Subject: RE: definition of a ballad
From: Steve Gardham - PM
Date: 28 Aug 08 - 06:34 PM

Dick,
Having had a long hard think about your original posting and having tried hard to work out what you are after, I think I detect 2 underlying currents of enquiry.
Both would depend on whether you are coming at this as a scholar, or as a performer/singer. As the latter it surely matters little where the ballad came from or what minds it has passed through.

BUT to a scholar who is wanting to study exclusively orally evolved material it matters a great deal. Much of the material in the Child ballads for instance has probably never passed through oral tradition. Some of it (e.g., most of the Robin Hood ballads) only appears to have existed in print for reading, and much of it has been so interfered with by poet/collectors it is almost impossible to tell what actually existed in oral tradition. For instance the texts published by the likes of Jamieson, Scott, Buchan, Percy and others are under heavy suspicion and some are known to have been fabricated
    now, this is interesting.
as a singer I do feel differently about a song that has been passed down over the years by many people,its not necessarily better just different.I also wonder as I do about my concertinas,as to who may have played/sung them,and even altered the songs before me.
to your second point,heavily fabricated versions of songs,
as a singer its quality that counts,that is why I dont discard Lloyds Tam Lin or Recruited Collier[The stubble field verse is superb]I bet that was Lloyd.
Bert lloyd missed a vocation as a songwriter.
Should not scholars be concerned with quality of text,as well as authenticity?