Music hall singers funny accent

Subject: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 07:09 AM

Listening to the excellent George Formby documentary with Frank Skinner last night, I was struck by the accent of George Formby Senior in his comic redordings. he was delivering his lines in that odd Cockney variant that Cosmotheka used to do their music hall classics in. I can only describe it, as being a bit like the way Sam Weller in Pickwick papers talks and mispronounces.

Does anybody know about this? Of course George Formby junior had none of these affectations of speech and diction. However he was understandable to southerners in a way that I wasn't in my youth, having always spoken in my parents Lancashire accent. George junior was knowing enough to make himself understood.

In fact there was plenty of nous behind his presentation.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 07:55 AM

It seems to have been fairly common parlance in them days, whether it was cod cocknbey, or whether it was like the Catalan lisp, I don't know.
It occurs in Villikins and His Dinah, and The Ratcatchers Daughter too.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 09:41 AM

The only recordings I have by George Senior are in his native Lancashire accent - "John Willie" stuff, etc. I hadn't realised he'd done cockney-style stuff as well. I missed the programme as I was out - must check it on iPlayer later...

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 10:26 AM

Listen to the great Gus Elen singing It's A Great Big Shame, aka I'm Blowed if he can Call Himself His Own, by Edgar Bateman & G Le Brunn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9_YHS63hiw

Not all the words that clear ~ the recording dates from very early days, about 1900, (& must have been collated with silent film, as there were no 'talkies' then'? ~ or, as he lived 1862 - 1940, perhaps he re-recorded it in old age?). But the chorus "It's a great big shame, and if she belonged to me, I'd show her who was who; ... a-naggin' at a fellow who is 6'3" and her only 5'2"" is perfectly clear; & the cockney accent of that period is fascinating.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,blogward
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 11:50 AM

I would think that Charles Dickens' record of Victorian Cockney - him being a shorthand whiz - can be taken as pretty accurate, and it corresponds to the Music Hall Cockney accent you're talking about. Funnily enough I was listening to Grant Rule (RIP) doing 'The Sausage Song' just now, and there are traces there.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Bert
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 12:48 PM

I guess that he had a gig or two in London and was trying to speak Proper English.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 01:56 PM

Gus Elen recorded "The Postman's Holiday" at a live recording, i.e. with audience, in the early 1930s. The accent in the song is pure mid-19th century Cockney - an accent which he adopted for the halls (he was born in Pimlico and was not a true Cockney).

At the end of the recording, he makes a speech to the audience - in most "actorly"tones - proper "actor laddie" pronunciation. He was a consummate actor...

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 28 Oct 11 - 02:08 PM

Off the top of my head, this theatrical Cockney dialect/accent was very popular since at least the early 19th century so predating the Music Hall era. They were at first supposed to be characaturing the Coster Mongers or Barrow Boys of the East End markets.

Billy Weekes would be able to give chapter and verse on this.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 05:43 AM

Will, with all due respect I don't see why being born in Pimlico would make your accent much different to someone being born in Stepney
for instance at the time of Elen's birth. And what is a true cockney? I am familiar of course with the definition of being born within the sound of Bow Bells but what people generally seem to recognise as a cockney accent comes from a much wider area than that. In my opinion it's not a Cockney accent but a working class London accent.

Guest SteveG, I am interested to know where you managed to hear examples of early 19th century theatrical cockney as I would like to hear them myself. And believe it or not there were costermongers operating south of the river too. Did they speak differently?

Slightly moving off thread I watched the television news last evening and saw the almost completed pile od shite that has been erected on the Olympic Park. It looks like a big ugly helter skelter and is yet another blot on the east London landscape in the name of art. Some woman involved in the project seemed to think it would rival the London Eye as there is a fantastic view from the top. The thought went through my mind that no longer would Gus Elen need a ladder and some glasses to see to 'Ackney Marshes' he could just nip up to the restaurant at the top and take butchers down below while settling down to his Jim Skinner.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 06:01 AM

Ah, Hoot, but the whole point is that he couldn't see to 'Ackney Marshes, even with a ladder and some glasses, becoz of the 'Ouses in Between.

