Let's Talk Bellamy

Subject: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Daphne Glover
Date: 22 Oct 99 - 02:06 PM

As some of you know, I am working with Ken Schatz, Heather Wood and several other folk artists in the NY area to put together a staged reading/theatrical performance piece based on Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies. Many of the songs and poems from these books were set to music by Peter Bellamy and recorded in the 1980s. I have found all but one of these recordings, and I am hoping you all may be able to help me to find it.

Mr. Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs seems to be the phantom recording of the century, I have checked into Dambuster Records- the label on which it was recorded- The Young Tradition, and with John Roberts and Tony Barrand. What am I not thinking of? Where might I find a copy of this recording?

If anyone has this recording, I would be more than happy to send cassettes and postage if you would be kind enough to make me a copy. Three of the songs on this recording will make a wonderful difference on how this whole peice comes together. So thank you in advance for your efforts on behalf of Ken and myself.

My contact information is:

Daphne Glover 85 Eastern Pkwy #4A Brooklyn, NY 11238

1.718.636.6341

[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Graham Pirt
Date: 22 Oct 99 - 02:15 PM

Try Jenny Bellamy. Also a new triple CD of Peter's work has just been released - "Awake the Vaulted Echoes" produced by Neil Wayne - I think on Free Reed label. If you e-mail me ([e-mail]) I'll let you have Jenny's E-mail address. But it wil be next week as I'm just going away for a couple of days. (But the dogs will still be guarding the house behind the electric fence!)

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Barry Finn
Date: 22 Oct 99 - 07:20 PM

Hi Daphne. I'm hoping that Jeri might see this, she usually sees Jeff Warner at the Fri night sessions up this way & Jeff has been assoc. with the Bellamy's for some time. This aside I'd like to say it's nice to see you & if you don't mind welcome you to the rest of the family. Some of you NYC people may Daphne & some others may have seen her or heard her at the getaway. She was kind enought to assist us (myself, David, & Bonny along with Ken) at the shanty workshop & was instrumental in us all pulling off "Come Down You Roses". I first met Daphne a few years ago at Mystic she was with her younger sister & mother (as the group the Windlasses, you may want to check out their CD) & they were there to join in the fun. The next year they were preforming there. We had some threads awhile back aout todays youth & folk music, well Daphne (sorry, I won't say how young) has been singing with her family & since moving to NYC has been tied up with those she mentioned above along with being taken under the wing by the Johnson Girls, the NexTradition, the New York Packet, the shantymen at Mystic & the few times we (Finn & Haddie) get the chance/pleasure to sing with her. You all be nice to her now & give her a hand, you'll be hearing a lot of great stuff from her. My pleasure. Barry

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Art Thieme
Date: 22 Oct 99 - 07:30 PM

I'll e-mail Bob Blackman in E.Lansing, Michigan about this one. Being connected to Elderly Instruments plus having a long standing folk radio program gives him pretty amazing access to a large folk record collection. As you probably know, Bob was a good friend of Peter's.

We'll see...

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Jeri
Date: 22 Oct 99 - 10:41 PM

Barry and Daphne, I just came from the session and Jeff wasn't there tonight. I'll e-mail him or try asking next week if he's there - unless there's an answer before then.

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Ralf Weihrauch
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 11:29 AM

I was Peter Bellamys Agent in Germany. I still have asome promo Tapes of the above mentioned album and I could send you a copy. Good luck with your project. Ralf Weihrauch

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Jeri
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 03:15 PM

Michael Shaffran sells used records, and has two copies of this available at http://www.recordorium.com/folk.html for $18. I bought an LP from him once, and everything happened the way it was supposed to. The main page for the Recordium is http://www.recordorium.com/

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 07:59 PM

Just got this from Bob Blackman in Lansing...

It was on a British label called Dambuster, came out in '89 and is out of print. Actual title is Rudyard Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs. I don't even have a copy. It didn't get widely distributed over here.

There's a new 3--CD compilation of Peter's music on the FREE REED label. It's called Wake The Vaulted Echos: A Celebration Of Peter Bellamy. (Free Reed 14)Almost 60 tracks and over 3 hours of his music, plus a nicely put together booklet with photos, interviews, track notes, complete discography and more.Also a CD-Rom section onj the last disc with links to PB websites, some of Peter's artwork etc. Elderly Instruments carries it at www.elderly.com

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Daphne
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 10:19 AM

Thanks everybody! I got back from a weekend away doing music with Pinewoods and there were all the answers waiting for me on this thread! So that you guys know, the record of Rudyard Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs was released on Dambuster in 1989 and is now out of print. It was available on the website that Jeri mentioned and I have ordered copies from them. I have also had outstanding help from Andy Nagy, Charlie Baum and Ed Haber. Thanks guys! Thanks to Jeri much for your help. Ralf, I wonder if you would please drop me line personally over email. I would very much like to speak with you about the project. Thanks Barry. And so my last question to you guys is - and it's difficult to be discreet and legal about the whole process, but we're all using Bellamy's work toward the ends that he intended, and will be in communication with Jenny shortly- would anyone like a copy of one or some of the songs on that LP? It is, as you know, very difficult to find. And it is a beautiful piece of work. Please email me and let me know, but do not post a thread asking as I don't know know when I'll be able to respond again. Thanks again.

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: GUEST,Black Jake
Date: 01 Mar 22 - 02:01 PM

I'd like to add some comment on 'The F-Word Song' as it is generally known, or 'A Chat With Your Mother' to give the correct title.
Lou and Peter Berryman claim authorship, but Bellamy has added one or two hilarious verses.

