The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #128868 Message #2891159
Posted By: The Borchester Echo
21-Apr-10 - 03:43 AM
Thread Name: Tune Origin: Scarborough Fair
Subject: RE: Scarborough Fair
Mr Zimmerman did indeed learn Scarborough Fair from the singing of Martin Carthy - by taping it in the Troubadour. Paul Simon was forever asking MC to sing ScarborO Fair and I seem to remember that it was Davy Graham's sister who showed him the chords. Though in defence of PS, you have to acknowledge that it was a pretty neat idea to combine the tune with Canticle.
As for the song's collection on the North Yorkshire coast, that slapper Lucy Broadwood (she of the notoriously hard-to-tune piano-making family) got it from William Moat in probably just as patronising manner as Kate Lee extracted her "lower-class finds". Robin and Barry Dransfield got in from John Sheridan, an Irish singer living in Harrogate, in 1962 as I said but I can't say if this was a connection or a coincidence.