1 Extant 'Research' on Walter Pardon

I had prepared a list of all the references I could find to articles that mentioned Pardon, but I put it on one side when the thread was closed and I suspect I shall have to start all over. There is only one main 'academic' source, though I have found passing references in other texts. I'll put this up later if the thread survives. It is more up to date than any of the lists I have found online.

2 The Intended Topic of This thread: it may be worth checking that it is acceptable to moderators. I called the thread 'Review: Walter Pardon Research', meaning that I hoped it could 'review' the written (and filmic) work about Pardon

May I set out again the topic that I intended this thread to cover. I assumed that the word 'knowledge' as applied to this section of Mudcat might include debate of a slightly more abstract sort about the literature on folk music in general and on Walter Pardon in particular. The word 'review' in the thread title was intended to indicate this.

Why did I think this sort of thread might be interesting? There are several reasons. I noticed several things when going through the stuff about him that I found online:

A The material tended to say as much about the ideological perspectives of those writing it as it did about Pardon himself. This applies to Mike Yates' use of a Marxist approach for one essay even though I am happy to accept Yates' assertion that he is not a Marxist, just a person who sometimes finds a Marxist approach useful. Put briefly and simplistically, and following Hillery, the ideology in question could be described as that of the 2nd UK folk revival. I am too young to have been involved in this, and it seems a matter of 'historical' interest to me in terms of 'knowledge' about folk music. I intend no disrespect to those involved, but It seems obvious to me that as the zeitgeist changes, as they do over time, more and more people will take this sort of approach, just as people now look back on Child and think about how his approaches to the ballads reflected his historical context.

B There were contradictory or unclear ideas about, for example, the sources of his songs and about whether he 'preserved' the tunes by playing them on his melodeon or whether, due to the musical limitations of that instrument, he changed them, this explaining how come his tunes were different at times from those traditionally used for the songs in question.

C The methods used by some of those investigating Pardon did not seem to me to be rigorous: there was use of leading questions, for example. This casts doubt on some of the 'findings' set out as a result. One example of a technique which might be questioned in places would be the use of questions requiring 'yes/no' answers. I am sorry if those involved feel upset by my pointing this out, but it is certain that if in the future people go back to these interviews to try to get a handle on Pardon these points will be made. I do not wish to disrespect the passion or commitment of the investigators involved, but I have no doubt that the approaches to an investigation can affect the results.

I fully accept that I have only recently encountered the work of Walter Pardon. He is seen as important, as far as I can make out, because he is said to have learned his songs 'the traditional way', though how far even that is true seems questionable, given his own assertions that he did not sing them at the time.





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