I heard Bert Lloyd give a lecture in Mandel Hall of the University of Chicago in '76 too I think. Met him afterwards & he was quite personable. We discussed the song he did about the cockfight---on the Riverside Champions And Sporting Blades album. I had learned it a few years before. The song had some class-consciousness to it. The bird owned by the miners defeated the one the lords brought to the party. I'd love to've done a workshop with Tom Russell so I could do this one to set up his song "Gallo Del Cielo".

Come all you colliers far and near,
I'll sing of a cockfight--when and where?
Out on the moors I heard him say,
Between the black and the bonny gray.

The first to come in was the lordly lads,
They came with all the money they had,
"If our good bird--he gets fair play,
We'll make mincemeat of the bonny gray."

The cocks went to it--1---2---3,
And the charcoal black got struck in the eye,
They picked him up, but he would not play,
And away we carried the bonny gray.

With his silver coat and his silver wing,
He's fit to fight in front of the king,
So hip hooray, hooray, hooray,
Away we carried the bonny gray.

Art Thieme