly but we became very close over the following 20 years. He was a wonderful companion - a real delight. A very humourous, gentle, kind man, incredible generous with his material and his time. The first time we called on him as complete strangers, we had only been chatting for a short while when he asked, “Have you a tape recorder with you”?

He really wanted to share his material. He couldn’t understand when he heard two singers arguing about who should sing one of his songs; “they’re not my songs” he said, “They belong to everybody.” A rather different attitude to his forebears.
We gave him an exercise book once and asked him, if he had time, would he write down some of the local sayings, proverbs, stories, dialect words, etc. Well, he filled that with close writing - no gaps -filled every page completely; then went out and bought a couple more and filled them in the same way. He had his pride but he was not above laughing at himself. He was getting quite irate once at the media taking the mickey out of country people, you know, Mummerset accents, and he said they always make out country people say “oo aar” to everything. Well, I said to him, gently as possible, “But you say oo aar sometimes, Walter”. He just looked at me, thought for a moment and quite seriously said “oo aar”. Then realising what he had said, he just burst into laughter. That was Walter pardon for you.

We are in the process of putting together a double CD of recordings of Walter, singing and talking, which Topic will be producing next year. It will probably be called THE RIGHT STROOK. S-t-r-o-o-k, which according to Walter is an old Norfolk expression. It is not easy to explain completely but pace certainly comes into it. Walter said the old singers “always sang fairly steady”. “A lot of them now is in too much of a hurry to get through a song”. He said it was the same with playing music - too fast nowadays, no-one can keep up. Must play the right strook or step dancers, for example, couldn’t get all their steps in. But it’s more than just pace. We recorded an Irish singer, Tom Lenihan, in Co. Clare and he said you had to “Put the Blas on it”. He also equated it with speed, not too fast but not drag it out either. He always maintained that the story was the most important aspect of a song; like Walter saying you must have imagination. It’s putting yourself in the song, believing in it, getting involved in it and therefore you tell the story at the right pace to communicate it.

RAMBLING BLADE


Texas Gladden quote:

Texas Gladden spoke of having an image in her mind for every one of these old stories. “I have a perfect mental picture of every song I sing. I have a perfect picture of every person I learned it from, very few people I don’t remember. When I sing a song, a person pops up, and it's a very beautiful story. I can see Mary Hamilton, l can see where the old Queen came down to the kitchen, can see them all gathered around, and I can hear her tell Mary Hamilton to get ready. I can see the whole story, I can see them as they pass through the gate, I can see the ladies looking over their casements, I can see her as she goes up the parliament steps, and I can see her when she goes to the gallows. I can hear her last words, and I can see all just the most beautiful picture.”

Some of the images conveyed so vividly through the ballads have been passed on in this way for more than five hundred years. Today we have Texas Gladden's mental images, which were transmitted via the acetate discs recorded by Alan Lomax in I942, now entering a new millennium on digital CD.

Lomax quote:
Alan Lomax makes some stunning characterisations of Gladden's singing, reflecting his long concern with traditional singing styles. In the notes to the I948 Disc album Texas Gladden Sings Blue Ridge Mountain Ballads, he wrote “Texas sings her antique ballads in the fashion of ballad singers from time immemorial. The emotions are held in reserve: the singer does not colour the story with heavy vocal under-scoring; she allows the story to tell itself and the members of her audience to receive and interpret it in accordance with their own emotions.”

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 12:23 PM

"Welter learned a few songs in the Army but said that most he heard were “rubbish - outright rude”. In fact the version of ‘The Topman and the Afterguard’ he heard in the Army was “obscene’, so he had to learn a new text for that."

Jim - that's something I was wondering but got distracted from asking...

If anyone listens to Walter's recordings to learn songs,
are they now in 2019 considered 'best' available full lyrics,
or did he sing bowdlerized versions
more acceptable to the Mary Whitehouse brigade of half a century ago.....???

If I for example were to study his recordings as a starting point,
would I need to seek out more robust and earthier earlier versions
that were locked from public ears back then...???

