Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink

Subject: Billy Brink
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 01:20 PM

Years ago I had a songbook, dating from the 30s, I think, with the above song. Now I'd like to resume singing it, but alas, the book is gone, gone, gone.

The song is about a sheep shearer, (Australian, I think) and it starts like this:

There once was a shearer, by name Billy Brink,
A dev-ill for work and a dev-ill for drink!
He'd shear his two hundred a day without fear
And drink without winking four gallons of beer!

Now Jimmy the waiter, who served out the rum,
He hated the sight of old Billy, the bum,
Who stayed much too late and who came much too soon
At morning, at evening, at night and at noon.

After some lines that further show what alienates Jimmy from the old drunk shearer, the story goes that one morning Jimmy was cleaning the bar with sulfuric acid. Billy "came yelling and bawling with thirst: "Whatever you've got, Jim, just hand to me first!" You guessed it, Jimmy hands him the acid, and Billy gulps it down.

The song ends with the last lines,

They say I like whiskey; you know I'm no liar,
But every blamed cough sets my whiskers on fire!

Can any great benefactor of the human race give me the lyrics in full, or direct me to them? I'd be eternally grateful.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Billy Brink
From: Troll
Date: 18 Jan 00 - 01:28 PM

Dave. It's in the DT archive . The name of the song is "Bluey Brink"

troll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 04:13 PM

BLUEY BRINK (DT Lyrics)

There once was a shearer, bename Bluey Brink
A devil for work and a devil for drink.
He could shear his hundred a day without fear
And drink without winking, four gallon of beer.

Now Jimmy, the barman, who served out the drink,
He hated the sight of this here Bluey Brink,
Who stayed much too late and who come much too soon;
At evening, at morning, at night and at noon.

One morning as Jimmy was cleaning the bar
With sulfuric acid he kept in a jar,
Old Bluey come yelling and bawling with thirst,
"Whatever you got, Jim, just hand me the first."

Now, it ain't in the history, it ain't put in print
But Bluey drank acid with never a wink,
Saying, "That's the stuff, Jimmy! Well, strike me stone dead.
This'll make me the ringer of Stevenson's shed."

Now all that long day, as he served out the beer
Poor Jimmy was sick with his trouble and fear.
Too worried to argue, too anxious to fight,
Seeing the shearer a corpse in his fright.

Now early next morning he opened the door,
And along come the shearer asking for more;
With his eyebrows all singed and his whiskers deranged,
And holes in his hide like a dog with the mange.

Says Jimmy, "And how did you find the new stuff?"
Says Bluey, "It's fine, but I ain't had enough.
It gives me great courage to shear and to fight,
But why does that stuff set me whiskers alight

I thought I knew drink, but I must have been wrong;
For that stuff that you give me was proper and strong.
It set me to coughing, and you know I'm no liar
And every cough set me whiskers on fire."


Per AL Lloyd on Australian Bush Songs (Riverside RLP 12-606.) The
tune is a variant of "Dinah and her Villikins" (without the refrain &
softened out & syncopated a bit) which tune, Lloyd notes, has probably
been used for more texts than any other in the English-speaking
world. AJS
tune here supplied by MG

@Australian @drink @sheep @humor
filename[ BLUBRINK
TUNE FILE: BLUBRINK
CLICK TO PLAY
AJS

Bluey Brink

DESCRIPTION: Bluey Brink, "a devil for work and a devil for drink," walks into Jimmy's bar and demands the closest available liquid -- the sulfuric acid used to clean the bar. Brink stomps out, and Jimmy fears for his life. But Brink returns next day asking for more
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Finger-FrontierBallads)
KEYWORDS: Australia talltale humorous drink poison
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Fahey-Eureka-SongsThatMadeAustralia, pp. 148-149, "Bluey Brink" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition, pp. 258-260, "Billy Brink" (1 text)
Finger-FrontierBallads, pp. 139-141, "Billy Brink" (1 text)
Ward-PenguinBookOfAustralianBallads, pp. 124-125, "Bluey Brink" (1 text)
DT, BLUBRINK*
ADDITIONAL: A. K. MacDougall, _An Anthology of Classic Australian Lore_ (earlier published as _The Big Treasury of Australian Foiklore_), The Five Mile Press, 1990, 2002, p. 291, "Billy Brink" (1 text)
Roud #8838
RECORDINGS:
John Greenway, "Bluey Brink" (on JGreenway01)
A. L. Lloyd, "Bluey Brink" (on Lloyd4, Lloyd08)
SAME TUNE:
The Wedding of Lochan McGraw (Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2, pp. 181-182)
NOTES [275 words]: Fahey suspects this of having been the work of A.L. Lloyd, who originally collected it. Australians like to boast of their drinking, however (though their per capita consumption of alcoholic beverages, other than beer, is actually rather low), so they have gladly adopted the song. However, Gwenda Beed Davey and Graham Seal, A Guide to Australian Folklore, Kangaroo Press, 2003, p. 46, claims that it is from the nineteenth century. Note that the name in Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition and MacDougall is "Billy Brink,"and Davey/Seal mention the name 'Bluey Brinks," implying some folk processing. Though the Paterson/Fahey/Seal-OldBushSongs-CentenaryEdition version (collected from Simon McDonald by O'Connor and Officer) and Finger-FrontierBallads versions as clever as Lloyd's version. Perhaps the likeliest explanation is that Lloyd tightened up a traditional song.
Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2 add that the tune for this is "The Wedding of Lochan McGraw."
Incidentally, it appears something vaguely like this actually happened once, although the situation was completely different -- it was on a whaler in the Arctic. Whalers were hard drinkers anyway, and when their ships were damaged, they had a tendency to attempt to drink the booze rather than let it sink with the ship. According to Norman Watson, The Dundee Whalers, Tuckwell Press, 2003, pp. 84-85, "The SS River Tay... sank in millpond calm on her maiden voyage in 1868 after being bumped by ice at Pond Bay. As she was sinking, crewman David Walker drank a bottle of carbolic acid thinking it was whiskey.... Walker died in 20 minutes." - RBW
Last updated in version 5.0
File: FaE148

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 04:47 PM

I've been unable to trace this song any earlier than the 1950s.

A. L. Lloyd recorded it in 1957.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 07 Oct 24 - 08:08 PM

Lighter wrote: I've been unable to trace this song any earlier than the 1950s.

Note the Ballad Index date of 1927, from Finger. Contrary to the implication by Fahey et al, it is not in the 1905 edition of "Old Bush Songs," but it is certainly pre-1957. A. L. Lloyd very likely changed "Billy Brink" to "Bluey Brink," and perhaps tightened it up generally, but it predates the Lloyd recording by at least thirty years.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 04:48 AM

I haven't checked a recording but I am pretty sure Bert sang verse 1 line 3 as "He could shear his two hundred a day without fear". That would make sense, because (AFAIK) a tally of one hundred was a typical target so a much larger number would make sense for a mythical larger-than-life character.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 10:37 AM

Thanks for reminding me of Finger, whose book I have on my shelf. He writes that he learned the "Australian product" "Billy Brink" in a bar-room in San Angelo, Texas, seemingly around 1900. He prints eleven stanzas of "Billy Brink" without a tune.

Tex Morton (1916-1983), a pioneer of Australian country music, recorded "Billy Brink, the Shearer" in 1940:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB3jtpKtPu0

Less two stanzas, Morton's text is nearly the same as Finger's. His catchy tune - possibly original with him - is based on "Villikins." It ends with Jimmie Rogers-style yodelin'. (Morton, a New Zealander, sings with a pretty believable Rogers-type accent even on this song!)

Lloyd's version on "Outback Ballads" (1958) has eight stanzas sung painfully slow to a modal tune reminiscent of the one he uses for "Paddy and the Whale." The hero is now "Bluey" and there are a couple of Australianisms not in Finger or Morton, notably "Strike me stone dead!/ "It'll make me the ringer of Stevenson's shed."
John Greenway's tune and seven stanzas on his LP "Australian Folksongs and Ballads" (1959) are from Lloyd, but paced a little faster.

