AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 08:20 PM

I started Harker's book a while ago but put it down after the Child chapter and haven't yet picked it up again. I didn't know much about Francis J. before I read the chapter, and I still don't, except that he thought he could tell what was and wasn't a 'ballad' despite not having a precise definition. (Harker derides him for this, although to me it seems like a perfectly good approach; these days we'd call it grounded theorising).

It may pick up as it gets into the twentieth century, but my impression of the early part of Harker's book is that it's both tendentiously partisan and, more importantly, inconsistent. A critique of the collectors as mealy-mouthed gentrifiers, for instance, might be valid (or at least arguable), but what Harker does is attack collectors for bowdlerising - unless they didn't, in which case he'll attack them for profiteering - unless they didn't, in which case he'll attack them for being bourgeois nationalists - unless they weren't, in which case he'll make some strung-together well-er-basically point about how what they were doing was the kind of thing that bourgeois nationalists and/or bowdlerising profiteers got up to, so if you look at it that way they were just the same really. His main - anti-trad - agenda is obtrusive and overstretched; he has the air of demonstrating that collections of traditional songs contain no such thing, when all he's really shown is that some songs in some collections aren't traditional (the joke about the black sheep in Scotland comes to mind). And I'm sure I remember him attacking a later anthologist for deviating from Buchan's texts, when he'd previously described Buchan as a prolific interpolator and borderline fraud. Any stick to beat 'em with, basically.

I say all this (for what it's worth) as a Marxist; I think it's a real shame that the great finder of holes in Fakesong, the late Chris Bearman, saw what he was doing in terms of his own political agenda (at least, in terms of opposing Harker's). Personally I've got nothing against Trotskyists; I just don't like people running down the great folksong collectors without good reason.

As for Bert Lloyd, I think the reason we still scratch the 'Bertsongs' itch is that he could have done English folk song a great deal of damage. If the approach which (I believe) he took had been more widely adopted - if it had become normal for singers to thoroughly rework songs in the way that he seems to have reworked Skewball, The Mountains High, The Yahie Miners, Jenny's Complaint and others, and to pass off their own rewrites as contributions to the tradition - at best it would have caused a lot of confusion; at worst it would have undermined the whole idea of a traditional song. The reason that didn't happen, ironically, is the same reason people still sing those songs in their post-Bert forms - unlike most folk singers, Bert Lloyd was a damn good writer, and when he rewrote a song it stayed rewritten.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 06:14 PM

Hi Jim
'David Buchan once put forward a theory (contested by some)'
Shot down in flames would be a more accurate description. Subsequent academic papers have ridiculed this theory. He tried to relate what Albert Lord and others had discovered in the Balkans to Anna Brown's repertoire. Now all of the Anna Brown (nee Gordon) manuscripts and published texts have been published together by Sigrid Rieuwerts in one book, even non-academics like me can see it is patently obvious that Buchan was wrong.

Of course singers vary what they sing with each performance. We all do, but this is nothing like what Lord experienced in the Balkans.

Both Buchan and Lord were referring to texts anyway and tune variation is a whole different ball-game.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:22 PM

Sorry that was a bit confused. I meant tune variations to different verses at different times. Berts theory was about English songs only.
Still a bit confused but you get my drift.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:13 PM

when you say never the same way twice do you mean tune variations or different verses? While we're on that subject, Bert believed in variation as the sort of death throws of British song tradition. Vic Gammon argues otherwise. Sorry can't remember my sources for that info.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 03:13 PM

"However, Lloyd here acknowledges that he's sometimes altered tunes and texts "deliberately"
Ballad scholar, David Buchan once put forward a theory (contested by some) that, as far as the ballads were concerned, there were no fixed texts, just a basic plot and commonplaces (lily-white hand, milk white steed, etc.) - he suggested that, rather than memorise a set text, the singer would use these to perform the ballad.
It's a fascinating idea - if it's true; personally I've never been sure, and Buchan failed to produce enough evidence to convince (see; 'The Ballad and the Folk' (R&KP 1972).
I do know that with some of the big narrative singers, such as blind Mary Delaney ('From Puck to Appleby'- Musical Traditions), she often sang the same song differently.
One of the most spectacular examples of tune alteration I ever heard was from wonderful Seán Nós singer, Tom Costello (Tom Pháidín Tom) singing 'The Grand Conversation on Napoleon' which can be heard on Volume 8 of Voice of the People, ('A Story I'm About to Tell').
According to Terry Yarnell, who recorded Tom, he always used the shape of the tune as a base, but he never sang it the same way twice.
The tunes to the songs with some older singers were movable (and sometimes immovable feasts) - we recorded a couple of elderly brothers her in Clare with about fifteen songs between them, about six of them were to the same tune.
Tunes were considered by singers as vehicles to carry the story, of secondary importance.
Bert's 'crime' was not that he altered the texts or tunes, but that, on occasion he made academic assumptions based on his own alterations.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 03:04 PM