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 01:38 PM

As far as I know, he never bowdlerized any song
He was reluctant to sing 'Maid of Australia' when we first met him because Pat was there but he agreed to after a couple of minutes discussion
He wouldn't sing his early Topman and the Afterguard ever, but he liked the form of the song so h found another version

We have the the family songs he wrote in his notebooks ain teh 1940s - he never altered anyof them as far as I am aware
What he did was to search out verses that he knew were missing, but he told us which ones he did that with - he was very careful not to mislead anybody
The 'Dark Arches' story summed up his approach
Whenwe got him the text from Mike, we first recorded what he knew and asked hi that if he gave the full version to anyone else he told them where it came from - he always did, as far as we know

There is a strange attitude that traditional singers learned their song and then locked themselves away waiting for a collector to turn up
It really wasn't like that
Every singer we ever met learned the si=ongs because they liked them and they liked singing
That never left them - while they continued singing they continued to learn song
In Walter's case, the only new song Walter ever learned wa 'The Trampwoman's Tragedy' - a poem he turned into a song
Jim

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Nov 19 - 01:53 PM

Can I just say in contrast, when Clare singer, Tom Lenihan, who we also became very friendly with, first sang for us and gave us one of his most beautiful songs, 'Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow', which we said we'd been told about, he took the verse out which is a diatribe about the fickleness of women, because he thought it might offend Pat
When we realised he had, we went back to him and he sang it in full without hesitation
Iim

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 04:13 AM

Another example of potentially conflicting information about Pardon:

1) people in the folk revival helped him remember words to songs that he had forgotten, in some cases he remembered only scraps

2) friends in the revival brought printed song books and the songs he didn't remember were filled out using these books. This was done tastefully resulting in some good end results.

It may be that both are true. Not sure how the first was done, no information.

As so often the information is anecdotal, and imprecise. So there is not claim that he had forgotten the majority, or that the majority were put together.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 04:17 AM

Sorry that last post was me.

I found one song with a clear assertion it was filled out using printed books, there is another song mentioned on Mustrad where a writer suspects or perhaps guesses would be a better word that a particular book was used.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 04:51 AM

"Regarding the relationship between Pardon's melodeon playing and the tunes he used for songs: I would be interested to see any data on this originating with Pardon himself. What I can find appears to be conjectural."

It was a direct quote from Walter himself. What's conjectural about that? You do understand that he used to play the tunes of his songs on the melodeon, right?

And you do understand what I mean by 'data on this originating with Pardon himself', but obviously not. Or you might have given a reference to that data. Too much trouble?

The conjectural stuff, as a moment's thought on this might have shown, is the discussions on whether the tunes were distorted by his habit of playing them or trying to play them on the melodeon. Right?

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,jag
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 05:53 AM

I would like to thank Jim Carroll for providing more information about the Pardon 'industry'.

Had you read Jim's last long contribution before pushing the conspiracy theory in your Another example of potentially conflicting information about Pardon... post ?

In that talk they were quite 'up front' about Walter reconstructing some songs "Walter had only fragments and tunes of several songs so he put them together from books and broadsheets, for example ‘Rakish Young Fellow’ and ‘Down by the Dark Arches’. He had two verses, chorus and tune for ‘Dark Arches’ and he asked us to try and get him a text. Mike Yates kindly supplied a broadsheet copy but this had no chorus, and the words of the verses he had did not match. He virtually reconstructed the song to fit his tune and chorus. He said he had to "cut the words to fit his tune; he "liked the words to go out with the nice flow of the tune". (from Jim Carrol's 13 Nov 19 - 12:08 PM post)

Similarly they told of his range of material "The ease and conviction with which he handled his material, ,either classic ballads, bawdy songs, Victorian parlour ballads, union or Music Hall songs was striking"

It looks like you are miss-representing the messengers in order to attack them.

You are digging round in circles.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 09:41 AM

Walking around the streets in 2019 we kinda got used to strangers
walking and talking to themselves...

In them old days we could be certain they were nutters.
Now we got to consider miniturised Bluetooth headsets..

But what a strange turn this thread has taken today...