John Fahey's "Australian Favorite Ballads" prints Lloyd's version with one or two variant lines. He recommends singing it "rousingly."

Canadian Wilf Carter covers Morton's version - with extra yodelin' - on his "Sings Songs of Australia" (1969). (This is one of the few post-Lloyd recordings not to feature Lloyd's tune.)

The Australian jig tune "The Wedding of Lochan McGraw," whose first strain has been associated with "Bluey Brink," is of the same family as "The Laird o' Cockpen."

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 01:05 PM

Guest wrote: I haven't checked a recording but I am pretty sure Bert sang verse 1 line 3 as "He could shear his two hundred a day without fear". That would make sense, because (AFAIK) a tally of one hundred was a typical target so a much larger number would make sense for a mythical larger-than-life character.

Shearing a hundred a day was to "make the century," and yes, it made you a "gun," although the ringer in a shed would probably be able to shear more than a century.

Two hundred, though, is extraordinary. Yes, Jackie Howe once did 321 in a day with blade shears, and 200+ with machine shears, but he was close to superhuman.... To shear 200 was within the realm of possibility, but I don't think a native Australian would have been likely to claim that. I think that's Bert Lloyd being Bert Lloyd.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 01:13 PM

The tune sounds like a Lloyd adaption of that used for Master McGrath. He used Colm O'Lochlainn a couple of times. Bold Lovell is a good example (See COL version of Whiskey in the jar). The McGrath tune in its turn is Erin-go-Bragh. I expect you could trace it again to an Irish language tune or song. Modern Folklorists do find their patience exhausted by Bert's activities. However as Roy Palmer once said to me 'Would you rather have that song or not?'. I know my answer.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 03:07 PM

Nick Dow wrote: Modern Folklorists do find their patience exhausted by Bert's activities.

I would say that we find our patience exhausted by Bert Lloyd's not owning to what he had done. Every performer fiddles with sources a little bit -- changing the tempo, fixing a word or two, conflating versions. That's normal, and I don't object to it. I think Lloyd did it to a far greater degree than was useful, but that is a point on which one can legitimately disagree.

But when one changes a song, one should admit to it. Modifying songs is reasonable, within limits. Lying is never acceptable, in scholarship. (And should not be, in politics, or in life. But in scholarship, it violates the whole purpose.)

The most charitable thing one can say is that Lloyd confused his roles as performer and scholar. But the plain fact is, he -- like Bishop Percy, like John Jacob Niles -- left us messes that we're still cleaning up, and there was no reason for it. All he had to do was admit it!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 03:13 PM

The most charitable thing one can say is that Lloyd confused his roles as performer and scholar" quote.
there was a reason for it he was more concerned about increasing the available repertoire for revival singers, and furthermore he was right.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 03:26 PM

Yes you've put it very well. I think Lloyd's tune use was misleading. The tune for the Weaver and the Factory Maid, was collected by Sharp in Somerset and was the melody for 'The Irish Lad' a rather obscure song. The tune for Jack Orion was 'Donald Where's your trousers' other tunes were adapted. The Devil and the Feathery wife' was unpublished when I was first aware of it, and in Buchan's 'Secret Songs of Silence, a copy of which was given by Lloyd to Martin Carthy who gave a copy to me and I gave it to Nic Caffrey who passed it on to the publishers who eventually put it into print. Lloyd's tune is fairly obviously 'Rosin the Beau'. The list goes on. Trim rigged Doxie is a fabrication based on the 'Rambling Sailor'. The big worry is how much of Lloyds 'Industrial Folklore was also manufactured. I am not expert enough to comment upon that, and will leave it to my contemporaries. Maybe your good self Robert. I spent many years admiring Bert, and in many ways I still do, especially his writing style. His rolling prose in a great influence on my published work, but once again I will retreat into the safe haven of subjectivity to approach his songs. That's really what you have said (but maybe a bit less longwinded.)

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 03:31 PM

The Sandman wrote: there was a reason for it he was more concerned about increasing the available repertoire for revival singers, and furthermore he was right.

Roud numbers extend up to 55289.

There are 17,680 distinct songs in the Traditional Ballad Index.

I have yet to encounter someone who has sung 17,680 different songs, let alone 55,289. But even if, somehow, that's not enough, that is still no justification for lying.

The issue is LIES.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 04:13 PM

Without repertoire there is no scholarship.
Without lloyd and Maccoll and MANY ACTIVISTS OF THE POLITICAL LEFT THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO UK FOLK REVIVAL AS WE Knew it, and you get hung up about so called lies.you need to get your priorities right.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 05:51 PM

Without repertoire there is no scholarship.

Cuts both ways. Without pure scholarship there is no 'folk' repertoire. If anything else gets mixed in, preference, politics, prejudice any.thing it is adulterated. Garden variety niche pop music for the most part.

Muck, gold and brass... &c &c &c &c...

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 05:53 PM

Robert if you do not want to get caught up in the above post, I would be interested in your views if any, on Lloyds musical pigeon hole that he christened the 'industrial tradition' With reference to the ballad index, have you found any so called industrial folk songs with a creditable provenance to separate them from the broad mass of Folksong? Shanties, ballads, ritual songs have an individual place in the tradition. So called Industrial songs I'm not so sure. They do not have an independent purpose. My mind is open on the subject but in most cases I have found the songs are either a poetic text set to music (Dalesmans Litany- Poverty Knock etc.) or fabricated by Lloyd (Weaver and the Factory Maid- With my Pit boots on etc.) or early texts set to traditional tunes ( Byker Hill to the tune The Drunken Piper). Let me be clear I do not think this diminishes the songs in any way, and is no different to the street literature or the music hall in supplying songs to the folk, but my question is as follows. Is the industrial connection enough to to establish the songs as a separate medium and should they not be included within Folk Song generally. Have you found any evidence in the Ballad Index.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 06:48 PM

Nick Dow wrote: Robert if you do not want to get caught up in the above post, I would be interested in your views if any, on Lloyds musical pigeon hole that he christened the 'industrial tradition' With reference to the ballad index, have you found any so called industrial folk songs with a creditable provenance to separate them from the broad mass of Folksong?

A genuinely interesting question. There are certainly songs about factory work. Things like "No More Shall I Work in the Factory" or "Hard Times in the Mill." There are songs directly opposed to factory work, often but not always connected to the labor movement. There are the occasional humorous songs about industry ("Cosher Bailey's Engine"). There are lots of songs about industrial disasters of one sort or another ("The Burning of the Granite Mill" [Laws G13], plus many mine songs). There are factory murders ("Mary Phagan" [Laws F20]).

But I can't think, off the top of my head, of a single song that has gone into tradition that was used to help perform the work in factories, and some complicated searches failed to turn anything up. There are lots of songs that seem to be by workers, but none that they used in their work.

On the other hand, consider the work of Ella May Wiggins (the correct spelling), such as "The Mill Mother's Lament." Like (say) Joe Hill, she wrote her songs to use tunes that the mill workers knew. "The Mill Mother's Lament" is based on "Mary Phagan"; "Chief Aderholt" on "Floyd Collins" -- not hymn tunes, note. That hints that some of these songs would have been known in Gastonia, where the people had little in common except slogging together to their endless hours in the mill.

Those are just my first thoughts. If I think of something else, I'll post it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 07:57 PM

Thanks, Robert. We seem to be thinking along the same lines. It harks back to your comment about scholarship and the truth. Uncomfortable questioning, after years of blind faith. Look forward to your next post if you have any more thoughts.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 08 Oct 24 - 09:08 PM

Nick Dow wrote: Thanks, Robert. We seem to be thinking along the same lines. It harks back to your comment about scholarship and the truth. Uncomfortable questioning, after years of blind faith. Look forward to your next post if you have any more thoughts.