Not even clear anyhow which peal "Bow Bells" referred to; Bow Church out eastward beyond Mile End, or St Mary-atte-Bow in the City? The question is moot.

In fact, Gus Elen was an actor, whose natural speech, when being interviewed late in life for radio &c, was not cockney at all, but a sort of middle-class RP.

My maternal grandparents, tho born in Lithuania, spent most of life in Hoxton, which is real cockney-land, and had cockney accents. But he prospered as a grocer and they sent their children to schools {Mary Datchelor's or Central Foundation for the 6 girls, I think} which more or less ironed their accents out to standard. Only my Uncle Dave retained much cockney:~ he was good with a cockney song ~ would sing Harry Champion's A Little Bit Of Cucumber at family parties, I recall.

A drift, but perhaps of interest: Grandpa's name was Schneiderman. I have a photo somewhere of his shop wrecked and looted by a mob in 1914 at beginning of Great War, because he had a German name: which, as he was a Lithuanian Jew, was rough luck!...

~M~

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 06:05 AM

Listen to Billy Cotton singing "I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts" (Youtube). He uses what I hear as a Cockney accent with a thin veneer of 'posh'. Servants often tried to 'poshen up' their accent, which came out in the same way. It's a bit like Mrs Slocum in Are You Being Served, (although she had a northern accent) trying to sound 'posh'. The 'old' Cockney accent had a very hard, trilled 'r'. You can hear this in the Toothbrush Song, sung by Max Bygraves (Youtube again) I remember people talking like this as a girl when I lived in West London (not Cockney, but similar) I feel it had a lot to do with 'Class' and a need in those days to better yourself and not betray your humble origins. Tommy Steele IMO has a very pure Cockney accent, as in "What A Mouth..."

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Mayet
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 07:11 AM

This week BBC screened The Story of Music Hall with Michael Grade which threw some interesting light on some of the best, and lesser, known comic song performers and their material which were the mainstay and often 'superstars' of the period

One of the earliest performers Sam Cowell (1820-64) had begun his career as an actor and had also performed in opera Although raised in America, in 'Villikins and his Dinah' and "The Ratcatcher's Daughter" which he performed regularly, his affectation of 'Dickensian' language and pronunciation was to help create the narrator as a character in his own right, and this characterisation of the performer was to become a feature of the comic singer on the Music Hall stage

Some common characters were -

Lions Comiques - essentially, men dressed as a 'toff', who sang songs about going to the races, going to the ball, womanising and gambling, and living the life of an Aristocrat as exemplified by 'Champagne Charlie' writtern and performed by George Leybourne, (a former mechanic who remained illiterate and spoke with a strong Black Country accent )

The Masher - a young elegant gentleman, a role soon appropriated by early female male impersonators like Nellie Power and later Vesta Tilley

The Costermonger - Brought to perfection by Gus Elen who performed songs and sketches about being a Cockney dressed in the coster uniform of striped jersey with a peaked cap turned towards one ear and a short clay pipe in the side of his mouth and his rival Albert Chevalier who performed more sentimental songs such as My Old Dutch which used cockney rhyming slang although he himself was born in the Royal Crescent, in London's Notting Hill the son of a French master at Kensington Grammar School.