Firstly, though, the line which goes:

'There are lumberjacks from Kodiak vacationing in Anchorage, enchanted in their coal-tar soup and Caribou shampoo.'

What?! You can't have 'coal-tar soup'. It's utterly undrinkable and you certainly wouldn't be be 'enchanted in' it! Unless totally mad. However, if the line becomes '...enchanting WITH their coal-tar SOAP...' it makes sense! There is such a thing, and it has a distinctive smell which lumberjacks might well find 'enchanting.'

Cathy Fink sings: 'PINE-tar SOUP' which doesn't make sense either.

Here's the Bellamy version of the song that I've got:

'A Conversation With Your Mother: The F-Word Song.'
Chorus:

   We sit down to have a chat
   It's F-word this, and F-word that,
   I can't control how you young people talk to one another,
   But I don't to hear you use the F-word with your Mother.

The pirates in their fetid galleons, daggers in their skivvies,
With infected tattooed fingers clutch a blunderbuss or two.
Signs of scurvy in their eyes, only mermaids on their minds,
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word,
Not from you!

There are lumberjacks from Kodiak vacationing in Anchorage,
Enchanted with their coal-tar soup and Caribou shampoo.
With seven months of back-pay in their aromatic woolens,
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word,
Not from you!

There are militant Survivalists in Gucci bandolieros,
Taking tacky khaki walkie-talkies to their rendezvous,
Trading all the latest armour-piercing ammo information,
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word,
Not from you!

There's unsavory musicians, with their filthy pinko lyrics,
Who destroy the social fabric and enjoy it when they do!
With their groupies and addictions and their poor heart-broken parents!
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word,
Not from you!

There are yobs who think that God himself is brawling in the Grandstand,
In a cold November downpour with a nostril full of glue.
Whose entire grasp of Heaven has a lot to do with football.
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word,
Not from you!

Louts in lacerated leather with their multi-hued Mohicans,
Who in pain pick pierced nostrils in the UB40 queue,
Quite convinced the muse of music was conceived by Sidney Vicious.
It's from them I would expect to hear the F-word,
Not from you!

Yes, I know he sings '...coal-tar SOUP...'
Cheers,
Black Jake Two Fingers of Norwich.

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 01 Mar 22 - 04:55 PM

I use Coal Tar soap regularly, well at least once a year :)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wrights-Traditional-Coal-Soap-Pack/dp/B001RYUD7S/ref=sr_1_2?crid=35QWJVJCAP0N6&keywords=coal+tar+soap&q

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: DaveRo
Date: 02 Mar 22 - 03:47 AM

I have this on Wake the Vaulted Echoes, but minus the 'Louts in lacerated leather...' verse (and with '...unsavoury musicians...' as the last verse).

Where did you get this 6 verse version?

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Long Firm Freddie
Date: 02 Mar 22 - 04:38 AM

A Chat…

LFF

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: DaveRo
Date: 02 Mar 22 - 12:58 PM

That youtube is from Wake the Vaulted Echoes - 5 verses, as sung by Lou and Peter Berryman.

I was wondering whether there is another club recording of PB singing that "Louts in lacerated leather" verse. And indeed whether he wrote it.

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 02:05 AM

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: Art Thieme
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 07:59 PM

Just got this from Bob Blackman in Lansing...

It was on a British label called Dambuster, came out in '89 and is out of print. Actual title is Rudyard Kipling Made Exceedingly Good Songs. I don't even have a copy. It didn't get widely distributed over here.

There's a new 3--CD compilation of Peter's music on the FREE REED label. It's called Wake The Vaulted Echos: A Celebration Of Peter Bellamy. (Free Reed 14)Almost 60 tracks and over 3 hours of his music, plus a nicely put together booklet with photos, interviews, track notes, complete discography and more.Also a CD-Rom section onj the last disc with links to PB websites, some of Peter's artwork etc. Elderly Instruments carries it at www.elderly.com
Quote
Dambuster was owned by Richard Digance who sold some of his recordings to Celtic Music

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: GUEST,Black Jake
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 04:09 PM

Thank you so much, all of you, for replying to my thread.

John MacKenzie, your use of coal-tar soap qualifies you to sing 'The Lumberjack Song' and 'Damned Old Piney Mountain'. Congratulations!

DaveRo. Peter Bellamy was a long time friend. I knew him from his teenage years and followed his career very closely. He sang, with a lovely girl called Fiona, at my wedding, and I'll never forget the huge box of Folk LP's he gave us as a wedding present. Absolute treasures, all of them. To me he was one of the true geniuses of the Folk-scene. An artist of consummate skill and brilliance. Underrated only by those with tin ears and tinsel souls.   I have difficulty in thinking of anyone in the same league when it came to composition and 'presence' and the ability to 'live' a song. Only Keith Marsden, perhaps.

Yes, he unquestionably did write the 6th verse of what he called 'A Conversation With Your Mother', and I recorded him singing it around 1987 0r 88 at a club in Cottingham. East Yorkshire, or maybe it was in Hull.   

All the best.

Black Jake Two Fingers of Birtley, Tyneside, Norwich, Hull, Yorkshire and Marsden but now back in Norwich.

Subject: RE: Let's Talk Bellamy
From: DaveRo
Date: 04 Mar 22 - 04:44 PM

Black Jake - thanks. I envy you knowing him.

I did think he wrote that verse - 'Sidney Vicious' sounds just like him. The notes with Wake The Vaulted Echos said that it was from 1984 and the 'the only usable copy of the song we could find'. But also that he sung it a lot in clubs.