The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18290   Message #188024
Posted By: GeorgeH
02-Mar-00 - 06:35 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Willy Mc Bride
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Willy Mc Bride
To pick up one or two points from the thread . . I've seen an interview with Bogle (in Folk Roots??) where he was asked about others' recordings of his works. Without naming names he suggested some were pretty dreadful (I read this as referring to the Furey's, which I've only head once and thought was a travesty of a great song). However he was appreciative of the original June Tabor recording and of the fact her recording of the song did much to bring him to people's attention in the UK.

Without checking, June hasn't recorded any of Eric's songs with Maddy Prior; they (as "Silly Sisters") have only recorded two albums, and I'd guess that track listings of both are on the Maddy Prior web site. June is on record as saying that they won't record together again, simply because as they've got older her (June's) voice has dropped in pitch while Maddy's has risen, so it's difficult to find material on which they "work" together.

Of course, June is sometimes seen as trying to corner the market in songs of "Doom and Gloom"; we used to have a party game of trying to compare the number of corpses on each of her different recordings (gets tricky when she starts singing about wars and surviving the holocaust . .) The "other" Eric Bogle song she's recorded is "Now I'm Easy", which is also has a modest body count. [Actually, she does have a wicked sense of humour; possibly best displayed in her singing Les Barker's parody of "January Man", entitled "January June" and full of references to other songs in her repetoire.]

G.