It occurs to me that someone should look through the recordings and reminiscences of Mary Brooksbank. If anyone would have known, she would have!

The problem with industrial song is... who would take it down? The collectors didn't spend much time in Manchester or Leeds, and Respectable Citizens wouldn't hear them singing the way they would hear sailors sing shanties. It makes some sense that certain industrial workers would have songs to help them, but how would we learn about them?

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GerryM
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 02:32 AM

Robert, is "Mary Phagan" the piece of antisemitic trash that's in the DT as Mary Fagan?

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 02:34 AM

His scholarship should be viewed in the broader context with all his other achievements, tn continually focus on one aspect of his achievements in a negative way, illustrates the negativity of the person posting.
all scholarship should be questioned, in the same way that all propaganda and foreign news should be questioned.
I never had blind faith in anything ALLlotd said as regards his scholastic writings, neither would i have regarded him as someone to listen to as regards style of singing, I find the singing of Lizzie Higgins much more captivating[ personal taste]
But imo his overall contribution to the uk folk revival is more important than the weakness of some of his scholastic writing

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 03:24 AM

imo Lloyds scholarship should be viewed in the context of the time he was writing, much as i would view the collecting of Sharp, his collecting need to be viewed in the context of his time.
Why did Sharp collect in rural areas?because he lived in somerset and he used a bike to get around

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 04:02 AM

Stone Quarrying is an industry, and Peter Kennedy collected in Portland and the work songs used whilst they were quarrying sound like shanties. To dismiss Lloyds scholarship as lies is foolish, but to question and expose inaccuracies when they occur is not.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 04:14 AM

GerryM wrote: Robert, is "Mary Phagan" the piece of antisemitic trash that's in the DT as Mary Fagan?

Anti-Semitic, populist trash. The man most responsible for rousing the population against Leo Frank was Thomas Watson, who was basically a hundred-year-earlier version of Donald Trump. Mary Phagan was robbed, murdered, and almost certainly raped by the janitor Jim Conley, but the Jewish manager Leo Frank was arrested, convicted, and eventually lynched for the murder. And Watson was cheering the whole time.

To be fair, Frank was the willing manager of a sweatshop, but he was a northern Jew, so to Georgians he was The Enemy twice over. He was a jerk; he was not a murderer.

The song didn't deserve fame, but it got it -- Vernon Dalhart recorded it, among others. Fiddlin' John Carson had a part in it, too -- very likely he wrote it. And so the tune was borrowed, both for "The Mill Mother's Lament" (which is so heart-wrenching that it almost makes up for its source) and "The Death of Roy Rickey" (which is not worth looking up).

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 04:38 AM

Thanks again Robert. In fact Kidson did spend time in Leeds. He lived there, how ever his informant Charles Lolley who later became his collaborator was a successful business man in his own right, in the building trade. Mr. Holgate was an importer of cloth, and both men had a vast repertoire of traditional folk songs, gleaned on their travels. They were both middle class men. It does rather blur Lloyds class based divisions, or anybody else's for that matter. However Kidson did not publish any so called industrial songs, and the Hudleston collection (1940' to 60's), only has very few, and those seem to be based on existing poems. Then again Sharp went through the Appalachians without collecting a single mining song. However I err toward the 'Industrial song' category as being a subdivision rather than an independent medium.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 06:43 AM

Nick Dow wrote: In fact Kidson did spend time in Leeds. He lived there, how ever his informant Charles Lolley who later became his collaborator was a successful business man in his own right, in the building trade. Mr. Holgate was an importer of cloth, and both men had a vast repertoire of traditional folk songs, gleaned on their travels. They were both middle class men.

That's just it. You can search the Roud Index by where a song was collected, and I tried both Manchester and Leeds before I wrote my comment on that -- and, yes, there are, in all, hundreds of songs from those two cities. But they're mostly the Same Old Stuff. Peter Kennedy had a collection of "Songs of Occupations" -- but, again, Same Old Stuff. A few are about industrial occupations ("The Hot Ash-Pelt" is pretty specific!). But they aren't songs used in the occupations; they are simply songs which mention the occupations, or tell stories about them. And, even so, they are the minority of the songs from those places. Most of the songs collected in industrial areas are songs that are widespread -- sometimes slightly adapted to local conditions, but probably not originating there. There wasn't much collection in the factories -- and probably couldn't be, because the managers of such places weren't going to let outsiders in to see the horrid conditions!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 07:40 AM

Robert are you suggesting Hot Ash phelt is a TRAD SONG? since we are discussing collectors of traditional songs.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 07:50 AM

Thanks Robert. I think we are on the same page. Brian Peters has been studying this subject and other Bert Lloyd concoctions. I'll Email him to see if he has any views.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 08:14 AM

The Sandman wrote: Robert are you suggesting Hot Ash phelt is a TRAD SONG? since we are discussing collectors of traditional songs.

It's true that several of the printed sources (MacColl, Peter Kennedy) are a little dubious. But there appear to be five field collections apart from Ewan MacColl's father (Baxter, Hutchison, Maguire, Mathieson, McLaverty). Without having examined them all in detail, it looks clearly traditional to me. Yes, it started out in broadsides, but a great many things do!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 08:35 AM

well people occasionally mis attribute things to be tradtional, including bring us a barrel and fiddlers green That song hot asphalt seems to be Words: Thomas Johnstone; Music: Beers or Dodworth orJohnstone, and from the music halls, since you find scholarship correctness to be necessary

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 01:09 PM

The Sandman wrote: well people occasionally mis attribute things to be tradtional, including bring us a barrel and fiddlers green That song hot asphalt seems to be Words: Thomas Johnstone; Music: Beers or Dodworth orJohnstone, and from the music halls, since you find scholarship correctness to be necessary.

Scholarship has now abandoned the delusion of "communal composition," so the only test of traditionality is being found in the tradition. This does sometimes raise copyright problems -- a song can be traditional and not public domain. But "Hot Ash Pelt" is p.d. as well as traditional.

Most music hall songs don't go into oral tradition, of course, but it's certainly not unheard-of. Taking just R. P. Weston as an example, there is at least one traditional or pseudo-traditional collection of all of the following Weston songs (I call some "pseudo-traditional" because they may have been learned from recordings, but they were field collected):

Anne Boleyn (With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm)
Goodbye-ee
The Gypsy Warned Me
I'm Henery the Eighth I Am
Paddy McGinty's Goat
Private Michael Cassidy
Rawtenstall Annual Fair
Sister Susie's Sewing Shirts for Soldiers
Where Are the Lads of the Village Tonight?

About half of those were from the repertoire of Alice Kane, but still, she learned them as a child and remembered them. Several others have become camp songs. Popular song has always been a prolific source of folk songs!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Oct 24 - 01:31 PM

As long as we're talking music-hall and broadsides, let's not forget "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye."

Patrick Gilmore's "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" was also being sung "traditionally" for some decades, but no one "collected" it, because everybody knew it.

(During the Civil War, soldiers often sang the line "And we'll all feel gay" as "And we'll all drink stone blind" or "And we'll all get dead drunk.")

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 02:57 AM

Scholarship has now abandoned the delusion of "communal composition,"    Check the 1954 definition.
your so called scholarship is iffy, if i followed your dictum, yesterday would be a tradtional song it is not it is a popsong written by lennon mccartney.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 03:22 AM

Thanks for an interesting post again Robert. I think there is an argument for communal re-composition. It's an American term coined a few years ago. I can't remember by whom. It really refers to song tunes. A good example is the 'Miller of Dee' morphing into 'The Manchester Angel' etc. I think that the term 'traditional' refers far too often to a musical medium, rather than a description of an historical background or context. However, it is a matter of convenience for the writer I suppose. There is an entire website dedicated to Music Hall and Folk, I occasionally contribute to the author. It's worth a look. I'm a bit busy at the moment but if you can not find it I'll post a link when time allows. Thanks for staying with this thread despite some of the less laudable comments that have been fired at you, which I am glad you are not taking to heart.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 06:58 AM

This should be a book (and no doubt some of you will think it's close to book-length as it is), but I don't have time. I hope people will accept the summaries here as coming from someone who has spent thirty years studying ballad scholarship every day, and knows more than the odd comment people hear at folk concerts!