Jim,

I agree with you about Harker re: having an axe to grind. I don't think he is dishonest though, because he is quite explicit in the book about having that axe to grind, what his biases are, etc. That's what scholars do; he leaves himself open as part of an on-going discourse. When we read the book, it is framed so we know that we are getting an interpretation that is working according to certain familiar principles of academic work.

As such, I don't think (?) Harker's work has (as a sort of dramatically characterized Lloyd's) engendered a widespread/pervasive way of envisioning traditional song or English folklorists or whatever.

Sorry to go off topic; my intention is not to revive debates on Harker, rather only to distinguish how framing of one's interpretation/opinion varies.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 12:56 PM

There lies the crux of the problem, never treat anyone as if they are a god or with unnecesary reverence, judge everyone on their musical merits, rather than what they have been promoted.
Lloyd through topic records produced and promoted himself and others and at the same time lot of traditional music. one person I would not have gone to for advice about singing style, would be Lloyd.
I do not agree with his idea about singing with a smile on the face, it does not appear to have been done by any traditional singers that i have come across, here is harry cox tradtional singer singing in an unfected stylehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsxG06FMA-Y

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 12:26 PM

I suppose when I met him I thought he had the secret of the universe. Then I was only 18. He gave me some encouragement with my singing. Never doubted a word he said. {Until now}

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 12:02 PM

Lloyd tipped his hand in the notes to "The Best of A. L. Lloyd" (1965)(posted by Reinhard in a current thread):

"I very much doubt if I sing any of the songs exactly as I originally learnt them. Some I've altered deliberately because I felt some phrases of the tune, some passages of the text, to be not entirely adequate. Others - and this has happened far more often - have become altered involuntarily, sometimes almost out of recognition in the course of buzzing round in my head over the course of thirty years or so...."

It's hard to believe that anyone could alter a song "almost out of recognition" quite "involuntarily," and the disclaimer that it happened only to songs learned thirty or more years ago is unpersuasive.

However, Lloyd here acknowledges that he's sometimes altered tunes and texts "deliberately," and occasionally to the point where they were almost unrecognizable.

Apparently we should have read the sleeve notes more analytically.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 10:58 AM

Yes Sorry.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 10:50 AM

'Ware Nick - we've all been down one of the Cap'n's rabbit holes at one time or another - suggest you leave it there if you want to keep this fascinating discussion going
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 10:03 AM

Wow I hit a nerve there! You can hand it out but you can't take it can you. The brains comment was only semi serious. No Dick of course I don't think you've got brains to spare. Perish the thought.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 09:05 AM

Your original post was negative, that is indisputable.
as for remarks about brains,I had the brains to choose an instrument "the concertina" of which there were not many exponents, I then developed my own style of song accompaniment, I could not possibly be confused with the two other main uk exponents of song on English Concertina, Killen or Turner, or with anyone else.
I realised there were hundreds of good male singer guitarists, and that it would not be of any use imitating Martin Carthy or Nic Jones, that does not require much brains, so I make no claim have all the brains. I also do not make snide remarks about other peoples abilities behind their backs, Nick, everything Is ay is to someones face, think hard about that, one Mr Dow

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 08:53 AM

I agree Jim, the fact that many of us were sent in search of an indigineous repertoire was a good thing.
but now we have a large indigineous repertoire, I personally have gone back to introducing some of seegers songs such as joe hill, and woody guthries songs into my repertoire.
I remember having a conversation with Ewan, and he said to me " I could never do what you do go out on the road on my own , i would find it too lonely, he then said that in the early days he and Bert had done a few things together", and of course that particular night he was giGging with PEGGY, I was there doing a support for them , and the show they put on was excellent.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 08:20 AM

