Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers

Subject: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 09:48 AM

Hi folks - I started presenting a show on Celtic Music Radio a few weeks back. It should be of interest to some of you on here; I do much of my research here!

I'll say right away that the definition of the shows' name is mine and mine alone.....it pretty much follows the Balladeers.com site as a template but I open the borders to like minded refugees if and when I chose.

I'm on every Tuesday at 2pm UK time and also online.
http://www.celticmusicradio.net/

The Facebook Page is at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/159810597863334/

If anyone is free during the live broadcast, please pop in and say hi on the FB. It's also on the catch up link (same site as above)for 4 weeks after broadcast.

Previous playlists are on this page.
https://www.facebook.com/celticmusicradioplaylist/

Gavin Paterson

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 10:32 AM

celtic music- does it really exist in the first place?

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 10:57 AM

celtic music- does it really exist in the first place?

That's the quickest thread creep I've ever seen.....
It exists now and the gods have seen fit to bestow a radio station upon it.

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: GUEST,CJB
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 11:07 AM

It pertains as a commercially valuable marketing concept, and therefore folks / folkies / even researchers believe that it represents a real genre of music and song (maybe even dance) that has its origins in prehistory. Quite how this can be actually proved is a moot point. But then if it helps to promote a long lost and forgotten culture (one that was never documented because it never actually existed), and if it makes money, then why not? The 'Invention of Tradition,' aka Hobsbawn, strikes again, and again, and ...

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 11:19 AM

Here was me thinking it would be the definition of a ballad that would stir up bother.

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 12:33 PM

"celtic music- does it really exist in the first place? "
There was a claim some time ago by serious commentators, the the Celts were a figment of a romantic imagination - seems to have disappeared
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: meself
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 01:06 PM

Well, you have to admit that 'Celtic music' is a little more succinct a term than 'Irish, Scottish, English and Other Possibly-Related Folkish Traditionalish Music Until Thirty Years Ago Played Solely With Acoustic Instruments But Now Played Electric Too'.

Without studying his playlists, I'm willing to wager that Gavin is providing some air-time to at least a few deserving artists who are not getting much of it anywhere else, so - I don't care what he calls his show; more power to him (and it)!

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Apr 17 - 01:19 PM

I don't think Gavin has any choice in naming the radio station so shall we concentrate on what looks like a very worthwhile project, 'Ballads & Balladeers'. Can you please tell us what your thrust is and which aspects of the 2 subjects interest you? Though there are no Celtic Child Ballads I presume these will still be a major part of what you will be looking at.

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: GUEST,Julia L
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 01:16 PM

"no Celtic Child Ballads?" really?

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 02:00 PM

What would you regard as a Celtic Child Ballad, Julia?

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: meself
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 02:48 PM

Ballads about Celtic children, obviously!

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 04:15 PM

"Though there are no Celtic Child Ballads"
Weeeeelllll !!
A bit more complicated than that Steve
There are probably no Child ballads that originated in Ireland, but as we don't know where most of them originated, even that is questionable
Ireland has retained Child ballads as well as anywhere else in the English-speaking world - fifty still being recorded from field singers into the eighties, including gems like 'The Maid and the Palmer' and 'Young Hunting'.
There are four in the Irish language which have been claimed as versions of Child Ballads, though it may only be cases of shared motifs
Is this, they could count as Celtic ballads.
The Irish language tradition is complicated as they tend not to have narrative songs, but are sung fragments of narrative tales.
Ireland had a superb tradition of narrative tales with many characteristics in common with the ballads -it also has a recent history of song making, far stronger than those in the rest of these islands
Unfortunately, if doesn't have a strong history of published song scholarship, so to say in has no ballads is, to say the least, premature
Sorry to bring this up again Steve, but claims that we know everything about our song tradition is also somewhat premature   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 05:07 PM

'claims that we know everything about our song tradition is also somewhat premature.' ????

So, the same question to you, Jim, what would you regard as a Celtic Child Ballad?

