Peter Bellamy - died 24 Sept 1991

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 02:07 PM

That story has now appeared at least twice. I think it apocryphal ~~ Pete & Nic were the greatest of friends and greatly admired one another's singing. I don't believe Nic would have made such an undermining comment, even in jest.

~M~

Still, as they say ~ "Never let the truth stand in the way..." If it IS a good story.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 02:02 PM

One year at Whitby, the most memorable event I attended was Doc Rowe showing a film of a Peter Bellamy concert. And it wasn't even a very good film. And, yes, it was a good week!

I passed a pub the other day which used to host a folk club. I went there specially to see Peter. As soon as he started singing, the audience stampeded towards the door. Very strange - did they buy tickets just to see the residents? I really don't know.

May I repeat my Nic Jones story, please. Nic was very supportive of folk clubs. At the end of each performance, he would always ask the organiser, Who is the guest next week? He would then say how good the artist was and encourage the audience to come and see them. One night at the Coronation in Southport, the answer came back, Peter Bellamy. Oh, said Nic, Who's on the week after?

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: The Sandman
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 07:35 AM

FolkieDave my point, regarding virtuosos and technically excellent musicians, is this.. I live in Ireland you live in england we have different experiences.
my experience is this Comhaltas have turned out an assembly line of technically good and stylised musicians many of whom sound like clones of each other.When Ilisten to irish music recordings, I tend to go back to the roots, I find recordings like paddy in the smoke do much more for me than the comhaltas produced musicians, the musicians may not be technically s good , but they sound like they are enjoying themselves.   
as a matter of fact I prefer other revival and traditional singers to Peter Bellamy, but that does not mean that I dont think he was a good live performer and a talented writer

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 06:29 AM

Indeed so, MtheGM - I suppose that's the sort of thing I was thinking of regarding life quality and ethics which will always be subjective. I often wonder if I could be as courageous, or, indeed, as level headed in similiar circumstances - I've known plenty who weren't. Then there's bastarding strokes that might rob a person of their life without warning without going so far as to actually deprive them of it; my own mother is now 6 years in such a situation following one such that robbed her of everything that might be considered essential to the old compos mentis. The rule of life is one endless round of exceptions!

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 06:06 AM

Sweeney ~~ not sure if I have mentioned to you the death of my still-much-mourned, though happily superseded, first wife? Google

grosvenor myer suicide

for some possible reasons why first para of your most meaningful statement above is not necessarily an invariable; as my poor Valerie discovered.

Not that I am arguing that Pete, who still had his health if not all his contentment, will necessarily fit the same category: that is a separate question.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 05:35 AM

On Smokey's obit thread I mentioned that Mudcat feels like a welcoming fireside around which passing travellers might meet and chat and mouth off at will. It's a friendly place, a homely nook, where beards wag all, and opinions flow freely and free speech is not only encouraged but cherished; here, everyone has their say but no one is cast aside or yet insulted. They come, they go, they leave (sometimes in high dudgeon) but they come back and the crack* resumes - and all in time honoured fashion.

My own feeling is that life is way too short as it is without shortening it any further, but I guess most people feel this way anyway and - as I said somewhere above - that whilst I generally take a dim view of suicide, I don't suppose anyone would ever do such a thing without very good reason - indeed the sort of reason that passes all common undertanding. I've known a few - silly bastards as I think of them - for whom the preciousness of life became eclipsed by something I hope I'll never have to deal with. I've had too many friends die of natural causes, but who's to say suicide isn't a natural cause?

I recall once hearing a story from an old copper pal who was seriously distressed on having been to this house in which a chap had meticulously constructed a guillotine for which he'd cut through the floors from the attic to the ground floor, so that the granite-weighted blade would gather enough momentum to make sure it would do the job for which it was built. He described it as a work of first class craftsmanship and engineering, one that had obviously taken some time and dedication to complete - how even the holes he'd cut through the floor-joists were finished off with the skill of a master joiner (housecarpenter?) - and he joked (as one must in such cases) as to the value it would put on the property when it finally came onto the market, speculating on the Estate Agent's patter as he was showing a young couple around what might potentially be their dream home... But what power lay behind such an ingenious scheme? Any death makes us look very hard at our own life and the inevitable mortality thereof ; and there is always worse things than dying, for life is always a matter of subjective quality, but even then we have an innate ethical sense least we run away with absolutes. To take ones own life is to seize the ultimate control; it must take more than mere courage to do that. Thus we look on in as much dread as we do awe...   