Pseud - if you haven't already stated it, even if you have but it's lost in the verbiage,
please remind us of your purpose for this thread,
your vested interst in Walter Pardon.
Are you planning a paper of some sort for publication or peer review...???
A media project...???
A movie script [Castiong note for Walter - Harry Enfield]...???

What exactly...????

..otherwise you are making yourself look like a bit of a nutter stalker...

Are you a distant Pardon relation with a revenge grudge
like an Agatha Christie or Scooby Doo villain...???

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,jag
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 10:01 AM

To clarify that my 14 Nov 19 - 05:53 AM post opens with a quote from one of several posts from Pseudonymous that have vanished.

Thanks to Jim for the text of the Eyam/SSH talk.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 10:04 AM

Pseudomonas provokes Jim, and Jim, who has absolutely no immunity to tro...provocation picks up ball and runs with it.
Please, if the posts go meta, bitching about one another or other posters, I will put this as politely as possible - shut the fuck up.

Thank you.

Please carry on discussing Walter Pardon, and someone, when you feel inclined, delete this damned message.

(I'm feeling like the kids are in the back seat, and one keeps whining "Mom, he/she keeps TOUCHING me!" Peace, out.)

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 10:10 AM

The proper line is "Don't make me stop this car!"

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Joe G
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 10:46 AM

Are we there yet Mum? ;-)

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 10:51 AM

I feel sick...


uuurggh.. sorry.. I couldn't open the window...

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 11:10 AM

I wanna pee again
Jim

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 11:25 AM

This is starting to sound like a band travelling back from a gig
in the back of a minivan...

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 11:47 AM

I know very little about Walter Pardon and was hoping that this thread would be a pleasant discussion of him. However, it has become, like a number of other threads, an unpleasant bit of combat. Why do these things become about one argumentative person and not about the subject at hand. I am disappointed as I DID want to learn more but, same old, same old.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 12:12 PM

Regarding WP's melodeon playing, Pseudonymous writes:

"And you do understand what I mean by 'data on this originating with Pardon himself', but obviously not. Or you might have given a reference to that data. Too much trouble?

The conjectural stuff, as a moment's thought on this might have shown, is the discussions on whether the tunes were distorted by his habit of playing them or trying to play them on the melodeon. Right?"

If you expressed yourself more clearly (and took the trouble to do basic stuff like distinguishing between quotes from previous posts and your own contributions), it might be easier to see what you're getting at. Another handy hint, by the way, is that attempting to patronise other posters doesn't raise the tone of the discussion.

Here's what I take to be the relevant passage from Jim's account - though since you didn't bother to cut and paste it I can't be sure:

"During the long period of not hearing them, at least 20 years, he kept the songs alive for himself by playing the tunes on the melodeon. Did they perhaps get changed then? Were certain phrases easier for him to play on the melodeon? Or was it simply his own creativity, that he preferred certain musical phrases to others? We’ll never know, of course, but certainly Walter’s tunes are a little different to standard versions and very distinctive."

I see nothing unreasonable in raising these questions - they're precisely the kind of thing I'd have been asking in Jim's place. One of the questions often asked about song variation is whether it's a matter of individual creativity, faulty execution or imperfect memory. If a singer with tunes as flamboyant and intricately ornamented as - say - Joseph Taylor - had used a melodeon (in many ways a crude instrument) as an aide-memoire, it's reasonable to consider whether those tunes might have been changed along the way.

One possible way in which a melodeon might act as a leveller on melodies would be if the player knew only how to play 'on the push', in which case everything would come out in the major. But we know this wasn't the case with WP. I'd also say that the melody for something like 'A Ship to Old England came would be quite counter-intuitive on a melodeon, which suggests that he wasn't dumbing down tunes by remembering them in this way.