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 07:09 PM

"Jim, what would you regard as a Celtic Child Ballad?"
I am very suspicious of the term 'Celtic' anyway Steve, but the Irish

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Apr 17 - 07:44 PM

"Jim, what would you regard as a Celtic Child Ballad?"
I am very suspicious of the overused term 'Celtic' Steve but I assume we are including Irish in this.
One of the songs in Irish is claimed to be a version of the Two Sisters' - I have my doubts as it is too distinct thoough it is very old - one sister from the ballad a mother with a young child and the other is a wet-nurse who drowns the first by tying her hair to a rock on the seashore, takes the baby and eventually marries the husband.
is it a version, as is claimed, is it an offshoot or is it an earlier version?
I don't know, and unless you can positively identify The Two Sisters, neither do you.
Lord Randal, The Cruel Mother and Oor Goodman present us with the same questions - all distinctly Irish in their form
You have the same problem with French, Portugese, Spanish and some Eastern European Countries with ballad Traditions - all referred to by Child and all with claims to Celticism
I don't know enough about any of these traditions, but I believe it is a little hasty to say there are no Child Ballads from any of them
When you're dealing with international ballads you are faced with a chicken and egg situation.
You are faced with the same problem with Ballads that should have been in Child, Bramble Briar being one.
A song in Ballad form that appears not to be too old, but has turned up in other forms at least as far back as Boccaccio
Get up and Bar the Door turns up from ancient India as a cante-fable
Keach in the Creel was a fableaux as far back as the Italian renaissance, Lord Randal from 16th century Verona....
I'm not sure, but a conversation we had with an Irish singer who gave us a part small fragment of a song makes me wonder whether 'The Wedding of Sir Gawain' wasn't doing the rounds in west Clare in a completely different form a century or so ago.
I know some of these have no claim to be 'Celtic' but the fact that they have been doing the sounds for as long as they have raises questions about their origins
I challenged your somewhat definitive statement on the same basis as I challenged you claim about the broadsides
We simply don't know, abd once we start sayig we do we stop looking for answers.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 02:59 PM

As you are probably aware, Jim, I asked that question as a challenge more than a statement and we seem to be quite close to agreement anyway. >>>I am very suspicious of the overused term 'Celtic'<<<.
Me too, but it appears to be mostly overused in Scotland rather than Ireland and the OP was talking about its use in Scotland. A large proportion of Child Ballads have some sort of equivalent in other languages, not that many though that are direct translations ballad to ballad. Most of Child's headnotes refer to items that tell the same story or have a similar motif. Those that are direct translations are exactly that, translated by the likes of Jamieson from the Danish into Scots.

You say yourself 'in a completely different form'. In my book if any of these are in a completely different form then they can't be a Child Ballad, they are simply a relative of the story.

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 03:15 PM

"but it appears to be mostly overused in Scotland"
By American visitors over here
!In my book if any of these are in a completely different form then they can't be a Child Ballad,"
Can't really accept this Steve - these seem to have similarities that indicate they are from a common source
Just because Child missed them didn't mean he wouldn't have included them
When Bronson added the extra versions, they continued to be regarded as Child Ballads
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 04:26 PM

Jim,
I think you misread me again. By completely different form I am referring to a) just tells the same story in a different way, or b) has no text in common with the other versions. I'm well aware of many Irish versions of Child Ballads as you have stated. These all have some links that can be related textually to other versions in the English language. Whatever their evolution these are undoubtedly Child Ballads although how the word Celtic can be applied I'd be interested to hear. Child's original title somewhat gives the game away 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'. The fact that they form a strange mixture of odds and sods is not really relevant as all of us, academics and singers alike, refer to his collation as Child Ballads.

The fact that 'Bramble Briar' wasn't included and pieces like 'Jon Blunt' and 'Keach i' the Creel' were is arbitrary. I think he included many of them as examples. There are hundreds of ballads from the 17th century he chose not to include which have come down to us in oral tradition and yet he included many broadside ballads that have no evidence whatsoever of oral tradition. It's just one man's selection, a bloody good one as it happens, but still one man's selection.

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 26 Apr 17 - 08:00 PM

Hi folks - The title Ballads & Balladeers just reads better than Folk Songs and Folk Singers. In general, I'm pretty much in line with the content of The Balladeers website.
http://theballadeers.com/

From Scotland anything from, say, Hall & MacGregor onwards and from Ireland, the Clancy/Makem/Dubs and all that followed.