Meanwhile, I'm glad to be alive, and glad we can all be alive together in this happy moment even if we can't agree on a single issue other than that common something-or-other we share in being here in the first place. Even though I reckon 9% of Fause Foodrage is better than none, because these things become a journey of life in themselves, acquired by slow degrees of a lifetime's acquaintance. That said, I found I could sing Childe Owlett having only heard Crow Sister sing it three times - once in recording, once in the rough mix, once in playback...   

*I am Tynesider by birth; on Tyneside we celebrate The Crack, as oppose to the Craic; so much so it's the name of a local magazine (still going? I hope so) and a quartet of the finest bench-mark misbegotton gobshite storytellers in the country (bar none) go by the collective heading of A Bit Crack (still going? I hope so...)

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 04:30 AM

Despite living in a cruel world where people like Folkiedave and youself misunderstand our genius - GSS and I categorically refuse to do ourselves in, as a career move.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 04:03 AM

If you say the words don't matter - I bow to your superior knowledge.

I didn't say they didn't matter, BAW - just that they don't matter to me too much, certainly not when I'm listening to music. As I say I might catch the occasional snippet only have it turned into an instant mondegreen as my brain gives up trying to make sense of a half-caught chorus in which there are brownies in a bath on a cycle-path, or whatever... It's all subjective in the end.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 04:01 AM

In which connection, see final, summarising, sentence of my obit of him ~

http://www.bens.connectfree.co.uk/pb/FIRST2.HTM#obits

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Howard Jones
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 03:59 AM

John Mackenzie, whilst I recognise a degree of truth in what you say about "death being a good career move", I suspect that opinions about PB are as polarised now as they were when he was alive. Despite his being championed by Jon Boden and other influential musicians from the younger generation, I suspect there are still many listeners who can't get past the vocal mannerisms.

The young musicians now discovering his music don't have to contend with his provocative and sometimes confrontational personality, on the other hand they are deprived of his live performances - in my opinion his recordings seldom manage to capture his energy and sheer "dangerousness".

Like him or loath him, it is surely undeniable that PB was quite unlike anyone else on the folk scene at the time.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 03 Oct 11 - 03:42 AM

I'm sorry to seem irreverant, but I also think that the manner of his death, and it's prematurity, has given his work 'added value'

On the contrary - Bellamy's status was assured in his lifetime, and posthumously by both his recorded legacy and the testimony of those who knew him and saw him live (to the full). If anything, the manner of his passing is generally held as being perplexing to say the least, the tradegy being that if he had lived but a few more years he would have - without doubt - attained the living-legendary status he denied us (& himself) by taking his own life. Other artists have assured their own cult status through suicide, not so Peter Bellamy. Talk to anyone and you'll find they don't regard it as 'added value' in the slighest - it robbed us of a very essential genius, personality, idealogue and performer who was unique on all counts.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 04:50 PM

Folkie Dave,you are attempting to personalise this discussion if we were talking to one another face to face, you would not use my name twice as you have done in your post
I find your post unnecessarily aggressive, indeed, I have found many of your past posts to me unnecessarily aggressive.

it is a fact that the very nature of being professional and having to accept any gigs that come along can lead to situations where a performer after many consecutive one night gigs in different parts of the country can just switch on to automatic pilot and seem disinterested.
Peter could never have been accused of sounding disinterested.
Finally Dave, how you see it does not interest me very much,
The peoples whose musical opinions I value, are musicians I respect.
you are of course entitled to your opinion, but when you talk about virtuoso musicians and singers, you seem to have given yourself a pedestal of some authority, you are just like everyone else, whether they be a road sweeper, bricklayer,or book seller,entitled to an opinion., but I do not agree with your opinion

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 03:57 PM

Career, sorry.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 03:52 PM

I have never understood the beatification of Peter Bellamy.
I knew him back in my days on the London folk scene, and while he was doing intersting things, he was doing them in what I thought of as an oddly mannered style.
Never thought he was an original, he was a vocal stylist. He could be touchy too, and he once warned people not to sing songs that he considered his territory.
I'm sorry to seem irreverant, but I also think that the manner of his death, and it's prematurity, has given his work 'added value'
I can't remember whom it was said it, or whom it was about,but somebody once described the premature death of a star as, "A good carrer move"
Come to think of it, it may have been Gore Vidal who said it.
I feel that Bellamy suffers fronm a touch of that, and it prevents total objectivity of his ouevre, in some quarters.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 03:07 PM

That was me

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 02:55 PM

I'm not criticising Peter Bellamy. I obviously don't know enough about his style of music. If you say the words don't matter - I bow to your superior knowledge.

