Rare Scottish Folk Music

Subject: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Walt Kailey
Date: 18 Sep 97 - 11:00 AM

I am looking for a rare recording from the sixties. It is a Scottish artist singing a song that goes

Ah mon ha'e a wife, Whatsoe'er she be, An' she be a woman, There's enugh for me!

Chorus: By brooms beezums wore well, By the new fine heather, Ringers(?) better never grew!

etc. Artists name is Mac-something. That's all I know. Anyone out there have any info. By the way, what are Ringers(?)? I know that a beezum is a broom made by tying together the brances of bushes (preferably heather) on the end of a stick. And, by the way, I live in Broomfield, Colorado, where a lovely purple wild flower blooms in the late summer. I don't know if it's actually heather, but I like to think of it as such.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Bert
Date: 18 Sep 97 - 12:00 PM

Of course the BEST brooms are made from the plant of the same name 'Scottish Broom'

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Bruce
Date: 18 Sep 97 - 12:15 PM

Somwhere I think I have Ewan MacColl singing this too. Song is any almost any collection of Robert Burns.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Ian Currie
Date: 18 Sep 97 - 12:46 PM

It's in the DT - look up "besoms".
Incidentally, the version I know has chorus:
Buy heather besoms, buy them when they're new
Buy heather besoms, better never grew

I've never seen a broom besom, although I've seen plenty of heather ones.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Bruce
Date: 18 Sep 97 - 09:30 PM

Ewan MacColl's recording of the song is "I maun hae a wife" on 'The Songs of Robert Burns', Folkways FW8758.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Frank in the swamps
Date: 19 Sep 97 - 06:28 AM

A couple of verses I recall,

If she likes a drappie'/Her and I'll agree/If she disna like it/All the mair for me.

If that she be bonny/That will suit me richt/If that she be hamely/What's the odds at nicht.

Good hunting. Frank.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: GUEST,Walt Kailey
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 10:09 PM

You guys are all awesome! Thank you so much. I started this thread many "lang" years ago, and come to find out it is still here with some truly fine contributions from all of you. God bless you all!

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Little Robyn
Date: 21 Jan 13 - 10:41 PM

There's a thread on this song here.
It's actually an English song from Northumberland and Johnny Handle does a lovely version of it.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 02:51 AM

"It's actually an English song from Northumberland" Is that known for sure? It seems to me that it is possibly one of those songs that was known on both sides of the border. Versions appear in manuscripts written by Burns, but not in his published works, so it seems to have been known in Scotland around the same period as it was supposed to have been sung by its claimed English originator.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Little Robyn
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 06:06 AM

There's an interesting version here.
The singer writes:
The song "Buy Broom Besoms" is claimed by both the Scots and the Geordies. In the late 18th century, Blind Willie Purvis, a Fiddler in Newcastle-on-Tyne, made up many of the verses, naming various local people. Hannah Black was a "Fruiterer" on the quays, thus the verse about her Oranges which was Blind Willie's favorite Fruit. I learned the song from a recording by "The High Level Ranters".

I wasn't around at the time but yes, songs from the Border region are often both Scottish and English.
Robyn

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 10:43 AM

There are 3-4 related songs that dip into the same stock of stanzas, from both sides of the border and at least 18thc if not earlier:
Aye Waukin' O
The Hexhamshire Lass
The Lea-boy's Lassie
I know where I'm going
Various broadsides such as Harry Newell
And across the pond Katy Cruel

Although the earliest piece could well be the English broadside, the song is far better established in Scotland in oral tradition. A common occurrence.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: GUEST,DaveD
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 11:53 AM

The MacColl "Burns" album is streamed at Grooveshark if you want to listen before purchase. I was listening to this very song a few days ago.

Subject: RE: Rare Scottish Folk Music
From: GUEST,Eric the viking
Date: 22 Jan 13 - 01:13 PM

Just seen this. When I was a volunteer on the North Yorkshire Moors railway we used to stop to pick up a lady who made Broom Besoms and took them by train to Pickering for her to sell.