Dick
My original post was a request for info, about what I thought I had found. Nothing more nothing less. I admitted everybody got there before me, but then how do you expect me or anybody else to have any brains when you've got them all.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 07:20 AM

"Unless you look at the big picture. As in Harker's book - or my reading of it, at least."
Go along with you to a degree - unfortunately I find Harker equally dishonest and axe-grinding, if not more-so
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 07:00 AM

> a pseudo-scholar

That's the problem in a nutshell.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 06:44 AM

"I am asking for a more positive approach about Lloyd"

MORE positive? This thread is like a damn meeting of the Bert Lloyd Apologists Society.

Lloyd's work pisses me off because he was a pseudo-scholar. He should have just stuck to singing and left the academics out of it, as you say, Dick.

The real problem…uh oh, being negative and critique-y here…lies not with the individual songs whose provenances and histories and texts and melodies he invented. Because real scholars can throw those out the window while, in a completely different mode, enjoying his recorded output for its many recommendable qualities. It's that these inventions as a whole served to create and/or validate more fundamental notions about "folk music." Those fundamental notions, having been validated, remain. Means to an end, indeed. And now you may quibble about specific things Lloyd did to a specific song, and it will appear to come down to opinion on whether or not that can be justified…which will lead nowhere.

Unless you look at the big picture. As in Harker's book - or my reading of it, at least. Which is not that the gentlemen and lady folklorists of the Folk Song Society school, etc were a bunch of jerks and liars who did nothing positive. It's that their activity, driven by a particular set of biases and interests, engendered the notion of a very particular world of "folk music", of a particular nature. Lloyd continued down that path, I think. And these notions have made it difficult to study and understand music of the past now.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 06:06 AM

'rehash'

To some extent, yes, but Nick's identification of the Elizabeth Mogg tune (which, after all, was the reason he initiated the thread) is an interesting new development.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:59 AM

"but what can't be denied is that their contribution by far outweighs any flaw in their work."
And their work needs to be taken in perspective.
I heard Alan Lomax speak at the symposium held to celebrate MacColl's 70th and it made me realise how far people like Ewan and Bert had moved on from those early days.
Lomax described how both of them, and just about everybody else, were singing American songs in a phony American accent (he referred to it as 'Mid-Atlantic American), and he described some of the problems he had persuading some people that these islands have their own magnificent repertoire of folk songs still worth collecting.
MacColl and the Singers Club got a great deal of stick when it adopted a 'sing songs in your own accents' policy - as Peggy stated in her letter to The Living Tradition some time ago, it was a club policy for club residents, though I'm aware that Ewan proselytized wherever he went.
Over the last four decades I have become aware of the richness of the British and Irish traditions and how much we would have missed had not Lomax 'had his wicked way'.
It's very easy to be right all the time with hindsight.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:57 AM

'... as far as MacColl and Lloyd go their contribution was far more than their work, they both are owed a debt of gratituide for their promotion and involvement in the setting up of folk clubs'

.,,.

MacColl indeed, re specific point Dick makes here. But, simply as a matter of fact, I know of no involvement by Bert in setting up any clubs, and can recall no mention of any such in Dave Arthur's book.

I agree with subsequent point about rehash of points made in previous threads. Look at the list at the top of this thread. The fairly recent "Bertsongs?" is a case in point IIRC.

≈M≈

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 05:35 AM

Nick, there is no bad humour, I am asking for a more positive approach about Lloyd, if you do not like that,that is not my problem., your original post was negative.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 04:23 AM

Sorry Mudcatters. Ignore the last post and lets end in good humour. Thank you all for your support.
Nick

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 02 Aug 14 - 03:53 AM

"Lloyd, MacColl, Sharp, Baring Gould, Scott, Buchan, Motherwell, Jamieson, Percy, et al have all rightly come under scrutiny and criticism, but what can't be denied is that their contribution by far outweighs any flaw in their work."
an understatement, but a positive remark, which was one of my earlier points,about positivity and negativity, but as far as MacColl and Lloyd go their contribution was far more than their work, they both are owed a debt of gratituide for their promotion and involvement in the setting up of folk clubs, MacColl was a fine songwriter in my opinion one of the best from the UK folk revival, many of MacColls songs have entered the tradition.
I have read every post on this thread, and on previous threads about Bert Lloyd.There is nothing positive in this post.
"Subject: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow - PM
Date: 28 Jul 14 - 08:13 PM