I suppose its cos I'm a singer myself that I like to know the words. You may have noticed my threads on mudcat asking what Lightning Hopkins is talking about - when it clearly doesn't matter all that much! It obviously bothers me when it shouldn't.

Great to hear of you Brian - try and make it down the south west. I've got a spare room with a bed setee if you ever fancy an exploratory visit or a holiday. I live near Weymouth these days.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,oldstrings
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 02:43 PM

Wonderful to be able to catch up on Peter Bellamy's career, and hear all the stories.
I first met Peter when he and a fellow student named Robin asked me to solicit performers for a benefit concert for Oxfam and World University Service. That must have been around 1964, when I was running the singers' booking service at Cecil Sharp House. The concert, headed by Bob Davenport and The Rakes, was sold out and everyone very pleased.

The last time I saw Peter was only a few years later, when I was included in the chorus for the recording of an EP of chanteys (yes, a gramophone record!) by The Young Tradition. After that, I lost touch and only heard in recent years of his death.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 02:08 PM

And I apologise for the thread drift.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 02:07 PM

but the end product is often performers who sound disinterested as if thay are there only for the money. this problem is partly down to the4 fact that for some music is just a job.

Well I can sincerely suggest that you are wrong there Dick, the ones I am talking about are still in full time education - some still in school.

The idea that they are in it for the money is a joke isn't it Dick? People come in to folk music for the money?

And do you think people should not do it as a job? Do you do it as a job?

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Brian Peters
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 01:46 PM

"Here we go again with the can't understand the words thing. I think PB is an exemplary if somewhat idiosyncratic stylist in this respect - as are most of your actual Genuine Traditional Singers, none of whom could be called easy listening and many you're glad the albums come with transcriptions. Listening to most musical genres I'm not sure if I bother listening to the words too closely, or even bothering if I can understand the words anyway, or even if the words are worth listening to."

Well, each to their own. One of the things that attracted me to folk music right from the outset was that the words were worth listening to, and the more I got into the ballads the more the words mattered. I can't imagine getting much reward from 'False Foudrage' or 'Willy's Lady' if I only picked up 9% of the words. Most of the traditional singers that I've listened to put their words over well, with clear enunciation and emphasis, albeit complicated occasionally by regional accents.

As for Peter Bellamy, he was, it's true, a vocal stylist and not of the "sing it like you speak it" school - but when you saw him live you could scarcely miss a syllable, so committed was he to the lyric. He also used a lot of body language to help get the words across. On that video the sound is pretty ropey, with a lot of extraneous high pitched noise around both the vocal and the concertina - which is more prominent in the mix than a record producer would allow.

I think Al Whittle's reaction is interesting. Certainly PB was a more mannered and confrontational singer than the likes of Tony Rose or Roy Harris, which is exactly why even some traditional song fans couldn't stomach the sound he made while others (who had got across that barrier) thought he was the best of the lot. He wouldn't have been my first choice to play to a non-folkie friend, but then again I've come across people who loved his voice from the word go.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 01:23 PM

Oh, Sweeney, you are naughty, you great big tease you!

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 12:49 PM

Well that is not how I see it now with virtuoso young instrumentalists coming onto the scene and good young singers all over the place.""   Really?it depends how you define virtuoso and good singers? part of the problem in my experience, is that much emphasis is laid upon technique, but the end product is often performers who sound disinterested as if thay are there only for the money. this problem is partly down to the4 fact that for some music is just a job.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Folkiedave
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 12:26 PM

A few years ago I advanced the theory on Mudcat that the rejection suffered by original artists on the English folkscene had led to the living in exile and the premature death of several artists.

Diane Easby and Folkiedave hurled abuse at me for suggesting this. I still think its true.

You can't help wondering how much the economic malaise of England - if not the entire word is due to dull conformists getting the better of, and suppressing originality and creativity.

I seem to remember that this was part of a discussion on how folk music was dying. And how really good singers were being ignored by some cabal that existed (though it's existence was never shown - just surmised).

