The French 'Voice of the People' set

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Guillaume
Date: 11 Feb 11 - 09:21 AM

Hello,

I'm the compiler of this 10-CD boxset and I have just come accross this thread. Thank you all for your interest in this work.

Wow, Monique, I can't believe you managed to translate everything into English. I am flabbergasted !

I know how much work it represents, having spent several weeks working on the French version of the lyrics (which unfortunately could not be included to the CDs' booklets and can only be found on the Internet).
... and thank you for spotting a few mistakes in the French version !

I am currently thinking about an online resource like the "Musical Traditions 'Voice of the People' Suite" - as suggested by Matthew in an earlier post. When it is ready, maybe we could use your translations ? Could you get in touch with me ? The address is : guillaume.veilletATlibertysurf.fr

Merci d'avance !

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 16 Feb 11 - 03:04 PM

I added where it belongs the story told on CD 6 about everyday life in Marseilles some decades ago.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: GUEST,Marilena
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 11:03 AM

I stumbled on this thread looking for some Corsican lyrics, and reading around a little I found a Flemish text listed as "Alsatian"... just wanted to signal the mistake:
it's this song:

EN 'K GINGEN LESTMAAL AAN HET JAGEN UIT
(Alsatian)

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 06 Sep 11 - 11:18 AM

Thank you Guest Marilena, I corrected it.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: GUEST,Big Roly
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 04:35 AM

CD2: Ce sont trois galions d'Espagne

There are a number of liberties taken with the Standard French language in this text. It was collected from Jack Le Feuvre, an inhabitant of Sark in the (British) Channel Islands. His first language was a local variety of Norman French, as different from the official language of Paris as Broad Scots (as written by Robert Burns) would be from the language we are accustomed to hearing on official English-language news media. This would account for the occasional non-standard use of prepositions and the pronunciation of the "h" in "hune", an archaism which has disappeared from Standard french.

At least one other song, "Voici mon marinier" (aka "Les clefs d'or") collected on Sark (Locke & Anderson, 1976: Société Sercquiaise archives)uses the word "marinier" where the French would either use "marin" or "matelot" to mean a sailor. There are no bargemen on Sark (unless they're there on vacation, of course) as the island has no inland waterways whatsoever.

Quite apart from these observations, you've done a wonderful job here Monique. It saves me the trouble of writing out the words of this song!

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 05:57 AM

Thanks for these observations, Big Roly! You can also find the lyrics on the Frémeaux leaflet of each cd -link provided at the top of the lyrics to song #1 of each cd. It's where I took them from.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: GUEST,Big Roly
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 10:38 AM

Guillaume, you extracted "Ce sont trois galions d'Espagne" and "La bébé" (aka La polka des bébés) from Marie-Marguerite Andral and Claudie Marcel-Dubois' field recordings (1970?) from Sark. Where did you find them? Are they in the Bibliothèque Nationale? I already know about Peter Kennedy's recordings (1957 - 60), Locke and Anderson's tapes (Sark; 1976) and the BBC recordings of the Sark Singers (1938), but I would be interested to know whether Andral and Marcel-Dubois collected anything that the others had missed.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 12:31 PM

Big Roly, I think you should email him, he gave his email address -still valid- in his post and I suspect he hasn't come back much to the 'cat ever since.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: GUEST,Guillaume
Date: 03 Nov 11 - 11:10 AM

Hi Big Roly,
Andral and Dubois worked for the Musée national des Arts et Traditions Populaires (MnATP), based in Paris, which is now unfortunately closed but about to re-open under a different name (Musée des Civilisations d'Europe et de Méditerranée or MuCEM) in Marseilles in 2013.
They recorded extensively for the museum from 1939 to the early 1980s. Every six months or so, they would go on a "recording trip" in a specific area (for instance the Cantal département in 1959 or the Roussillon in 1963). There, local contacts would introduce them to local singers and musicians and they would go back to Paris with dozens of tapes full of fascinating recordings (made with quality professional equipement). Unfortunately, even though they worked for the French state, they never allowed anybody to listen to the material !
So, for decades, it was virtually unkwown. Then, a few years after Dubois' death (in 1989) and shortly before Andral's passing (in 2004), everything was digitalized.
I was given access to the CDs and could use everything I wanted (which wouldn't have been possible 10 years earlier). I used about 50 of Dubois and Andral's recordings in the "Anthologie", which was a first (only a few extracts had been published by Rounder in the "France" volume of the "Alan Lomax Collection" : Lomax never collected in France and used Andral and Dubois' recordings instead).
Now, although the museum is closed, researchers still have access to the recordings (no real public access, you need a good reason). Everything is still in Paris, in the Bois de Boulogne building where the museum was. The person you should contact is Marie-Barbara Le Gonidec (head of Music at the MucEM). The 1970 recordings in Jersey, Guernsey and Sark ARE fascinating. Jack Le Feuvre sang about 20 songs, maybe more. Brillant stuff.
Hope this helps. Guillaume Veillet

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 06:27 AM

I've finally caught up with this set. Well, I found a copy on the Internet at the remarkably cheap price of £65-00 inc p&p, and have spent a very happy morning ripping the whole set to hard drive for safe keeping.

Absolutely bleep bleepin' wonderful.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 05 Aug 14 - 07:27 AM

I just wanted to add to my previous missive that, except for a general introduction, none of the booklet notes seem to have been translated into English.

Well, weighing up the production costs against the retail price, that's hardly surprising. But what a wonderful gesture on the part of Monique to prepare such a comprehensive set of translations, and then to post them on here.

Many, many heartfelt thanks for all your hard work.

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 06 Aug 14 - 07:10 AM

I've updated this post as I found an explanation for "jouer aux épinettes" even if what I found is "jouer des épinettes".

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This thread has been hit by many trolls in the last four years (all deleted). To remove that landing pad, this thread is closed, but if you wish to post here please ask a moderator to reopen it. ---mudelf

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 05 Jul 21 - 03:15 AM

I'm into including links to recordings/live renditions in the posts I can find any for. I'll also include a list in my first post instead of the dead link to Musicme. It should help to improve the thread!

Subject: RE: The French 'Voice of the People' set
From: Monique
Date: 22 Jun 22 - 05:26 PM

UPDATE:

I've added a link to the original recording for all the songs except for the ones on CD9 as only a couple of them have been uploaded on YouTube but the whole CD hasn't.

I've also added a link to every whole CD but #9 as there are musical pieces recorded on them but not listed on the thread since there are no lyrics. They're interesting to listen to nevertheless.You can now hear the very few short accounts I posted.

I've changed dead links, added some scores and documents. There may be others but I've been focusing on the recordings.

Also note that some songs have a different title at the link than on the now missing Frémeaux leaflet that I used to post all these sets of lyrics.