(Note that the above is not targeted at Nick Dow, even though I quote him below.)

Nick Dow wrote (regarding Communal Composition): It's an American term coined a few years ago.

More than a few years ago. It was Francis Gummere who came up with the Community Composition idea -- people sitting around in a circle and, I dunno, each one adding a word or something. The fact that no one had ever seen it happen didn't stop him.

The only way Gummere got away with it was that Gummere and his followers basically didn't look at anything outside the Child Ballad canon, where it was generally impossible to trace the full history. If they had looked at folk songs collectively, the utter absurdity of the idea would instantly have been obvious.

It's worth reminding ourselves that Child's work was called The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, not ...Traditional Ballads. The two are not the same! Anyone who has studied, for instance, the Percy Folio (one of Child's leading sources), and all the chopped-down romances it contains, would know that Child did not consider traditional status to be a necessary condition for inclusion in is opus. It was probably a sufficient condition, but there are plenty of Child Ballads that almost certainly were never traditional.

The fact that no sane person still suffers from the Communal Composition delusion does not mean that oral recomposition does not exist. Oral transmission can -- and does -- improve songs dramatically -- both adding and subtracting words. But there is generally a "skeleton" around which this happens. In Britain this often was based on broadsides; in America, where the tradition is more recent, pop songs often play a part.

Tunes of course often float, which is why I eventually included a "Same Tune" field in the Ballad Index, to allow people to track this. The lists for "Yankee Doodle" and "John Brown's Body" and "Vilikens" are astounding.... It is quite obvious that many writers deliberately used old tunes to make it easier for others to sing their songs.

John Baxter, who I believe posts here sometimes, is responsible for the Folk Song and Music Hall site. I'm discussing with the Ballad Index Board how we can incorporate links to that site. We don't have a ood answer yet, but it's a goal.

Now to the topics that certain people think are controversial, although they are mostly not controversial to experts: There are three terms which are quite distinct but are often used interchangeably:
TRADITIONAL
PUBLIC DOMAIN
AUTHOR UNKNOWN ("Anonymous")

Any song can meet, or fail to meet, any of the three criteria. So there are actually eight possible statuses. For instance:
"Barbara Allen" is Traditional, Public Domain, Author Unknown
Tom Paxton's "The Last Thing on My Mind" is Traditional (been collected in Newfoundland), not public domain, author known
A Lady Gaga song is almost certainly not traditional, not public domain, author known

Taking the last one first, truly anonymous songs are very rare, although there are some. (Often political pieces or the like, or slurs on various people.) Ella May Wiggins, to cite an example I already used, was murdered for her songs, and robbed and threatened before that, and her pre-teen daughter was raped, but she admitted to her compositions despite the cost to her! So truly anonymous songs are rare. But there are obviously many, many songs whose authors we don't know.

Public Domain is also straightforward: The rules differ from nation to nation, but anything more than a century old is surely public domain. But a song can have a known author and still be public domain!

That leaves "Traditional," which is the one term which has a slightly fuzzy definition. There are two parts often cited:
1. Songs which have been handed down from person to person, usually orally
2. Songs which people consider their own, so that they have the right to modify them
Note that having an unknown author is not part of either of these.

Both criteria have problems. It is my opinion that #2 in isolation is hopeless, because it describes anything anyone ever sings! We have a word for that; the word is a "song." Calling it "traditional" is utterly un-helpful. Meeting criterion #2 is perhaps a hint of something or other, but ultimately the definition has to revolve around #1.

But then what do you do about all the thousands of hymns (not spirituals) that parents learned in church and taught to their children, but the children may remember in part because of hearing it in church?

Or take "The Wreck of the Old 97" (a song which, notably, uses a Henry Clay Work tune!). It is traditional, it is now public domain, and it the author is unknown. But if you check the field collections, the majority include the line "It was on that grade that he lost his AVERAGE" rather than "It was on that grade that he lost his AIR-BRAKES." In other words, most of the informants learned it from Vernon Dalhart's recording, not from oral tradition. Are those collections traditional?

Or if you look at Vance Randolph's Ozark collection, it includes a great many songs that just happen to have been released on 78s a year or two before Randolph collected them. For example, there are a couple of dozen songs in his collection ("Amber Tresses Tied in Blue" is the first one alphabetically) that appear to be straight from the Carter Family.

And what do you do about songs that someone learned from somebody else at a jam session somewhere?

Traditional? Ugh. It's hard to figure out, sometimes. I don't have answers. On the other hand, taking the example of Beatles songs, I generally would not consider them traditional. Many of them meet criterion #2 above. But they don't meet criterion #1; people learned them from Beatles records, not other people. Which is why we have criterion #1, even if it is hard to apply.

In the Ballad Index, I follow the rule "When in doubt, index." But the criterion I am trying to follow is #1.

Incidentally, if anyone wants insight into how wrong-headed Frank Gummere was, just consider his text of "The Gest of Robyn Hode" [Child 117]. (A piece that which is public domain, with an unknown author, though very likely was not traditional -- it may not even have been sung.) It's important to understand that Child had seven texts of this, all printed (probably as chapbooks). Child had three complete copies (b, f, and g), one substantial but incomplete copy (a), and three fragments (c, d, e). We have now recovered more pages of e, so it too constituted a substantial if incomplete copy. This lets us know that there are two families of texts: a was a very bad reprint of e, which was printed by Richard Pynson; and f was copied from b, which was printed by Wynken de Worde, and g was copied from f. Put another way, f is a corrupted copy of b, and g a corrupted copy of f.

When Gummere printed his text of the "Gest," it is clear that he mostly just copied Child's text; he did not edit from scratch. He made only a handful of changes. Almost all of these were based on g, a doubly-corrupted copy of b! One can argue for either the Pynson or the de Worde tradition (Child used mostly Pynson but sometimes followed de Worde; my own edition splits the difference), but since all other texts are printed from their two, one should never use any text except a, b, or e. Yet Gummere used g!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 08:19 AM

THE 1954 Definition is good enough for me, your diatribe doesnot convince me, so we will agree to disagree.
the idea that the, my old man said follw the van or good ship lollipop might be traditional because someone learned it from their next door neighbour in their garden does not convince me, good night

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 09:35 AM

Wow I've learned a lot from that! I think you should write a book if you have not already. I'll happily read it. I agree with everything I have read from your post, however, I'm going to copy and paste it so I can read it again when I'm not so busy and take in every point. Looks like I need to reconsider a couple of ideas. This to me is Mudcat at its best. Thanks for taking the time and trouble, that must have taken a while.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 05:39 PM

The idea that someone with no visible research into a subject can attack the works of those who have spent a lifetime studying an enormous amount of material and has the research there to prove it, is frankly laughable. Nick/Bob, you are trying to convince a block of wood.

The only thing I can add to Bob's excellent summary is something I have posted frequently on Facebook. Any musical genre (in fact most genres) are not finite. As you demonstrate, there are variable factors involved and the relationships between any genres can best be demonstrated by Venn diagrams.