Well that is not how I see it now with virtuoso young instrumentalists coming onto the scene and good young singers all over the place.

I suspect most people would imagine that the economic malaise of England/entire world being due to dull conformists is bollocks and would prefer to seem it as a result of (say) the wonderfully original and creative financial experts who get huge bonuses for being creative and original with our money, knowing that if they got it wrong we would bail them out.

To say nothing of the squillions wasted on original and creative wars.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 11:54 AM

Here we go again with the can't understand the words thing. I think PB is an exemplary if somewhat idiosyncratic stylist in this respect - as are most of your actual Genuine Traditional Singers, none of whom could be called easy listening and many you're glad the albums come with transcriptions. Listening to most musical genres I'm not sure if I bother listening to the words too closely, or even bothering if I can understand the words anyway, or even if the words are worth listening to. I caught some singer-songwriters on BBC4 on Friday night and I thought it might be more to my tastes if couldn't hear what they were singing about - something about an American Pie which I don't ever recall hearing before, though my wife informs me it's seminal to the genre and in some corners held to me a 'classic'; then some chick called Melanie (?) singing about peace and love at which point I switched over to watch a random episode of Daffy Duck. Otherwise, with music, I'm happy if I catch the odd word, phrase or image; I only take in maybe 9% (at best) of any given Ballad or Folk Song performance in terms of its narrative, and most of the stuff I'm listening to right now is in Latin or Spanish anyway so if I want the words, I must read them in translation. I enjoy Kipling better when it's sung, then I don't have to bother with what it's about, though of course when it comes to singing the stuff myself I then have to decide if I like it or not as poetry, or if I want to lend my voice such reactionary sentiment, which usually I do, even I disgaree with the text. For example, I love singing the Ralph & Ted fantasy of The Land, for whilst the fuedal sentiments of which offend my innate low-born left-wing sensibilities, they appeal to my more deeply rooted sense of human land-management and history.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Oct 11 - 05:53 AM

Weird business revealed in that old video. This terribly nice middle class chap. Then he picks up the concertina and you really can't make out the words of the song - is it that the concertina accompaniment is too loud, or the adopted accent is so opaque?

Yet this guy is worshipped (not enough to book him and give him a living, but worshipped anyhow) by people who find my apparently pseudo American accent infra dig. Well at least I play quiet enough for you to hear me and no ones in any doubt what the songs are about.

Anyway a fascinating insight. Thankyou for posting the thread. As a traditional singer (or singer of traditional songs) he's alot more difficult to get your ears round than Tony Rose, Martin C, Fred Jordan, or Roy harris or others of the period.

I used to teach Danny Deever in English classes in another life. It was before PB's recording. However I'm not sure I would have used the recording in the class room. You never know with kids - they might have latched onto the refrain. Any teachers out there who have used it?

I always thought PB should have been the soundtrack for the nautical museum of the fishing industry in Yarmouth. I suggested it to them. But I went again two years later and they hadn't done it.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 04:19 PM

I think I get your drift. But bear in mind it's a story – it's fiction. In fact it has a lot in common with a whodunnit: pulling threads together, making connections. Everything has significance, a deeper meaning. Even the characters are symbols rather than real personalities. The challenge is to make sense of it all. It's not a credo, but a narrative convention. Whether folklore operates like that in the real world is not, I don't think, relevant to the book's imaginative world. Unless you're writing kitchen sink fiction, authors have a bit of latitude to play with.

I didn't realise I was implying Moonwise would deliver its readers a mystic epiphany. I'm still waiting for mine.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 01 Oct 11 - 04:11 AM

I'm not sure I detect any Graves-Frazerian absolutism

It's there in the tone of the discussion; the certainty that folklore must carry an esoteric / symbolic / occult meaning and derive from something deeper, the understanding / appreciation requires initiation - or else the sort of mystic ephiphany you imply is awaiting the reader of such cosmic debris. I suppose it counts as SteamFilk, which one finds to a certain extent in the novels of (say) Diana Wynne Jones or Phil Rickman (I would imagine young Jane Watkins would be a huge fan of Gillman's work), though their work is less densely proscriptive (or yet contrived) in terms of its own significance, or indeed terminology. I accept that for Greer Gillman-fans such things are obviously held as strengths rather than weaknesses though.

it is not necessarily the performers fault if he is not appreciated.

