Subject: RE: Bill Leader/Dave Bulmer
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Aug 13 - 04:30 AM
"traditional music and PRS, MCPS & Imro be sorted out,"
I was fascinated when I read this, my thanks for the information Guest; I sincerely hope that you get an opportunity to share your knowledge - I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall on such an occasion.
Organisations like these have milked folk-music virtually dry and are one of the reasons that Folk Music is as impoverished as it is in Britain
I was going to add Ireland, but they have to some extent leaped the wall over here, thanks to the efforts of dedicated individuals and a now co-operative Arts Council, Irish Traditional music has now gained a small but growing place in the sun, though there is some way to go yet, especially as regards song.
I can't say I have gained much from this discussion so far other than a feeling of utter despair at the total lack of interest in, even hostility towards discussing what I regard as the looting of a national treasure - Britain's 'Elgin Marbles'.
Next to the pioneering work carried out by Sharp and his colleagues, the 1950s project stands as the second most important event in British folk history, yet it has, throughout the time I have been involved in folk song, been a subject shrouded in secrecy and discussed only in whispers behind closed doors.
For nearly sixty years our access to the results of this project has been largely limited to a catalogue of shoddily produced cassettes of poor quality reproductions, sometimes disgracefully tampered with, a smattering of poorly annotated and somewhat restricted albums and a set of ten what could have been excellent heavily edited vinyl CDs much in need of remastering, filling in of the gaps and re-issuing.
I understand that one of the reasons this work was never carried out was the prohibitive royalties involved.
This doesn't even approach the rest of the material, the unissued recordings, the folklore, etc. - I have no idea whether there were any interviews carried out with the singers and and musicians.
If there were, and if they survived, this could fill in a huge gap in our knowledge of our music and song.
Even now the project appears to be surrounded by a circle of ignorance (sometimes self-imposed) - I wonder how many people have examined the vital in-house BBC annotated index of the material compiled by Marie Slocum. I am aware that there is a reference copy in The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, but it is a work that should be on the shelf of anybody with an interest in British and Irish traditional song and Music, alongside Child, Sharp and Bronson.
The actual blow-by-blow work on the project itself is another mystery that needs to be dragged in from the shadows; the informants, the work of the other (largely ignored) collectors (Seamus Ennis, Bob Copper, Sean O'Boyle, et al), how the work was carried out..... an important piece of potential folk-literature in itself.
It seems to me that this (oh dear, not another) thread on the misdeeds of Dave Bulmer was a perfect opportunity widen the subject of the misuse of an important branch of our national heritage - it appears not (deaf ears maybe).
Jim Carroll
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