I need hardly add that many of the same questions regarding individual creativity would apply whether or not a melodeon had been involved. And Jim's would have been an inferior account (the world, indeed, would be a duller place) without the kind of'conjecture' you seem to find objectionable.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 12:36 PM

HiLo
There's enough of Walter himself here to get anybody's head around what h was about without anybody having to act as an intermediary

As far as Walter preserving the tunes of his songs, I think he approached tunes as Peggy Seeger argued they should be, he stripped them down to their basic forms and remembered them that way
We once asked him what his Uncle Billy sounded like and he immediately said, "Like Joseph Taylor" - Walter most certainly doesn't
I know that Dave Bland or Bill Leader once played him some of the Lincolnshire recordings, so he wasn't pulling the name out of the air
I've never been sure whether Taylor consciously decorated his songs or, as it is sometimes suggested, his 'decorations' were in fact controlled vibrato
I've always regarded what Ned Adams does at the end of line one of 'The Bold Princess Royal' to be an example of pure decoration
If Walter was remembering the basic tune, perhaps the melodeon is the ideal instrument for doing that
It's along time since I read Mike Yates's article on Walter's tunes - must look at it again
Jim

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 12:45 PM

HiLo - I'll paste my post from earlier.

"From: punkfolkrocker - PM
Date: 12 Nov 19 - 10:00 AM

Maybe a real Walter Pardon friend/enthusiast could sift the wheat from the chaff in this thread,
and open and transfer it to a new properly and expertly curated Walter thread...???

Where both genuine critical analysis and newbie questions are tolerated
as part of valid positive discussion."

It is frustrating when useful information and ideas get buried,
even deleted as collateral damage,
when threads break down into chaotic warfare...

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 03:09 PM

"Maybe a real Walter Pardon friend/enthusiast"
I didn't question this at the tim because I thought i t implied there weren't any of thiose already here, despite mine, Mike Yates's and Brian Peters's postings
Personally, I thought I'd put up enough of Walter speaking for himself to make the statement superfluous anyway
THre greatest gap in our knowledge of folk song is teh absence of the singers' opinions
e have that here in spades from an extremely intelligent man
Jim

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 03:46 PM

Jim - It didn't need to be questioned.. no hidden implications...

I simply meant you, or one of the othe folks you have in mind...

You really must try to be less paranoid and supicious
of me and other innocent folks...

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: RTim
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 04:46 PM

At least with all this talk about Walter P. (who I have known about since the late 1970's) it made me find the recordings of him I have and listen to them again...and to read Michael Yates notes in "A World Without Horses"....

I have an opinion about his singing - but will keep it to myself.......

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 05:09 PM

and it made me contact the man to whom I lent my recordings to see if they were still in existence. Watch this space, now peace is proclaimed.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 05:23 PM

For me, it is not good enough to assert that tape recordings of Parson provide anything like a transparent window on to the man. I have explained the reasons for this, I feel.

Undated quotations are particularly unhelpful.

Then, there is the additional question of the validity of interpretations of what he said, when they get advanced in support of some broader theory about 'traditional singers.

I would have no interest at all in yet another biased, selective and ideologically driven presentation, there are too many of these already. It would not address any of the problems outlined in the original post.

A decent presentation would present assertions that have been made, dated, with the evidence provided in favour of them (if any) cited. Rather as Wiki might expect.

By the way, the original post cited Mustrad as a source. Prior to presenting I searched these threads using the site search facility and I made notes. It is an interesting exercise.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 05:31 PM

Regarding Pardon's supposed use of the term 'folk song'. In one of the earliest interviews I cited, one on the BL website, he is asked whether they called the songs 'folk song's. He replies that they did not: they called them old songs. Folk songs, he says, were something he did at school. So the question is why he started to use the term, and the answer may well be either what he learned at school, plus what he picked up in the Revival.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 06:35 PM

For me, and this is I know just one point of view, it would help if background information on Knapton was at least reasonably accurate. For example, it won't do to state that because the roads were not made up in Walter's youth, outside influences were few.

Just for starters, there was a railway station serving both Knapton and a neighbouring village dating from 1898 for passengers and freight. Cattle used to be sent out by train.

There seems to have been a post office from early times. Local men fighting in WW 1 sent letters home.

There was a school there prior to Forster's Education Act (mentioned by Pardon in an early interview), so we can presume that Pardon attended school locally. A picture headed 'Knapton School' 1919 in the book shows less than 30 children in total.

At least one farmer made additional money in the hard 1920s by taking in paying guests in summer.

According to the book I cited before at the turn of the century there was some car ownership, the rector, the doctor, a cattle dealer (who also used a horse and cart - presumably on roads that were not 'made up?)