One of the things I remember most about a PB gig at The Bay Hotel in Cullercoats circa 1988 was an anecdote concerning Folk and Professionalism which ended with two fresh-faced amateur female hopefuls being told to 'F*ck Off' in no uncertain terms by the organiser of a gig. Whilst he found this hilarious (no one else laughed I'm sure), a number of the audience were so deeply outraged they walked out. I must admit I failed see either the humour or significance of the tale which seemed primarily designed to upset those for whom the Heart o' Folk is the very amateurism PB was scathing of and yet had done so much to engender. One audience member was equally upset when PB berated them for not getting the upper harmonies of the Santa Fe Trail chorus. Turns out this was a rehearsed and regular feature of the song & PB regularly berated his audiences for failing to spot a harmony which was obvious only to him. A similar aura of elite erudition prevailed in one of his Folk Quizzes that took place in Durham in 1991. I only managed to get ONE question right simply because I happened to have the particular record the song was from; others, as I recall, were less fortunate.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 04:42 PM

Death of Nelson[RICHARD GRAINGER]

On the 21st of October before the rising sun
We formed a line for battle and at twelve o clock begun
Old Nelson to his men did say t he lord will prosper us this day
Set fire the broadside fire away on board a man of war

Chorus
Let him die in peace, God bless you all
On board a man of war. ( Repeated)

Fromroadside to broadside the cannon balls did fly
Like hailstone the small shot across our decks did fly
Our main mast was blown away besides some hundreds on that day
Were killed or wounded in the fray on board a man of war

Chorus

And then our great commander with grief he shook his head
Theres no reprieve no relief old Nelson he is dead
It was a fateful musketball that caused old Nelson for to fall
Let him die in peace god bless you all on board a man of war

Chorus
the above is not to be confused with Peters song.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: BTNG
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:59 PM

There are three songs, from Bellamy's Maritime England Suite(1982), included on the Free Reed issued Wake The Vaulted Echoes set. They are:

We Have Fed Our Sea

Sir Andrew Barton

The Death of Nelson

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 03:47 PM

Back of the net, Dick! Personally, I'm well aware that the things I love about PB's singing are precisely the things that annoy so many. I love the ferocity, the theatricality – and the bleat. I'm not being wilfully eccentric: these are just the things that go straight to the emotional bullseye for me. It's noteworthy, I think, that his singing always makes me laugh – with mirth, when he's putting across a humorous trope, but also with sheer delight when he unerringly nails some intrinsic quality in the song. Can't think of any other singer who makes me laugh even at serious bits, with the sole exception of Jim Eldon. And if push comes to shove, I'd say that's why he (PB) is the best singer, for me, that the folk movement has produced.

He also happens to have written some of the very finest tunes to have come out of that same movement. Do any of his tunes get up people's noses too?

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 01:26 PM

Michael Swanick (the interviewer)! Has anyone read his novel 'Bones of the Earth' (2002)? In the first chapter a palaeontologist is presented with a cooler containing a fully fleshed Stegosaurus head! I just thought you might like to know ...

Right - carry on ...

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 01:20 PM

the problem with all performers and all performances is that it is a two way communication, it is not necessarily the performers fault if he is not appreciated.
From my own experience of being an audience member I know that I could have Appreciated or not appreciated a performance because of my particular mood on a particular day, and could have had a completely different response on another day.
finally we cannot expect everyone to like the same thing, why should we expect lots of people to appreciate Peter, because someone is talented is not a guarantee that they will be liked, meanwhile lots of supremely untalented people who are promoted well are liked by the mass of the people.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 01:12 PM

And as good a TIME as now to re-issue his Maritime Suite onto CD?

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 12:22 PM

The Gilman interview is rather like a private conversation in code between two savants, and is certainly impenetrable if you haven't read at least one of the works under discussion. I'm not sure I detect any Graves-Frazerian absolutism ("As a scholar, I know that The White Goddess and The Golden Bough are flights of fantasy..." GG says at one point) in what after all are works of fiction. But not fiction in the Gravesian style of dramatising a historical or mythological theory. Moonwise at least has no ideological designs on the reader as far as I can see; it doesn't seem to be saying "this is how things actually are, or were". It's a ripping yarn, a very long prose poem or a costive folie de grandeur according to taste.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 12:00 PM

Spring 1991 Silvia Sass Interview with Peter Bellamy (YouTube)

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:26 AM

but anyone with a love of George Mackay Brown, Ted Hughes, Bob and Carole Pegg and Lal Waterson will feel at home in it.