The 1954 whatever it is, is not a definition, it is a list of descriptors, and any particular song being studied might only demonstrate a number of those descriptors. The many people from many countries who discussed those descriptors in 1954 were not all convinced of its usefulness. Maud was the instigator and the one who drew up the list. She initially had in there the 'anonymity clause' which was quite rightly thrown out in the following year.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 05:55 PM

Oops! haven't been here for a while. You probably realised it was me anyway.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 06:52 PM

Thanks for your help Steve, I was rather hoping you might have been following this discussion. I'm still digesting Robert's post. I can not pretend I have understood all of it, but I'm getting there. It's given me a lot to think about (While I'm doing woodwork as it happens! Rather more successfully than on this thread)

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 10 Oct 24 - 07:51 PM

Nick Dow wrote: I'm still digesting Robert's post.

Feel free to ask questions. It was big, I know, and written in haste. Lots of things I might have clarified had I thought of it.

For example, Gummere's "communal composition" isn't a method of songwriting; it's a Mad Lib.

It's worth noting that Gummere was the first generation after Child. His Old English ballads was from 1894. So, like Child himself, he had a lot less access to ballad scholarship than we do today. He hadn't seen Cecil Sharp's collecting, for instance, that showed that some ballads were still sung... and quite a few were not.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 03:25 AM

Steve Gardham,
To insult someone because they have a different point of view, does not strengthen anyones argument,
The point that learning a song by oral transmission, Means that it automatically becomes traditional is imo flawed, composed songs by lennon and mcartney do not become traditional, just because they have been orally transmitted in person., neither do composed music hall songs, they are composed music hall songs, neither do composed pop songs, they may be good songs but they are not traditional songs.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 03:34 AM

You wish me to accept a point of view, i find flawed ,because they are a SCHOLAR is laughable,Neither do i accept some of Lloyds scholarship and never have done.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 05:15 AM

Let's take an example here. A Laws Ballad. Pretty high traditional credibility, surely, right?

I'm thinking of Zeb Tourney's Girl [Laws E18]

There are at least nine different traditional collections.

Good traditional song, right?

Except... it was copyrighted in 1925 by Marjorie Lamkin and Maggie Andrews (=Carson J. Robison). It was recorded in 1926 by Vernon Dalhart. A stemmatic analysis affirms that most of the field collections were directly learned from the Dalhart recording.

So was the song traditional because Laws did not do enough research to discover the author?

We can offer several other examples from Dalhart recordings -- e.g. Floyd Collins [Laws G22] is by Andy Jenkins.

Can we de-traditionalize a song when the author is discovered? Are all "traditional" songs simply Schroedinger's Ballads?

I can't see how ignorance of collectors should affect the traditionality of a song in any way.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 06:31 AM

Dick, you are way out of your depth! Nobody has a problem with anyone expressing an opinion, but in the case of the internet, unless you know someone personally, or have followed their postings over a number of years, you can't tell the difference between someone who is simply blowing hot air and someone who has carried out numerous in-depth studies, unless of course you have done those in-depth studies yourself.
Nick may know who you are but I'm quite sure Bob doesn't. In persisting to argue against people who have spent a lifetime studying this you are beginning to show the same characteristics as another person we both know!

Here's a little tip. Go back up the thread to Joe's post 7th Oct, 4.13 and look at the bottom of the post. You will see three initials in bold type. Then choose any other song in the Digital Tradition and follow the same process. You will see the same 3 initials at the bottom of that post (and many thousands of other entries) Guess whose initials they are!

Oh, and just in case you haven't noticed, Nick is also a published writer on the history of folksong, and highly respected amongst other folksong researchers.

It would be helpful to casual readers here if after giving your opinion you add something like, 'BUT I haven't done any research on the matter.'

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 07:13 AM

and I certainly do not know as much as Steve or Robert. Hopefully I'll get some time to post properly tonight.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 08:21 AM

One other thought about communal composition. There is one instance that I can think of that sort of vaguely resembles that idea. That's the work of the Almanac Singers.

One observation is that most of what the Almanacs wrote was less than memorable. There is, to my mind, one exception. That one exception is "The Sinking of the Reuben James." As far as I know, it has never been collected in the field, but Ed Cray was of the opinion that it might become tradtional (based on the tune rather than the now-dated text).

But what is the history of Reuben James? It started with one writer (Woody, of course). He had a long text, no chorus, and the tune of "Wildwood Flower" (one of Woody's many borrowings from the Carter Family).

When he brought it to the other Almanacs, they were not impressed. It was too long (it listed the names of all the dead), and it didn't have a chorus for everyone to join. They told Woody that it had to change. They got him to chop down the lyric.

And the chorus? That's disputed. Some say Woody produced it, using a variant on the "Wildwood Flower" melody. Some say it was Pete Seeger's. Seeger at least once said it was Woody's. My personal guess, combining the statements and based on the skill sets involved, is that Woody wrote the words and kept the "Wildwood Flower" tune, and Seeger modified it to what we have today. But that's only a guess. In any case, Woody was involved.

Communal composition? Yes, in the sense that many hands were involved. But the basic tune was borrowed, and although the text was much argued about by the Almanacs, all (or nearly all) of the actual words are Woody's. The idea was Woody's. In a very real sense, Reuben James as we had it is just Woody's text put through a very high-speed folk process. The community was involved. But Woody mostly wrote it.

Then Fred Hellerman added a verse. Again, standard folk evolution.

I'd call the result a modified Woody song, not a communal composition. And yet, it's about as communal as a song gets!

Incidentally, one can see the process continuing even after the song was nominally finalized. The Almanacs were not an instrumentally strong group. (Yes, Pete Seeger had almost a savant skill with instruments, and one or two of the others were all right also, but a bunch of them were singers only.) The result is a recording which is mostly driven by the vocals. That's somewhat true of the Weavers recording, too. But... well, no one cares how I sing it :-), but I'm only one voice and I'm probably a better picker than anyone in the Almanacs except Seeger. So the way I sing Reuben James is a lot more driven by my 12-string guitar than my voice -- I give it almost enough "drive" to be a bluegrass song. I don't say it's better or worse; it's just that songs change form depending on context. And that is folk process, too!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 08:46 AM

Steve Gardham,
I am entitled to disagree, without being insulted.
I have not been convinced by Roberts arguments, you have not authority to tell me" I am out of my depth", you do not know how much reading, I have done on the subject of traditional song over the course of 50 years involvement.but it is considerable
".It would be helpful to casual readers here if after giving your opinion you add something like, 'BUT I haven't done any research on the matter."'
quote steve gardham
your comment is uninformed and inaccurate

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 10:03 AM

I'm trying my hardest not to be insulting, Dick, but many of your comments aimed at Bob are nothing else but downright insulting. It seems, like someone else we know, you can dish it out but you can't take it.
No matter how much reading you've done of out-of-date books it does not constitute personal research into the histories of the songs, which are the fortes of at least 3 people here. If you have any published work, articles, databases, books, etc., please point us to them.

BTW, I welcome your input just as much as I welcomed the input of your nemesis. If nothing else it provokes discussion, even if sometimes heatedly, of important topics like these.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 10:22 AM

If a collector had asked, I could have provided my own insignificantly varied version of "Reuben James," which I've been singing - mainly to myself - for sixty years.

Since I learned it from print, and no one has expressed any desire to learn it from me, I don't suppose we can call my version "traditional."

But suppose I'd learned it from a live performance, determined the correct lyrics from a book, and taught it to somebody else twenty years later with minor changes.

Would that make "Reuben James" "traditional" in any meaningful sense?
Obviously any song can be passed on by word of mouth. That's how I learned the first stanza of "The Old Folks at Home" from my grandmother. She thought it was called "Way Down Upon the Suwannee River" - the "folk" title.

That song had an author known to many but not all singers, is p.d., and was passed on to me orally.

Is "Suwannee River" now "traditional"? Yes or no, what does that tell us about either "The Old Folks at Home" or the nature or meaning of "tradition"? I'd say nothing really. The style of Foster's song isn't much like Guthrie's, which is indistinguishable (to me) from that of many anonymous (as well as some signed) American songs.