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: RTim
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 06:47 PM

I note that NO ONE has made the point that Walter P. seems to have been Single all his life......added to the fact his family ware Methodists and he did not go to the pub.

It seems he only left the village to spend time in the Army- and then as a Carpenter therefore unlikely to have seen any conflict......He seems a very mild mannered and ordinary guy ....and probably very shy. His singing style is not "mannered" in any way....simple and even a little boring, however he did sing about subjects he did not experience himself...

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 08:15 PM

"added to the fact his family ware Methodists and he did not go to the pub."
Walter wasn't a churchgoer and liked a drink in moderation
His family were connected with rather lovely local church as musicians but I am not aware they were in any way God-botherers - I never heard Walter pass a view on religion, one way or the other
THe Methodists played a part in rural Trades Unionism in the 19th century, so there may be a family connection there
He never married but there was a lady.... she died a long time before we knew him - Walter asked to be buried in the same church where she is buried
The only time he lived away from home was when he was called up for the Army during the war
He was excused going abroad as his trad was considered essential to the war effort - he spent it working on various military airports - he was based in Richmond, in Yorkshire

The last word I would unseto describe Walter's singing was 'boring - he was an intimately quiet singer whose singing invited the listener to share his stories rather tha pushing them in their faces - Mikeen McCarthy was similar in approach
With Walter, you met the song half-way - my preference every time

I have no intention of responding to anybody who refers to this gentle polite old man as "Pardon" - I find that extremely ill-mannered and disrespectful, especially after what has gone before

"Regarding Pardon's supposed use of the term 'folk song'"
Walter's "supposed" use of the word folk song has appeared in transcripts I have put up
Either I am being accused of faking transcripts or the writer isn't bothering to read what Walter had to say - either is possible, given .....

"Jim - It didn't need to be questioned.. no hidden implication"
Didn't suggest you were - Stop being paranoid
I was merely pointing out the fact that Walter has proved to be able to speak for himself
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Nov 19 - 11:45 PM

Jim - it's a simple point I made...

This thread could have been a useful resource for information on Walter Pardon.
Where both genuine critical analysis and newbie questions are tolerated
as part of valid positive discussion on:

His songs.
His voice.
Relevant aspects of his biography.
Analysis of his significance.
etc...

AS it is, this thread has been trampled into a quagmire of shite,
by an OP who has turned out to be a bit of a stalker nutter with dubious motives,
and the consquent conflict caused...

All I suggested was if a volunteer could be bothered,
then the best of this thread could be cherry picked
and used to set up a new Walter Pardon perma thread that is possibly moderated.

Who would you think would be best up for the idea...???

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 03:00 AM

There is another thing that needs to be corrected in the Wiki article. It says that he was based in Aldershot during the war. I presume that you are right, Jim, and he was actually based in Richmond so you should submit a correction. You always complain about the inaccuracy of Wiki - Now is your chance to put at least one thing right!

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 03:28 AM

I think that might be true too Dave - he was moved about during the war
I mentioned Richmond because that's the place he remembered with most fondness

" cherry picked"
I couldn't agree more P (why do people have to pick three-barreled names - makes lfe very difficult the morning after the night before)
There's plenty more to be said about this important singer - not just by me
I know Mike had a great deal to say about him, as did many others
Bert Lloyd eulogised over his singing after they met in America during the 200 Anniversary celebrations
Jim

"We have few singers - perhaps none - with such a clear memory for song words & such a fine regard for tune shapes as Walter. I don’t know that he is much bothered about “authenticity” - the folklorists got to him too late for that! But he knows what’s what about a song and he can distinguish neatly between folk products and commercial compositions. He should do; after all, he’s a cultivated chap and a discerning reader (you should hear him on the respective merits of Thomas Hardy & Kipling!) who walks around with a headful of folk songs not so much because he regards them as bits of heritage, but for a far better reason - because he likes the stuff. His voice is still young, and he can handle any sort of song with finesse - big ballads, broadside romances, Victorian tearjerkers, even bawdy bits. He’s a pleasure to know, a joy to listen to. Bravo, Walter, the pick of the bunch.
A L Lloyd" 'A Country Life' Topic TSDL392, (1982) (recorded and edited by Mike Yates)