I love all those people deeply & dearly (Ted Hughs notwithstanding), but found the Greer Gillman interview possessed of that oppressively inpenetrable Graves-Frazerian absolutism that runs contrary to all good sense. Utter tosh just about covers it! As I said to Raymond on Saturday whilst wandering around the Ryland's library in MCR, and quoting Mark E Smith I might add: 'The book world's far crappier than the music world: it asks more of you and offers you less.' The older I get, so the more care I take in how much of my precious life will be spent (i.e. wasted) reading anything. Right now I'm enjoying Neil Slaven's Frank Zappa: Electric Don Quixote & if someone brought out a similarly balanced in-depth overview covering The Life, Times, Genius and Vituperative Intollerances of Peter Bellamy I'm sure I'd be quite happy to read that too...

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:25 AM

>I suspect this is the same book that PB was brandishing and enthusing wildly about during a somewhat well lubricated party at Whitby Festival in the last summer of his life.<

Good chance, I'd say: according to my 1991 diary, the book came into my keeping the following week.

> Do the Watersons appear, thinly-disguised, in the book by any chance?<

No, but Martin & Norma's kitchen does!

>I have to say that on an admittedly cursory examination I pronounced the book the most utter tosh, and a spirited discussion ensued.<

Interestingly, that was my reaction too to the first ten pages or so. As in so many things today, one needs to persevere...

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Bearheart
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:10 AM

a fine and inspiring singer, with many fine songs... thanks for the tributes...

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 07:09 AM

I got lots of opportunity to see him, but never did. His reputation wasn't good - it has to be said. The reverence he is held in nowadays wouldn't surprise anyone though. He was held in high regard some, but others (far more in fact) warned you off him.

At the time , people talked about the 'larry the Lamb' type voice. My own in laws were on holiday and phoned and asked me should they go and see him. As they had enjoyed Carthy, Roy Harris, and The watersons, I said yes. They loathed him, and left in the interval. They were pretty open minded for people of that generation. they just didn't 'get' him.

I was always a fan of his ideas. Kipling and The Transports as I say being good ideas, and i had a few samplers with odd trax that I liked. Loved his version of Yarmouth Town.

When he died Martin Carthy spoke movingly about him on the folk programme on the radio. I think we were all stunned by his death - he was a presence - because you met people who were influenced by him all the time. Carthy also spoke about the isolation that love of the old songs brings with it. And that's really when I started wondering about this tradition business - does a 'living tradition' leave you isolated from the community from which it springs? Shouldn't ordinary people 'get' it?

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Andymac
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 06:40 AM

I never saw Peter Bellamy live and indeed until only a few years ago had never heard of him.

After a long chat with friends of him when we were in Ireland, my wife were keen to listen to this man who had been rated so highly by fellow singers whom we in turn rated highly. I wasn't immediately sure when I listened but there was enough to make me want to listen to more.
Now if I come across a new Bellamy recording I pounce on it. Some of his vocals may sound contorted (to some ears) but it always came across as compelling. I was trawling youtube recently boucing from artist to artist, link to link as one does when I came across the seam of gold which was an interview with the man.
Part of the way through he stops explaining and starts singing.
Compelling, stunning and spellbinding can be over-used in these days of hyping up everyone to the nth degree but they don't do justice to how I felt watching him on this crackly poor quality piece of video.

My wife had the same reaction when she saw the film and all I can say is that I'm envious of everyone here who got the chance to see him live and I'm sad (without even having known him) at the loss of such a wonderfully talented man but the finest tribute anyone can pay him (as well as the tribute of this thread in itself) is to keep singing his songs but in your own style and never to compromise on that.


Andy

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 06:30 AM

Good luck with Moonwise, David E – it's a vast hag-tangle of language, but anyone with a love of George Mackay Brown, Ted Hughes, Bob and Carole Pegg and Lal Waterson will feel at home in it.

Here's a postscript. The year after PB's death I was at Whitby Festival (the year they did The Transports as a memorial), and sitting on the final day in a cafe nattering with Kate. A woman at the next table leaned across and asked me about a story I'd told at a Storytelling open session earlier in the week. We fell to talking and after a minute or two I found myself compelled to ask her the question: "Are you Greer Gilman by any chance?" And indeed she was.