If we're grouping songs, I'd say style and form are at least as important as considerations of authorship and transmission - neither of which are intrinsic to the song itself.

Since not everyone can be canvassed, moreover, we'll never know even relatively the number of people who learned any "traditional" songs "orally."

I'm far from up to date on recent scholarship, so forgive me if the above thoughts have become irrelevant to current thinking about "folk songs."

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 10:24 AM

Traditional? Ugh. It's hard to figure out, sometimes. I don't have answers. On the other hand, taking the example of Beatles songs, I generally would not consider them traditional. Many of them meet criterion #2 above. But they don't meet criterion #1; people learned them from Beatles records, not other people. Which is why we have criterion #1, even if it is hard to apply.
quote Robert above
I do not consider them traditional, they are compositions for which royalties are being paid to Members of the Beatles, I would be interested to be a fly on the wall, when somebody went round to Maccas house and said that scholars say they are tradtional so you must pay the royalties back, legally they are lennon McCartney compositions, or Harrison OR occasionally Starkey. they are still not Trad, even if they have been learned by ear from a next door neighbour, it is not just that they have been learned off a recording,
that is the weakness of the following earlier quote
That leaves "Traditional," which is the one term which has a slightly fuzzy definition. There are two parts often cited:
1. Songs which have been handed down from person to person, usually orally That leaves "Traditional," which is the one term which has a slightly fuzzy definition. There are two parts often cited:
1. Songs which have been handed down from person to person, usually orally
2. Songs which people consider their own, so that they have the right to modify them
Note that having an unknown author is not part of either of these. which brings us to Music hall songs which have known composers, and which royalties are still being paid.
they may be good songs but[imo] they are not traditional, someone is collecting money for them, that is their legal entitlement

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 10:31 AM

my reading is not of out of date books,Iagree discussion is good, so please keep it polite,not insulting and not patronising
I do not need to have published data to prove what i have read, you have to take my word for it but since i have been intersted in trad song since 1966, it is unlikely i am making it up
to call me a block of wood is insulting..

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 10:37 AM

Dick I've just logged on for five minutes to have a brew re read Roberts last post to find that you are still making pejorative comments. You have now gained the attention you seemed to need, I am in full possession of your views thank you. Could you please do us the readers, the courtesy of telling us exactly what else you want? If it is merely to be objectionable then I for one will be ignoring your posts.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 10:59 AM

I am trying to discuss the definition of tradtional song, there is nothing pejortaive about saying quotehat is the weakness of the following earlier quote
That leaves "Traditional," which is the one term which has a slightly fuzzy definition. There are two parts often cited:
1. Songs which have been handed down from person to person, usually orally That leaves "Traditional," which is the one term which has a slightly fuzzy definition. There are two parts often cited:
1. Songs which have been handed down from person to person, usually orally
2. Songs which people consider their own, so that they have the right to modify them
Note that having an unknown author is not part of either of these. which brings us to Music hall songs which have known composers, and which royalties are still being paid.
they may be good songs but[imo] they are not traditional, someone is collecting money for them, that is their legal entitlement

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 11:23 AM

Lighter wrote: But suppose I'd learned it from a live performance, determined the correct lyrics from a book, and taught it to somebody else twenty years later with minor changes.

In my book, your version would not be traditional. The version of the person who learned it from you might well be, though. If they'd just absorbed it from you, rather than you saying, "Here, learn this!"

On another topic, an analogy might be useful here,

Around 1905, Albert Einstein published Special Relativity, Brownian Motion, and the Photoelectic Effect. All major advances (although most people think someone else would have developed Special Relativity within five years if Einstein hadn't). In 1916, Einstein published General Relativity, and that was really, truly, and totally new.

In 1927, Werner Heisenberg announced the Uncertainty Principle, and Einstein couldn't take it. He tried so hard to prove it wrong that he fudged his math, then ceased to be a physicist and became an actor pretending to be a physicist. You can argue that he did good in that period (although it was also the period when he was hitting on his second wife's daughter while apparently abandoning his own daughter) -- but he wasn't a physicist, except in his own mind. He couldn't follow the field, because he no longer accepted what was happening.

Of course one can ignore new discoveries in any field. But one can't do it and still contribute to the field. It has moved on. I doubt any of us is an Einstein, but we can still learn from his mistake.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 11:32 AM

Lighter wrote: But suppose I'd learned it from a live performance, determined the correct lyrics from a book, and taught it to somebody else twenty years later with minor changes.

In my book, your version would not be traditional. The version of the person who learned it from you might well be, though. If they'd just absorbed it from you, rather than you saying, "Here, learn this!"
above quote from Robert
Robert
I understand your point about oral transmission, and agree up to a point, dependent upon whether the song was traditional in the first place

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 11:36 AM

ON the other hand it could be that the person who learned the song by a book was not a traditional singer but was still singing a traditional song.
Lighter would not have been a traditional singer because of the way he learned the song, but the song was still a traditional song, when it was learned by oral transmission

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 11:54 AM

alternatively, the song remains a traditional song regardless of whether the singer is a traditional singer., and has learned it by oral transmission

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 03:33 PM

We are moving into unexplored jungle here. Dick seems incapable of accepting that Music Hall pieces can become traditional, i.e., be passed on in oral tradition. In that case what is the difference between a broadside ballad like The Bonny Bunch of Roses and a Music Hall song like Jim the Carter Lad? The latter was long considered traditional and in the repertoires of many source singers, and still is to most of us. We know who wrote 'The Bonny Bunch of Roses' and he did it for commercial reasons, even if he only got a shilling for it.
Dick, you state that Music Hall songs are copyrighted. They were originally, but for the vast majority of the pre 1900 ones that were, the copyright has now expired and I know of no instance where a claim has been made by PRS on anyone singing a pre-1900 Music Hall song. The current expert on this is John Baxter. He'll be along shortly.

The simplest and least controversial way to approach this is to take the Venn diagram approach and allow for overlaps between genres, i.e., why can't a song be traditional and part of the Music Hall genre? That does not mean all Music Hall songs are folk songs, only those collected from oral traditon.

As for Jon's example, I can furnish you with numerous examples from my own family. My grandparents, my mother and some of my uncles all sang several traditional songs. However, even though I sing some of them and have done for 60 years, I did not learn them by osmosis. I was lucky enough to be able to record them in the 60s after becoming part of the folk scene. I am happy to accept that in some parts of America these boundaries are much more blurred as attested by some of the examples given above.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 03:34 PM

Unless one is simply sorting songs into bins, I don't don't find the question "Is it traditional?" to be very interesting - particularly if "traditional" is in the surprisingly fuzzy technical sense (once) favored by folklorist.

If Y learns song A orally from X, and that song in Y's version is ipso facto "traditional," those facts tell us nothing about the nature of the song itself. They only tell us that somebody once learned the song and perhaps made minor textual and melodic changes later.

Nor does whether it has a known (to whom?) author or whether it's now in the public domain.

The song's the thing, not the abstract slots it can be fit into.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 03:45 PM

Some of us have been trying to sort songs into bins for a long time, Jon. If we don't it makes our study arenas far too wieldy. For instance some might say my 750-item database of 'Earliest versions' is far too small and restricted, but there were good reasons for making it that size and I can easily justify it. if I'd tried to include everything in the DT or Roud Index I'd be pushing up daisies before it got finished.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 03:57 PM

Steve Gardham wrote: if I'd tried to include everything in the DT or Roud Index I'd be pushing up daisies before it got finished.

And, as a secondary problem, it's effectively impossible to keep track of all that stuff. The single largest component of my correspondence with Steve Roud is places where I've noticed that two songs should be combined under one number. Tracking everything that has ever been published as a traditional folk song is something only an extreme savant could remember (and an extreme savant would probably have trouble identifying them, because of the limits of savant-hood).