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 05:10 AM

I find it fairly easy to distinguish the truth about Walter , particularly as i knew people who knew him personally.
I think Damien Barber knew him, why dont you contact him

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,jag
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 05:14 AM

I don't understand the point about the A L Lloyd sleeve notes "illustrates once again the point made at the outset that Pardon was taken up and marketed by the far left"

Taken in isolation I don't think it even hints that A L Lloyd was of the political left. Knowing that he makes me think he was keeping his political stance out of his comments. Though I am curious over the mention of Walter's view of Kipling. But that also reminds me that "at the outset" Walter was introduced to the 'revivalists' by Peter Bellamy.

Is there any record what Peter Bellamy's viewed Walter's singing and meterial?

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,jag
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 05:21 AM

Sorry, typos. "...Knowing that he was [of the political left] makes me think..." "Is there any record how Peter Bellamy's viewed Walter's singing and meterial?"

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,folklorist
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 07:49 AM

>>>Deispite having potted copiously on the sunject, he displays neitre knowledge of or interest in Traditional Music and his ferevent attempts to silence or denigrate the views ofr anybody vaguely left of Attilla the Hun indicates a political rather than a cultural agenda<<<

It would be very difficult to disagree with this statement.
It would be even more difficult to be able to read it.
It would be more difficult still to work out what this person is on about.

How do you people cope with this?

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 08:05 AM

" Planted by an extremist group"...this just gets more and more bizarre..does it not ?

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: GUEST,Brian Peters
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 09:14 AM

The section of dialogue quoted above by Pseudonymous, headed: '9. IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE', contains no 'leading questions' at all, as far as I can see. For an interviewer to ask a singer unused to performing in front of any kind of an audience how he reacts to a folk festival crowd is a perfectly sensible question. It is WP, not the interviewer, who brings up the the idea of 'seeing' the action of a song.

This is probably the most elaborate and obsessively pursued troll thread I've witnessed in all my years on Mudcat. The OP appears to believe that cutting and pasting a few pieces from Mustrad, then trying to throw doubt on other people's work by lobbing in vague and unsubtantiated accusations of 'inconsistency', 'conjecture', 'bias', etc., constitutes 'research'. There a lot wrong with Dave Harker's work, but Harker is F. R. Leavis compared with this individual. Watching him/her waggling a sagging stick of rhubarb in futile challenge to genuine researchers like Jim Carroll and Mike Yates is like witnessing one of those BBC 'debates' between a distinguished climate scientist with a lifetime of experience and an ignorant shouter with a political agenda.

"I now am trying to fit in with the level of discussion on this site (as per eg Brian Peters)."

I always try to remain polite on Mudcat, but the sheer volume of misinformation here, and the Quixotic fanaticism with which the agenda has been pursued, has tested even my patience. The remark about 'The Pardon industry' is one of the most ludicrous I've ever seen on Mudcat, and was the last straw, I'm afraid.

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Nov 19 - 12:42 PM

It's taken too big a chunk of my afternoon catching up with this thread...
But there is a perverse fascination, akin to them olden days tourists
visiting Bedlam to laugh at the loonies...

Some of the loonies, I'm sure might have been very well educated erudite folks
before their minds snapped...

If pseud is a genuine academic, I'd caution from my own observed experiences,
that there is a lot of mental instability in higher education institutions...

This is somethging that needs to be addressed,
Universities must work harder on their Duty of care for students and academic staff...

Subject: RE: Review: Walter Pardon; Research
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Nov 19 - 02:55 AM

Here's a YouTube playlist of Walter Pardon recordings:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLakEhBfePSAw_U3tMVrCYErsU7t0Q_GJq

Pseudonymous, you have some worthwhile things to say, but much of this thread is taken up with your personal attacks on Jim Carroll, and his whining responses. This makes a good mess of what could be an important topic of discussion. Keep this discussion to the topic of discussion. Otherwise, I will have to shut it down.

-Joe Offer, Mudcat Music Editor-