The stage Irishman or Scot - The "Irish" singer and performer Sam Collins 'Vagg' (born in Paddington in 1825 and a chimney sweep by trade) had probably never visited Ireland but resplendent in his 'Irish costume' he would sing "The Limerick Races" or the "Rocky Road to Dublin". Later Harry Lauder provided comic songs of Scotland and Ireland substituting his Kilt, Sporran, Tam o'shanter and twisted walking stick for Vagg's greencoat, breeches, caubeen, and shillelagh although with no apparent change of accent.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 09:22 AM

Re: accents

100 years later the south-east London and north-east London accents are different (I'm excluding the accents of those with recent Asian/African/Caribbean/European ancestry)even with the levelling affect of TV, radio and greater mobility. The accent in the north seems to open the mouth a bit more with more rounded, fruitier vowels. When I lived in Rainham, Essex people spoke of the accent of nearby Hornchurch as the 'Hornchurch Whine'.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Will Fly
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 09:28 AM

Hi Hoot - comments taken. I suppose my point was that Elen purposely cultivated the Cockney costermonger character - a very popular guise on the halls - in the wake of people like Vance, and that the accent was just part of that. I should have added that, as well as being born in Pimlico, he was not from a working-class background, so the whole Cockney persona - accent, clothing, character - was the act. He spent hours in preparation, getting every word and gesture to the exacting standard he set himself.

As to the word "Cockney" - well, I used it in the well-understood sense of the term. :-)

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 11:36 AM

MtheGM:

Thanks for attempting to enlighten me but that was exactly my point. From the top of that pile of "Any Old Iron" that has just been erected means that by just looking downward at a slight angle Gus Elen if he were still here could see Hackney Marshes WITHOUT the need of a ladder and some glasses. He might still have trouble seeing acrawst to Wimbley though.

May I also correct you re the churches; St Mary le Bow is the one in Cheapside. St Mary atte Bow is the Church standing in the middle of the road in Bow at the far eastern fringe of London as it once was. A few yards eastward is the River Lea, the old boundary between London and Essex, and on the other side of the river is the olympic park.

Having been born in Old Ford, Bow,the third genration to be so, and spent the first twenty six years of my life there I am familiar with the accent. Certain pronunciations used by my grandmother and her siblings were often a source of amusement to us as were some used by my father and his generation.

North East and South East London accents may differ slightly depending on how far out you go in each direction but when I was growing up those of Bow and Bermondsey appeared to me to be identical.
It appears to me that most of the south of England currently seems to have adopted the estuarine version of the general London accent probably influenced by tv soaps.

Yes Will I did understand what you were saying, I wasn't trying to score points.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 12:00 PM

Hoot ~ Of course, re the churches; should have checked. But which is the cockney-qualification one of those? Bow Road or Cheapside?

No; he would still have needed the glasses, surely, for a clear view of Hackney Marshes: my mother a native of Hoxton, remember. And as for Chingford in the eastward or 'Endon to the westward {which was where I grew up & went to school: Hendon County School, & lived off Golders Green Road, which was then in the Borough of Hendon: tho born in Hampstead; 38 Compayne Gardens}; and Leather Lane, between Clerkenwell Rd & Holborn, 1 mile away: it is a bit hard to work out exactly where his little backyard was. About Palmers Green, Tottenham, Southgate way: but that doesn't really feel Cockney enough to me. Still it certainly gives Chingford & Hendon to E & W respectively; and Wembley is WNW-ish too...

~M~

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Bert
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 12:10 PM

The Bow Bells are St Mary le Bow on Cheapside.

Wickepedia has something here

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 12:38 PM

A mile from Leather Lane could put you on Mount Pleasant or perhaps Pentonville Hill which would give good views across London in Victorian times.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 12:43 PM

MtheGM,

Not sure what Hoxton has to do with Hackney Marshes.
Re your grandfather's shop I commiserate with you. My parents and grandparents often mentioned the shops in Roman Road owned by people of German descent being wrecked at the outbreak of war.

The news item to which I referred stated that the steel erection of which I made mention in the olympic park is higher than the London Eye and commands a wonderful view. Hackney Marshes virtually borders the olympic park on the north side so I don't think he would need glasses. What the wonderful view is I have yet to find out.

Regarding which Bow qualifies you for being cockney, I pass.