OK if I am wrong I deserve a serious verbal kicking, I REALLY want to be wrong, because I met Bert and respected him. but the more research I do the more worried I am about some of Berts industrial songs,

I know he wrote the odd verse, to the and the Coal owner and the pitmans wife but I have found the following

With my pit boots on appears to be a word for word take from William Stokes of Chew Magna Somerset 'With my kettle Smock on' with pit boots substituted and a different tune

The tune for the weaver and the Factory maid seems to be taken from Elizabeth Mogg Doddington Somerset from her fragment The Irish Boy and attributed to William Oliver of Widnes who appears to have sung only one other song if he existed at all.

Underneath her apron appears to be a hybrid version. So it goes on...

I have no real axe to grind and no particular interest in industrial Folksong I just keep coming accross tunes and words that sort of appear to be in the wrong place, if that makes any sense. Warning bells keep going off and a nasty voice keeps whispering , We've been taken for a ride here!! Please tear me to shreds I want to be wrong, or am I going to have to agree with Dave Harker that AL LLoyd WAS the one that got away".
I will continue to defend Lloyd and put any negative criticisms into perspective by pointing out his positives,which in my opinion easily outweigh his negatives, the original poster asks for a verbal kicking, then accuses me of being offensive when he gets it, this thread has not thrown any new light on Lloyd but has just been a tedious rehash of previous threads about Lloyd.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 09:16 PM

Wow! I didn't know that there was still any energy left in Mudcat to discuss anything of importance. I was wrong. And on balance this may turn out to be one of our classic threads.

Thanks, Nick, for initiating it.

Charlie Ipcar

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 08:28 PM

So Bert has the last word. Might take his advice.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Stuart Reed
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 06:34 PM

Bert made a telling (?) remark to me years ago while giving him a lift back to the station after a gig he did in Brighton.

I was babbling on about how his book had come to my rescue while I was scrabbling to complete my much under-researched thesis on the transition from rural to industrial songs. The conclusions I had drawn were tendentious, not to say largely spurious but he just laughed and said that pulling the wool over people's eyes was OK if it had the desired effect.

And apropos the academic vs. singer elements in this thread, as he got out of the car he said, "From what I've heard tonight, you're a better singer than you are a scholar, so stick to what you do best."

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 06:01 PM

Steve, you overlooked the Lomaxes.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:18 PM

Agreed

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 05:01 PM

Lloyd, MacColl, Sharp, Baring Gould, Scott, Buchan, Motherwell, Jamieson, Percy, et al have all rightly come under scrutiny and criticism, but what can't be denied is that their contribution by far outweighs any flaw in their work.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:56 PM

You will be relieved to hear that it's finally beginning to sink in. Thanks Jim. Only last week the wife of my best friend (a Romany Gypsy) said to me that I could do what I wanted with her families songs.
So I said make a million quid then, she said except that! You are right it probably does not make too much difference to the informant.
when I recorded Bill House he was highly amused that I was in raptures over his version of 'One night as I lay on my bed' his favourite was 'Timothy Briggs the Barber'
As for Bert, well he's still a hero of mine, but a flawed one. I'll just have to get over it.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:54 PM

Re: "The end justifies the means."

What people generally mean when they say, "The end justifies the means" is that "A favorable outcome justifies *any* means," with the emphasis on "any."