Like Steve Roud, I try to include everything, but I don't obsess about finding every fact about every song. Instead, I tend to try to find what is easily found -- and pick a handful of songs for deep analysis. That's not the same as what Steve Gardham is doing with his Earliest Dates (he's chasing versions; I'm chasing background information), but in both cases, it's making a near-infinite task finite.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 04:07 PM

I'd add one other thought here, on the value of tradition. There is no question, at this point, that I like pedantically nitpicky research because I'm a pedentically nitpicky person. :-p

But why did I choose to be pedantically nitpicky about traditional songs (and textual criticism, and other specific areas), as opposed to the other autistics whose special interests are dinosaurs or Star Wars or models of refrigerator compressors? Because traditional songs tell us something. The earliest ones give us a certain insight into the way non-gentry people thought at a time when only the upper classes could write down their feelings.

Newer traditional songs aren't out only insight into the feelings of the common people, but they are still a source of insight. If there are two songs that participating soldiers wrote about (say) the Battle of the Bulge, and one goes into tradition and the other doesn't, that presumably says something about the traditional song and the story it told. What? That doubtless depends on the song and many other things. But the mere fact that it has become traditional is a piece of information that I did not otherwise have about the song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 04:57 PM

Songs are for singing.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 05:10 PM

Nobody here would dispute that, Dick. We are all singers and enjoy that part of what we do, but you wouldn't be here talking to us if you weren't also interested in the history behind the songs.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 05:21 PM

If the songs are not sung they become museum items, rather like dead butterflies
I have spent 50 years plus, earning my living singing these songs,    the songs have to be suhg when they are not sung but only studied by scholars they are dead and their categories matter little
A LlOYD understood this., and will be remembered for his overall contribution to the uk folk revival despite his scholastic errors.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 06:29 PM

This thread has moved on considerably since I last posted and most of the questions I had have been answered. That said my quote on yesterdays post referring to Communal re composition, was from memory and incorrect. I should have said communal re creation and credited Phillips Barry. Yes Robert it was more than a few years ago. However it provoked your interesting reply covering the myth of communal composition, which was excellent.
The lightbulb moment for me was Steve's post that suggested that' Any musical genre (in fact most genres) are not finite. As you demonstrate, there are variable factors involved and the relationships between any genres can best be demonstrated by Venn diagrams.'
That's OK if you are familiar with Venn diagrams which I was not. So I
found out and all became plain to me so many thanks Steve (again!)
I have drawn the conclusion from reading this thread, that the term traditional is as controversial as the 1958 folk song definition (or list of descriptors) and the term is used as much outside the the arts as within:- Family traditions, Civic traditions Royal traditions, etc. When we are attempting to use the term in respect of Folk music it is too general to be any useful definition. A Tweedle dum Tweedle dee argument of what is in or out of the tradition is doomed to failure but no doubt will use a river of ink from now to eternity.
I have spent half my life messing about with Gypsy Wagons, for local people and numerous celebrities. I had to work on a wagon for an international Rock Star from one of the world's biggest bands who was also a Gypsy. He wanted a traditional Gypsy living wagon. I had to decide between renovation restoration, or invention, but most of all stay within the tradition. The original I offered him was made up an old lane in 1945 with a selection of hand saws, a hammer and a box of nails. There was not a single screw in it. The front board was rotten. I rebuilt it using power tools and screws and foreign timber. It looked identical to the original and I gilded it in 23.5 carat gold also foreign in origin. Was it traditional? Yes. Was it original about 75%. Was it a restoration or a renovation? It was both to the same percentage. The parallels to folk song are obvious. We hear of the singer who grabbed Sharp by the lapels with tears in her eyes after singing an old song saying 'Isn't it beautiful! The first thing the afore mentioned Rock star said to me as he sat in his wagon looking at the glass cabinet I had repainted was 'I can put my mothers china in here'. Neither artist was bothered about a definition. Traditional songs tell us something quotes Robert quite correctly with this thread most of us have been listening to the songs and to each other and I would like to think we have come away wiser. I know I have.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 11 Oct 24 - 06:53 PM

Nick Dow's story of the Gypsy Wagon inevitably reminds me of the story of what Wikipedia calls the Ship of Theseus, but which I know as a story above axes (as retold by Terry Pratchett, among others).

The King of the Dwarves had as his symbol of authority an axe. After years of use, the handle wore out and was replaced. Later, the blade wore out and was replaced. Then the handle wore out again and was replaced. And then the blade was replaced. And so on. But it was still the Dwarf King's Axe. Because it was.

As long as there is continuous variation, something is, at least arguably, the same, even if the beginning and ending states are completely different. A lesson for students of folklore.

Wikipedia version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus.

Wikipedia traces it to Plutarch, who is responsible indirectly for a lot of folklore, because he inspired so many Shakespearean distortions. :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 02:23 AM

the original poster was inspired to sing a song quote below
Can any great benefactor of the human race give me the lyrics in full, or direct me to them? I'd be eternally grateful.
he was concerned about singing the song, not whether he was a traditionl singer. THAT IS HOW IT SHOULD BE
Lloyd was interested in singing songs.lLOYD needs to be viewed for his overall contributions to the uk folk revival, I feel indebted to him despite his sometimes faulty scholarship.
Traditional songs tell us something, quote Robert
so do all good songs whatever their genre, but not all tradtional songs are good, but generally speaking the best ones have survived,and the worst ones are gathering dust and only being viewed by scholars

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Joe Offer
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 03:13 AM

I'm keeping an eye on this. Please keep it civil, folks.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 05:02 AM

I think the serious discussion is coming to an end Joe. I hope you'll agree that the majority of the posts have been of a high standard. They have certainly helped me.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 08:53 AM

Hi, Steve. "Some of us have been trying to sort songs into bins for a long time...If we don't it makes our study arenas far too wieldy."

True, but don't we wind up studying the songs we like, based on their subjective appeal? "Trad" or "non-trad" is secondary.

I think of all the really tuneless, inept trad songs that have been collected. Nobody would be likely to study them (as opposed to indexing them, which is obviously valuable) just because they are or appear to be "traditional" according to one or another extraneous definition. A song is, as they say, what it is, and as Popeye might say, "that's all what it is." Or virtually all, if one also seeks inter-song connections.

If, for example, I were to study "The Reuben James," I imagine I'd describe the historical incident in satisfying but not excessive detail, do the same for Guthrie's life and his service in the Merchant Marine, mention "Wildwood Flower" and the Carter family, look at songs on similar events, examine the song's diction and patriotic theme, how it compares to pop songs of the period, its history on vinyl, and anything else I find interesting.

The point is, that's exactly what I'd do regardless or whether "RJ" (or "SW") is deemed "trad" or "non-trad" by me or anyone else. (It's pretty much what I did for the "Johnny" songs.) The labels, while not exactly meaningless, fade nearly into irrelevance.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 09:20 AM

Based on an analysis of Lloyds scholarship, I would suggest that all scholarship needs to be treated, not as Gospel, but there to be carefully studied, before believing hook line and sinker, to accept any scholarship without challenging it is Naive.
I long ago rejected some of Lloyds statements.
So when somebody stats that Lloyd was lies, It might be fairer and more accurate to add some of his statements are fabricated , and perhaps suggest why, at that time he might have done so, and that he did not do it for financial gain, and then actually give examples of his errors, good scholarship involves giving examples of his errors and mistakes.,AND POINTS OUT TO NON SCHOLARS HIS SCHOLASTIC WEAKNESS

With Music there will be crossovers between genres, something I have been aware of since the mid sixties "bluegrass" is an example, AUDIENCES still need to know what they are going to listen to, if i see something described as New Orleans Jazz, and am looking forward to it,I dont want to suddenly be presented with an evening of some other genre..I will be disappointed even if it is a genre i like
if i am expecting an evening of Traditional unaccompanied ballads and this is what i have paid, for I would be perplexed if i am presented with Cosmotheka or Mr Gladstones bag
So categorisation is necessary to some small extent.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 09:30 AM

The Cutty Wren

This song is traditionally thought to date back to the 1300s and have been sung by participants of the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381. Worth noting that wikipedia and academia are both are keen to point out that there is no evidence of this, but people in the trad folk tradition are equally quick to point out in return that academics historically often have little idea about the oral tradition.