Wikipaedia ? I don't use it. I prefer a more reliable source.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Bert
Date: 29 Oct 11 - 01:10 PM

Wikipedia is often a good place to start.

If you want to go straight to the horses mouth you can try This

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Youaretheone
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 08:59 AM

All the boundaries for East London and Essex have changed. The last major boundaries changed in 1965 when London grew to be known as what is today called Greater London. Which includes all of the city of London and everything around it but also has eaten into London's bordering counties. Whether you like to accept it or not these places are now also part of London as they have been swallowed up into the Greater London sprawl. Making places like Barking, Ilford, Chadwell Heath, Dagenham Elm Park, Romford, Hornchurch etc part of East London as they form into the eastern part of Greater London. These places are also full of Cockneys as they have moved here from places like Bow and Whitechapel due to immigration.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 09:15 AM

Indeed ~ we must tho bear in mind the difference between East London, & the 'East End' proper, a term which is in danger of being used for such places as Guest Youaretheone names. The East End extends , indeed, about as far as Bow Church, Limehouse/Wapping ... Beyond that ~~ Stratford & on, should not be so called; any more than Ealing or Hammersmith are in the West End, tho demonstrably in West London.

~M~

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 01:40 PM

To Guest Youarethe one ???.

A pretty sweeping statement there regarding cockneys moving from Bow and Whitechapel because of immigration.
Firstly I am pretty certain that the so called "definition" of cockney whoever came up with it really referred to the Bells of St Mary le Bow in Cheapside. In which case we residents of Bow and Whitechapel who speak with what is commonly referred to as a cockney accent aren't really cockneys.
Undoubtedly there are many from the original east end - usually defined as stretching from Aldgate Pump in the west to the River Lea in the east - that moved into Greater London's eastern suburbs. Mostly however this was because of slum clearance and to live in less crowded areas and better accomodation than they had been ued to. Very few bathrooms and inside toilets in the old east end. Plus of course Adolf Schnickelgruber had a lot to do with it (WW2). The east end itself has always been a home to the latest immigrants; Huguenots, Irish, Chinese, Jewish, Bengali etc. It was cheap and close to the docks and offered lots of jobs for unskilled workers. Eventually after a generation or two their lot improved many moved out toward the suburbs.

MtheGM gets it about right re the east end proper. The River Thames would be the southern boundary, Limehouse, Shadwell, Wapping and Poplar and probaby Hackney would just about be included on the north.

Wherever Gus Elen got his accent from for his recordings I always enjoy hearing it, reminds me of members of my family that are long gone.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 01:53 PM

Hoot,
My Tardis is having its MOT at the moment, otherwise I'd lend you it.

Failing that, original sheet music and street literature from the period provide some useful clues.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 07:13 PM

Thanks for the offer but I don't need to travel back (or forward) in time if that's what you mean ??. I have a long memory and already own plenty of literature and sheet music from the period despite having sold off much of it some years back.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Youaretheone
Date: 13 Nov 11 - 09:02 PM

To, GUEST Hootananny,

The Cockney accent, spoken by white working class people from east London has moved away from places like Whitechapel and been replaced by many different accents and languages. Places in the outer east London boroughs now carry this way of speech and many people aged 50+ are "Bow Bell Cockneys". The questions now asked - Must you be white working class with an accent to be cockney? Or is it carried through your family as the people of places like Whitechapel are no longer of that category? This I am unsure of as there are many places on the internet stating that Cockneys are a dying breed but also places saying that if you are born in places like Romford/Dagenham it makes you a Cockney. Is it all down to where we are born? Anyone?