Which is quite a but different, when you think about it.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:34 PM

"all part of the creative process."
Agree Steve, but not part of the tradition (whoops!!!)
"the responsibilities of the collector to his informant"
In our experience, it doesn't really matter to them one way or another.
Every single one of them we questioned said (in so many words) that they considered themselves 'storytellers' whose stories came with tunes.
A lot of singers we recorded learned their songs from 'ballad sheets' bought at the horse or cattle fairs with no tunes indicated, so they put their own to them.
They had two distinct attitudes to the printed word - either to treat it as writ in stone or to use it as an aide-memoir and chop and change it as they saw fit.
Oddly, it was the non-literate Travellers who stressed the need for accuracy.
The common complaint of the ones we met was that "the young ones coming up don't seem to make sense of the stories - they don't mean nothing any more".
I think that, when putting the songs into print, either faithfulness to what you have been given is essential or, if you make changes because of memory lapses, you need to indicate that you have done so and explain.   
End justifying means is certainly not a major feature of Stalinism any more than many other political (or cultural) philosophies.
MacColl's 'Stalinism' was misleading in the sense that, when he was growing up the Soviet Union was believed to be to only workers state - some of my family shared his view - it was a generation thing.
He was, for a time, an admirer of Mao, but I once saw him go spare when the Chinese Government issued an edict on "the bourgeois nature of Stanivlaski's 'Method'".
MacColl's attitude to his work was a class rather than a political one, though he was happy to use it for political and social causes such as C.N.D., the Anti-Vietnam movement and Anti-Apartheid.
I honestly believe that Bert's approach was more or less the same, though he wan nowhere near as active.
John - would agree with most you say as long as creating songs in the folk idiom, especially on historical subjects, doesn't end up with writing pastiche - which is a tendency.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: johncharles
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:24 PM

Yes Meredith is rather harsh, but as has been seen here before in other threads, for some collectors integrity of the collecting process is non-negotiable and passions can be roused.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:17 PM

Hi John,
Which is why I said earlier that once a scholar/antiquarian/folklorist/collector has been outed then all of their work must come under suspicion, and it can only then be verified and declared suitable for use by scholars as from tradition by extensive study of the alleged sources where they exist.

I think John Meredith's suggestions are totally unwarranted for reasons we have given above; largely Bert produced some damned good songs.

For instance not even Peter Buchan's most extreme apologists deny that he 'eked out' his ballads. The problem is he left no field notes and precious few sources so the only way we can detect the extent of his interference is to study each ballad and his versions collectively intensely. Actually he wrote some really good ballads, though some of his extensions are atrocious.

In fact Bert comes from a long tradition that arguably had more influence on folk song than the oral tradition itself.

MacColl I think is one useful exception to this in that whatever he did earlier in rewriting Child Ballads etc., he did a damned good scholarly job with the 'Travellers' Songs' book.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 03:15 PM

True, but I have heard from at least one well-informed Australian scholar the opinion that Meredith was unfairly harsh on Lloyd. I've just been looking at a version of 'Wild Rover' that Lloyd recorded, having collected in NSW in 1929. It certainly isn't one that he copied from Meredith or any other collector over there.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: johncharles
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:54 PM

Writing songs in the folk idiom is perfectly acceptable, and many such songs acquire the traditional label, even though only written decades ago. Reworking old songs for performance is also generally acceptable ( some of a more traditional persuasion may disagree.) What collectors find problematic is people who invent histories for songs which then become accepted as truthful accounts.
The late John Meredith was less than complementary regading Lloyd's song collecting in Australia.
'In my opinion, the best memorial A. L. Lloyd could have would be a bonfire of all the phony concoctions he has passed off as Australian folk songs over the last 25 years or so, the bulk of which has little in common with Australian material collected in the field.' He went on to say that most of Lloyd's texts had been acquired from the work of other folklorists, including Meredith himself, and that he had fitted to these songs 'whatever British tune Lloyd considered suitable--in other words, concoctions'
(A.L. Lloyd in Australia: some conclusions.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/A.L.+Lloyd+in+Australia%3A+some+conclusions.-a0154804211
(John Meredith, 'A Depreciation of A. L. Lloyd', Stringybark & Greenhide, 4.3 (1983), 14)

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:43 PM

Yes I get that, but where I am floundering is the responsibilities of the collector to his informant, and to his readers or listeners if it's recorded. Do what you want with the songs after the original is fixed, and thus keep winding the clock. For the record Berts translations and rewrites were masterful Bloody Gardener Twa Magicians etc. that's not dishonesty, its art, however some of his other actions seemed to me at the beginning of this thread, strangely out of character. I'm still a bit adrift, but reassured by the posts here. Just trying to make sense of it all, hence the 'Stalinist' question above.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:22 PM

'as a singer, it does't really matter'. Absolutely, Jim.