This is not nearly as weird as it sounds. PB had described her to me the previous year, having met her on a couple of occasions, and told me that she was a regular attender of Whitby Fest, despite being based in Massachussets. When I told her how, for me, her novel was intimately woven in with Peter's demise, she was visibly moved. We met several times afterwards, at Whitby and the old National Festival. Suibhne's link will give you a pretty good idea of her writing style, and cast of mind. A very remarkable woman.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 06:30 AM

There has been another thread, I recall, about the extent to which Ewan composed the tunes he claimed to have got from his parents. Bob Thomson used to point out that Bronson's only tune for Eppie Morrie was the one that Ewan sang! I should have expected Pete to have known all about that, mind. Your anecdote reveals him as unwontedly naive ~ or perhaps not: he was a complex and unpredictable sort...

~M~

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Brian Peters
Date: 30 Sep 11 - 06:18 AM

"Greer Gilman's Moonwise. The story behind this was that PB picked up the book on his final US tour – the author was a friend of The Watersons"

I suspect this is the same book that PB was brandishing and enthusing wildly about during a somewhat well lubricated party at Whitby Festival in the last summer of his life. Do the Watersons appear, thinly-disguised, in the book by any chance? I have to say that on an admittedly cursory examination I pronounced the book the most utter tosh, and a spirited discussion ensued.

This was the same occasion at which PB (who had apparently only recently twigged that Ewan MacColl might, just possibly, have tinkered with some of the songs in his repertoire) went into a rant about his discovery that MaColl had composed the tune to his version of 'Sir Patrick Spens'. "That fucking Marxist lied to us!"

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,David E.
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 04:53 PM

What a wonderful thread and great memories. I ordered Fair England's Shore and the Moonwise book from Amazon today.

David E.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 04:50 PM

There's an interview with Greer Gilman HERE in which the term belantered is explained. It also alludes to Malykorne...

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 02:47 PM

And interestingly, in view of his sometimes spiky opinions of fellow performers, he contributed to Folk Review some rather generous albums reviews of The Spinners and The Corries.

Here's a wee follow-up anecdote to my posting about Greer Gilman's Moonwise. The story behind this was that PB picked up the book on his final US tour – the author was a friend of The Watersons - and set about reading it on tour. But, as I hinted earlier, the text bristles with obscure and difficult words. As PB evidently didn't have access to a dictionary on tour, he underlined in pencil all the words he intended to look up when he got back home. As I was reading his own copy, I looked up all the words he underlined. One of them was "belantered". I chased it in vain through all the dictionaries I had to hand. When I consulted the Compact Oxford English Dictionary (the mighty OED compressed into two breeze-block sized volumes with magnifying glass supplied) I couldn't find it there either. But where it should have been, my eye fell on –

"belamy : fair friend, good friend (esp. as form of address)."

Now how weird is that? And how perfectly, painfully apt? Moonwise is unnervingly full of strange, spectral coincidences like that. It's one of the reasons that makes it extraordinary.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 08:23 AM

Yes, indeed: he was regular record critic and feature writer for Fred Woods' Folk Review in 70s-80s; and indeed one of the best of the lot of us who wrote regularly for that journal: articulate,stylish, with high critical standards, and a knack for witty & cogent expression Other regulars were Eric Winter, Karl Dallas... I often go back to my collection of FRs and give them another read. Pete's work stands up after all these years as well as any there.

I believe he also went on to do a regular column for fRoots.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 07:49 AM

... or sung to the tune of Hernando's Hideaway while madly tango-ing (an incongruity I think Peter would appreciate).

Not much has been mentioned about Peter's prose writing - articles for various folky mags and suchlike - but I'm sure I used to read pieces he had written, and always appreciated the sheer intelligence of the man. Does anyone have more detailed memories of any articles by him, or where they were published? I recall being impressed at the time. Wish he were around to have a blog today. I'd sure follow it.

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 05:58 AM

'vituperative intolerance'

Great name for a band...!

Subject: RE: Peter Bellamy 18 yrs today since he died
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 29 Sep 11 - 05:35 AM

"I still remember a phrase from the Daily Telegraph obituary of the man, to the effect that people who view the folk scene as jolly people in arran sweaters clutching pints and singing lusty choruses etc. etc. would be surprised by its capacity for 'vituperative intolerance'."

Great quote.