I'm not sticking to any strict definitions - if it fits, it's in. I'm avoiding instrumental music, singer/songwriters and Americana. There will obviously be exceptions but them's is my guidelines.

Around half of the stuff I play each week is not available digitally. It's from my own vinyl collection and from stuff that kind souls have sent in (Tich Frier sent me The Bitter Withy album, Adam Amos sent an Amos & Rocks album and Jim McLean has provided tracks and background information that is unique to him.)

I try to play songs that link (The Dubs Seven Drunken Nights then Professor Longhair doing his version called Cabbage Head which he got when working in minstrel shows by way of example).

If any of this sounds like your thing, give the show a listen. The last four weeks are always on catch up and can be right-click downloaded as podcasts.

Gavin Paterson

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 02:57 AM

Steve
As you know, Child ballads were not written by Child - they were not written by Child; they were a collection of all the ballads he could lay hands on at the time which he identified as 'ballads'.
It was not a finished work and was never considered as definitive - it is merely an invaluable guide to our understanding of the phenomenon.
The fact that we already have a number of ballads identified as 'ballads not in Child' ar an indication that we are still dealing with a 'work in progress'.
Four songs in Irish have been claimed as having enough similarities to be associated with four Child ballads - not having examined them closely, I am not prepared to accept a statement that 'there are no Celtic Child Ballads'
They do have similarities, which might make them versions of existing ballads - or it might make them 'supplementary versions' - or it might make them ballads on similar themes, as can be found say in the riddle ballads.
I honestly don't know, and I haven't the Irish to do the math.
It's a habit of mine to bristle at definitive statements when it comes to a 'work in progress' - whether it's ballads or origins of folk songs.
Sorry
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 03:05 AM

Sorry Steve
I meant to add, as we are ignorant of the origins of virtually all the ballads, we have no idea if there are any which might have originated in one of the 'Celtic' areas.
By the way, Child was aware of the Irish connection to the ballads.
I seem to remember reading somewhere (in relation to The Demon Lover?) that 'Ireland might provide more information on this ballad' - Frank Brown's version is an indication that he was right.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 01:58 PM

>>>It was not a finished work and was never considered as definitive - it is merely an invaluable guide to our understanding of the phenomenon.<<< I can agree with what you say about Child's intentions but unfortunately for most of the 20th century many have treated it as a definitive work, particularly across the pond. Up until the 50s just about every American anthology of folk songs starts out with a section of Child Ballads including some pretty tentative connections (relegating other British ballads and native ballads to later sections)

>>>'ballads not in Child'<<< I occasionally see the odd ballad suggested by enthusiasts but I haven't recently seen much academic interest in this.

Just for you, Jim, I'll moderate my statement: 'There are no extant Celtic Child Ballads'. How's that?

Gavin, Good luck with your project and apologies for hogging your thread.

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 03:22 PM

"but unfortunately for most of the 20th century many have treated it as a definitive work, particularly across the pond"
Yet the best of scholarship has come from across the pond, starting with Child
"I occasionally see the odd ballad suggested by enthusiasts but I haven't recently seen much academic interest in this."
My point exactly
As far back as the 1950s, Ewan and Bert issued a whole album of ballads not included in Child - the term "ballad" refers to a specific type of song, not the collection of one scholar.
long Irish ballads like 'Farmer Michael Hayes' never made it into Child, but they use the ballad form.
"'There are no extant Celtic Child Ballads'"
Has Joe Heaney been dead that long?
He sang an Irish language of Child 74 and I'm pretty sure Hugh Shields included one in his one of his anthologies.
"Extant" is a peculiar word - most of the Child ballads are no longer to be found in the tradition and we still haven't got to the bottom of the Travellers repertoire.
"Good luck"
Me too Gavin - but ballad nerds will be nerds.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Celtic Music Radio, Ballads & Balladeers
From: Gavin Paterson
Date: 27 Apr 17 - 03:55 PM

Oh I'm very happy to read and learn. I just like good songs, no matter where they come from. It's what I loved on my first introduction to folk music. All these great songs that I'd never heard before.

And to get back on point, feel free to listen in, catch up or download. I'm very happy to get into discussion about anything I play on the auld facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/159810597863334/