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Anything
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 02:36 PM

Cockney is not just where you are born, it is a way of life. You are right in what you say though,'you are the one' I live in Elm Park and it is much more Cockney here than Whitechapel. Elm Park is also very patriotic.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 04:12 PM

It's English gone very wrong - the object of speaking is to make oneself understood - not done very well in Surrey Street Market, Croydon - "panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww, panna bowwww,"

Appalling.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 04:28 PM

For your consideration: Stanley Holloway as Albert Doolittle, and the narrator of Marriott Edgar's poetry. Norf and Sahf.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Bert
Date: 18 Nov 11 - 05:12 PM

Nah Bonzo3legs, cors'taint.

It's BBC English wot's got it wrong by tryin' ter poshify wot us real folks talk. Try an' sing some traditional stuff in that posh BBC twaddle and yer'l git wot I mean.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:29 AM

I pass by Whitechapel Waste quite often and the (mostly Asian) stallholders there (and in my local Queens Market at Upton Park)usually don't call out their wares apart from an occasional whining noise that I can't quite catch but some of the younger ones are catching on and using a cockney accent much as Bonzo is complaining about above. I don't know if it's put on especially for the occasion but I would like to think it's rubbed off on them from the longer established costers. I get a thrill when someone whose accent I would expect to be foreign turns out to have a broader cockney accent than mine.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 09:10 AM

"Cockney is a way of life" ? Can you explain what the cockney way of life is?
Perhaps you could also explain how patriotism is connected to one's accent.


Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 10:12 AM

Native Londoner myself, tho probably wouldn't be accepted as precisely a cockney ~~ tho I think my mother would have been, perhaps, tho she had little such accent in adulthood. But, try as I might I cannot decipher/translate "panna-bowwww". Could Bonzo or somebody oblige, please? I remember "ragga bowwww" = rag & bone, but that doesn't seem quite the explanation here.

~M~

I am sure the answer is something terribly obvious & I shall feel very silly...

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 11:23 AM

Pound a bowl (of fruit)

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Nov 11 - 03:33 PM

We are currently watching the 1944 film "The Happy Breed" - very strange london accents I'm sure!!!!!

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Anything
Date: 21 Nov 11 - 09:56 AM

In answer to "Hootenanny"

Way of life-

A community where most people know other people by name, it is difficult to explain so i'll leave it at that

Patriotic-

Listen to the "Harry Champion" "Born in Bethnal Green" lines.

Elm Park is definitly more "Cockney" than "Whitechapel" and I'm sure most people would agree with that.

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,mRNA
Date: 21 Nov 11 - 02:14 PM

Elm Park is full of White people who are racist also

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 06:50 AM

Anything;
That is a reply?? That is how you describe the Cockney way of life?

Unfortunately I don't have access to the Harry Champion recording to which you refer but I fail to see how that could explain the patriotism of the good folk of Elm Park or those others that are referred to in mRNA's posting above.

I get the feeling that you consider yourself to be a patriotic cockney but I could of course be totally wrong

Hoot

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 07:06 AM

Manitas ~ Many thanks for translation.

~M~

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: Musket
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 07:30 AM

Having heard many recordings of old time music hall acts, I wonder if their delivery in terms of pronunciation etc could also be due to trying to be loud enough to be heard?

With microphones, many people speak and perhaps even sing differently to when they had to belt it out. I know that when I have played even folk clubs in very large rooms, my talking is slightly different to if I was either in a smaller venue or mic'd up in a theatre. I also find myself singing slightly differently if I have to be louder.

The commonality of music hall accents could be in order to be heard and understood. A music hall with 500 noisy punters makes you think about being understood and your regional accent may well be a casualty....

Subject: RE: Music hall singers funny accent
From: GUEST,M. Cason
Date: 22 Nov 11 - 07:49 AM

To "Hootenanny" I'm not from Elm Park but they are both right from what I've heard and seen on visits. It is very much a Cockney place.

And to "Ian Mather" Music hall act recordings were of very low quality and if you listen carefully to recordings it almost seems as though they have turned the vocals of the singer up to maximum because you can hear a crackling sound in the background on some of them. Still, some of them have been remade by other people with better recording equipment if you want to know some of the words.

M. Cason