So do we still need A L Lloyd's Introduction to Folksong today? We're far less hidebound in our approach to repertoire and definition than we were even twenty years ago. The iron curtain between 'traditional' and 'contemporary' songs has rusted away, the 'Policy Clubs' and arguments about authenticity of instruments and accompaniment only rarely emerge to generate a day or two of controversy on a website or in a magazine Letters' Column. Known authorship and oral transmission, have gone the way of modal tunes and rural location as defining features - and even folksong itself has ceased to be regarded as a useful term for the kinds of informal performance that we continue to study and enjoy. Lloyd's grasp of Social History was rocky and we've now got access to massive amounts of field recordings as well as performances that have since grown out of them to hear and learn songs from. We have better context and content that is offered in The Singing Englishman to inform us about our musical culture. So perhaps it's The Singing Englishman's final paragraph that will provide the biggest shock to a new readership. Bert Lloyd, the godfather of the English Revival, who made all those records and wrote all those sleeve notes, who encouraged so many singers and provided so many classic collections of songs and theory concludes his first book with a definite view that folksong is dead, and can't be revived. Like all the rest of us, Lloyd didn't always get it right. Perhaps for that discussion alone, The Singing Englishman is truly worth re-publishing - and re-reading. Looking afresh at Lloyd's version of history most surely will make us all think again about what he, and we, feel is important for songs and their singers.
quote The Singing Englishman
An Introduction and Commentary by Georgina Boyes