I don't remember anyone on this thread or any other similar thread suggesting otherwise.

I'll even go further than that: If Bert passed on his productions to other singers on the revival this also doesn't matter, all part of the creative process.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:08 PM

"inventing a singer then pretending he'd collected it "
If that's what he did, I have no doubt you are right as far as his claims and aspirations of 'scholarship' - as a singer, it does't really matter - traditional singers lifted tunes and substituted new directions for songs all the time to suit themselves all the time.- no problem as long as no academic were made of the new production.
As far as you later posting is concerned, I was offered a good piece of advice recently on this very subject - if you don't wind the clock it eventually stops
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:02 PM

This is only an opinion based on reading between the lines in Dave Arthur's excellent bio, but I don't think Bert did what he did with songs as much for political reasons as for a need to be accepted as a scholar, perhaps even The Scholar.

If you have the time, Nick, I strongly recommend Dave's book. It goes into great detail on Bert's political affiliations.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 02:00 PM

i don't know about the major questions but the bit about pit boots being taken from somewhere..i am sure there are dozens of people describing their boots or aprons or whatever in songs...and it is a line someone would come up with naturally anyway.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:51 PM

Thanks for that, lets get back to Bert. I understood that McColl was a Stalinist, however I did not believe that Bert was. The reason I mention that at all is that the Stalinist philosophy is that the end justifies the means. That might explain Berts' actions. No doubt you will put me right if I'm way off course.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:38 PM

Dick,
You are again making a fool of yourself. You are really the only unreasonably NEGATIVE person on this thread. If you are going to continue here, please take the trouble to read through the whole thread and take note that everyone who has posted has praised Bert for his creativity. All they are saying is that it is a shame about his dishonesty!

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:23 PM

Yes, Dick. Must follow this drift to say that, though he tends to use full-sweep chords, Nick's style is by no means as percussive as that of Martin or Nic; who also use open tunings, which Nick generally doesn't, but picks or sweeps the chords in standard tuning, with good positional full-keyboard control.

Don't get too like another regular poster, whom I shan't name, but who notoriously tends to let his temper carry him away, to post things he sometimes subsequently regrets.

All best regards, anyhow

≈M≈

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 01:10 PM

That was uncalled for Dick. Try reading some of the posts here especially the ones between Brian and myself. When you've done that come back and say something relevant to the discussion. It's not about me and how I play guitar, It's about Bert Lloyd.
It isn't clever to keep upsetting people by calling them stupid names your only hurting yourself.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: Brian Peters
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 12:45 PM

Last time I heard Nick perform, he wasn't playing in the style of either Jones or Carthy, in fact he was in standard tuning. It was lovely accompaniment, though, and he's in really fine voice these days!

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 12:37 PM

"inventing a singer then pretending he'd collected it staying faithful to anything?????"
can you prove this, or is this one of your assumptions.
you really would be better off doing what you are good at, playing the guitar in either the style of Nic Jones or Martin Carthy.

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 12:31 PM

"He may have 'messed about with songs', which didn't please all the academics but, to my ear anyway, he always stayed faithful to the reason they were first created
How is swiping a tune from Somerset called The Irish Boy, attaching it to a song from Kidson, missing out a bit he didn't like about the class status of the characters, inventing a singer then pretending he'd collected it staying faithful to anything?????

Subject: RE: AL Lloyd, is he the one that got away
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Aug 14 - 11:50 AM

"He may have 'messed about with songs', which didn't please all the academics but, to my ear anyway, he always stayed faithful to the reason they were first created.   
Jim Carroll"
Iagree Jim
Brian, Bob Roberts did write books for example BREEZE FOR A BARGEMAN, and i am sure that somewhere i read that he wrote the song" SWELL MY NETS FULL", and he probably wrote The Oily Rigs monologue, he did not claim to be a scholar [true] but he was clearly capable of writing good stories, which brought me to the conclusion that he wrote part of a most unusual and unique version of while gamekeepers lie sleeping., which appears not to have been collected by anyone, which is suspicious.
what is this seven verse version of bob coppers? does it bear any relationship to bob roberts[i doubt it] if its the same as tom willetts version, storywise willetts version may have seven verses but not much of a story, and no resemblance to Roberts' version