In A.L.Lloyd’s excellent Folk Song In England he states:

    (The song) is often thought of as an amiable nursery piece yet when it was recorded from an old shepherd of Adderbury West, near Banbury, he banged the floor with his stick on the accented notes and stamped violently at the end of the verses, saying that to stamp was the right way and reminded of old times.

    What memories of ancient defiance are preserved in this kind of performance it would be hard to say , but we do know that the wren-hunting song was attached to pagan midwinter ritual of the kind that the Church and authority fulminated vainly against- particularly in the rebellious perdio at the end of the Middle Ages when adherence to the forms of the Old Religion was taken to be evidence of subversion, and its partisans were violently persectuted in consequence.

In the sleeve notes of an Ian Campbell Folk Group record, A.L. Lloyd had this further explanation:

    Some of the most ancient, most enduring and at the same time most mysterious English folk songs are those concerned with the attributes and sacrifice of monstrous animals. At the end of the 14th century, when peasant rebellion was in the air, the old magical song of the gigantically powerful bird (presented by a kind of folklore irony as a tiny wren) took on a tinge of new meaning. For here was the story of a great fowl so hard to seize, so difficult to dismember but so apt for sharing among the poor; and what did that suggest but a symbol of seignorial property?
Steve and Robert, what have you to say about Lloyds scholastic musings on these occasions, or is there another connection with Wren Hunting in Ireland? these are questions not statements

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 09:37 AM

There Appears to be differnces of opinion on the subject of scholarship

Originality is the essence of true scholarship. Creativity is the soul of the true scholar.

Nnamdi Azikiwe

Would that be an accurate description of A l LlOYD?

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 01:07 PM

As Nick Dow said, at this point, the valuable part of the thread is probably done, but something Lighter wrote might be worth a minor comment: True, but don't we wind up studying the songs we like, based on their subjective appeal? "Trad" or "non-trad" is secondary.

I personally find it a lot more complicated than that. First, the fact that a song became traditional means that somebody liked it enough to remember it. Yes, any particular collection may have become zersungen, and a lot of the tunes have been damaged by being collected from people who could no longer sing any more! And if a song is only collected once or twice, it might be traditional because it appealed to some weirdo. :-) But if a song is widespread in tradition, it's a strong indication that it appealed to people somehow, and that there is probably a good version somewhere, even if the one you're hearing isn't it.

And what is a good song? One that sounds good? It's more than that. To me, the value of a song rises dramatically by reason of being traditional. For reasons I outlined earlier: The traditional songs that go back a long way have historical interest; even the recent ones have psychological interest.

I agree that simply being traditional is not a sufficient reason to sing a song, except perhaps in a very academic context. I very much like the tune I know for "The Wee Cooper of Fife," but I won't sing it because I don't like the words. We already mentioned "Mary Phagan"; I won't sing that because it's a lie. So being a traditional song is not a sufficient reason to sing a song.

But neither is being a "good song" -- or perhaps we should say an "enjoyable song" (something that surely applies to many Beatles songs, e.g.) -- is not a sufficient reason either.

I won't pretend that I have a precise algorithm to determine what songs to sing (although the idea is interesting... :-p ). But being a good song is a necessary but not sufficient condition, and being traditional (my definition of traditional) also comes very close to being a necessary condition for me -- my active repertoire is something like 90% traditional.

Obviously others' mileage varies, or we wouldn't have a songwriting industry!

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 01:19 PM

if Lloyd is being criticised, it is important to qualify your crticism with examples, it would improve all our knowledge
Lloyd is not here to defend himself, it is only fair to everyone to give examples of weak scholarship

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 01:28 PM

Thanks Robert, With your permission I am going to copy your posts for myself and keep them for future reference. If I quote from them I will let you know in advance.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 02:10 PM

the valuable part of the thread is not done,it is of value to everyone that you qualify and give examples of Lloyds weak scholarship, then we will not have been "misled" by Lloyd

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Oct 24 - 04:47 PM

I think if by "creativity" Azikiwe meant "fudging and faking," he'd have said so.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 09:02 AM

There are whole books on Bert's creativity/scholarship, Dick, and currently the person we all know who is working on the many examples is Brian Peters. I can give you examples from my own experience but I'd only be repeating what I've previously put on Mudcat. Have a look back through the threads on Bert and you'll find plenty of examples.

By the way, Dick, and this is not being patronising, there are 2 really useful posts you have put up recently which I don't think anyone would argue with.

Once again, and we must have said this a thousand times, all of us have enormous respect for what Bert and Ewan contributed. We just wish they hadn't confused their scholarship so much with their creativity. For a long time Bert was seen on the folk scene as one of the top scholars when it came to the history of the songs so it's only right that today's scholars correct any 'creativity' when it clashes with the facts.

Once again, everyone who has contributed here is as much a singer and lover of the music as you are. It is possible to sing and study though perhaps not at the same time.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 09:41 AM

it is up to you and Robert[mho suggested his articles were lies] to correct his so called "creativity", you are the "scholars" that have criticised Lloyds works.
MacColl has not been mentioned, until you mentioned him in your last post.
Until you or Nick Dow or Robert produce examples of Lloyds fake scholarship, your allegations are unproven.
It is only fair to everyone that one of the three of you do this, since it was you three that made UNQUALIFIED CRITICISM then people will not be misled when reading his work
Good scholarship involves the person making the criticisms to qualify them.
It is your duty as a responsible scholar to give examples from your own experience.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 09:43 AM

"Once again, everyone who has contributed here is as much a singer and lover of the music as you are. It is possible to sing and study though perhaps not at the same time. "quote Steve Gardham

whether people are singers or lovers of musIc is irrelevant.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 02:26 PM

For a long time Bert was seen on the folk scene as one of the top scholars when it came to the history of the songs so it's only right that today's scholars correct any 'creativity' when it clashes with the facts.
quote,Steve Gardham
Then do so,

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 02:31 PM

There's thread drift and thread drift, but this particular one takes the biscuit. Very little has actually been said about the song that is the supposed subject of this thread. I haven't counted, but it's only half a dozen or so posts.

(GUEST         08 Oct 24 - 04:48 AM) was me, my cookie having evaporated without my noticing. In response to that Robert said "To shear 200 was within the realm of possibility, but I don't think a native Australian would have been likely to claim that. I think that's Bert Lloyd being Bert Lloyd.". Whether that particular bit was introduced by Bert or was there before is not important: the whole song is a tall tale, not expected to be regarded as a true one.

Dick said "Until you or Nick Dow or Robert produce examples of Lloyds fake scholarship, your allegations are unproven." Plenty of examples have been well documented elsewhere and I see no need for this thread to be bloated by repeating them here.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: Nick Dow
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 03:05 PM

Thank you, Richard. You are right about thread drift, but the subject is so wide that Lloyd's scholarship cannot be covered in isolation. It always helps if the contributor knows what he is posting about, not always the case on this thread. I think enough has been said now and bloating is not warranted as you pointed out. It has been very useful and has introduced me to Robert's research, and increased my book collection (again!). I for one will not be engaging in any more arguing here.

Subject: RE: Origins: Billy Brink / Bluey Brink
From: The Sandman
Date: 13 Oct 24 - 05:03 PM

The thread drift was not started by me.
I did not raise the subject of Lloyd and scholarship.
Good scholarship involves backing up ones points with evidence.

---

It drifted too far, so I moved some messages from "Billy Brink." See Pamphlet: The Singing Englishman (A.L. Lloyd). -Joe Offer-