Here are three posts or excerpts of posts from Black Britons & Folk Music? about the possible influence early on that Black Britons may have had on British folk music:

Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: McGrath of Harlow - PM
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 01:25 PM

Here's an article I linked to on that other thread Azizi mentioned - The First Black Britons*

It's not true that there weren't a fair number of black people in Britain during the slave trade days - but there wasn't any plantation system, or a separated-off culture over the generations. With the end of slavery, descendants of black slaves and freed slaves mingled into the rest of the population. The number of people in England with some black ancestors is probably very high.

Some of the major ports have a different history, in that there have always been a fair number of black sailors over the generations, and as has been noted, the shanty-singing tradition reflects that.

-snip-
* It appears that that link is no longer working, but here is a similar article [if not the same article] that McGrath of Harlow also mentioned in that thread:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/work_community/docs/london_chronicle.htm


"This report in the London Chronicle indicates some sense of a common identity among Black people in London in the 1760s. According to the report, 'No less than fifty-seven Blacks or Negro servants…, men and women…entertained themselves with dancing and music consisting of violins, French horns and other instruments…till four in the morning.' The claim that Whites were excluded is particularly interesting.

British Library, Burney 5276b, London Chronicle, 16-18 February 1764
By permission of The British Library"


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Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: GUEST,greg stephens - PM
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 04:12 PM

I seriously think the black contribution to English fiddle music in the period 1650-1850 has been underrated. I really hope that in these more enlightened times(and with a bit more money available for research) that some serious research is done on the next few years, on diaries, playbills and other adverts, and we get a bit more of qa picture of what was actually going on in London and Bristol and Liverpool in that time. I think the results might be very interesting. English music changed a lot in that period, and I have a hunch that black people may have had quite a hand in it.

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Subject: RE: Black Britons & Folk Music?
From: greg stephens - PM
Date: 22 Dec 04 - 05:56 AM

..."English musicians, like African musicians, are and have always been ingenious and quick to learn. Any African musical person arriving in England in 1700 would have figured out what to do with a fiddle in ten mintues, whether or not they came from north or sug-Saharan Africa. Likewise any English fiddler(or a substantial percentage of English fiddlersa), when coming across a black dancer doing the solo hornpipe spot in an English pub in 1720, or finding a group of black fiddlers giving it some in Liverpool in 1750...well, they are going to react just the same as me faced with Leadbelly in 1957, or the Stones with Muddy Waters, or anybody with Louis Armstrong or Jimi Hendrix. They would say "Give me a slice of that".
   
We really do not need a thriving plantation culture(as in America), or a millions strong sub-culture(as we have now), to explain black influence on indigenous English music in the 18th or 19th century. These things happen easily and quickly. And they will have happened in London, or Liverpool, or Bristol, or Whitehaven, to start with. Not in Little-Piddling-in-the-Mire!. London and Liverpool was where the blacks were, and where there was work in plenty for fiddlers and dancers. That's how, and where, cultural transfers happen.

The sea-change in English fiddle music from 1700 to 1800(and American music) was very much black influenced. That is what I am suggesting. And no, I cant prove it, Neither can anyone else. I would put it in the category of the Bleeding Obvious. I just hope some universities will direct a bit of research money in that direction, to reinforce some of the background information.

-snip-

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