Bertsongs? (songs of A. L. 'Bert' Lloyd)

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,The Mole Catcher's unplugged Apprentice
Date: 12 May 08 - 05:58 PM

"I'm sincerely hoping, Charlotte, that you were being as sarcastic as I. "

nope...but there again I'm not really that concerned about what Lloyd wrote and what he didn't write, I'll perform the songs regardless.

Charlotte R

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 12 May 08 - 07:19 PM

Nerd said:
When Dave Arthur's book on Lloyd finally comes out, we MAY have a better idea of how many songs from the revival have been substantially altered by Lloyd, but even in that work it isn't likely Dave will have had a chance to do all that much song-sleuthing.

Les asked:
When is Dave's book expected?

The book is due to be launched at the Tribute to Bert day at Cecil Sharp House on 15 November. The book is being published by the EFDSS.
Incidentally, I have enjoyed the debate as it's unfurled here... lots of food for thought. And ... i have alerted Dave Arthur to the thread ...
Derek Schofield

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 12 May 08 - 08:22 PM

The refreshed "Paddy and the Whale" thread now shows how Lloyd altered that song from a simple tale of an Irishman accidentally swallowed on his way to England into a comic whaling epic set in Antarctic waters.

He may also have added the tune. My very old notes do not indicate whether Greenleaf & Mansfield provided one when they printed the only known traditional text in 1933.

As far as I can see, the Bodleian has no broadside version of the song, though an Irishman does get swallowed up near Greenland in this otherwise unrelated ballad:

http://bodley24.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/acwwweng/ballads/image.pl?ref=Harding+B+11(4100)&id=05035.gif&seq=1&size=0

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,doc.tom
Date: 13 May 08 - 01:41 AM

Yes, Lighter, they did. Collected from Thomas Edison (!!) - 1929 - but it's not the tune Bert used.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Sep 09 - 02:53 PM

What a long thread. But nowhere within it can I find [or if it's there I missed it] the fact recorded that a version of 'Four-Loom Weaver', aka 'Poor Cotton Weaver' (one of the songs named by OP in first entry, and about which argument occurs above as to whether it was more the work of Bert or Ewan) is reproduced in a very full version, extremely close to the one Bert sang on 'The Iron Muse', under title 'The Oldham Weaver', in Chapter IV of Elizabeth Gaskell's 'Mary Barton, a Tale of Manchester Life' [*1848*].

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 10:07 AM

I haven't the time to look through the messages again, but I'm sure the 'Mary Barton' reference has been mentioned at some point on this thread or another one. It's widely recognized that the text of 'Four Loom Weaver' is drawn from one of the Jone O'Grinfilt (spell it how you like!) broadside ballads of the 19th century. The mystery surrounding it relates to its 'collection' by MacColl from Beckett Whitehead of Delph. Was it actually part of Mr. Whitehead's apparently small repertoire of songs, and from where did it acquire that mighty tune?

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Santa
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 04:14 PM

The question I have is whether the "Mary Barton" version reflects the politics claimed to have been reversed/inserted by Bert Lloyd?

To clarify an earlier point, what Martin Simpson said about "Peggy and the Soldier" is in the text of his Kind Letters CD.

"....appears in one form only in the EFDSS Journal. Carthy took it and married it to the tune "Lord Ellenwater". This required him to alter the scansion of the verses. He then asked Bert Lloyd for any verses he might know which miraculously duly appeared, fitting the scansion of "Lord Ellenwater", suggesting that Bert had probably written them himself. Martin also recalls writing the odd verse. Ah, the folk process."

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 06:17 PM

Santa - having checked Mary Barton and the Jone O'Grinfield broadside, I think we can say Bert's off the hook with regard to this one. The "fight with blood up to th'een" line is in the broadside, I think (the printing gets very smudgy at just that point). The relevant verse is also in Mrs Gaskell's version, although she seems not to have liked the idea of a weaver's wife talking about fighting the power - rather than "fight till she was in blood up to her eyes", she has the woman saying she'd sew up her own mouth and eyes.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 11:15 PM

Mrs Gaskell presumably heard the song from one of her husband's Nonconformist congregation, whom she befriended on their having, to her initial distaste, to move northwards to heavily-industrialised Manchester [the subject of some obviously autobiographically-derived incidents in her later novel North&South], subsequently interpolating it into Mary Barton where it fits well thematically. Obviously she gives no tune, but she describes one - 'a kind of droning recitative, depending much on expression & feeling'. This description fits MacColl's Jon o Grinfilt's 4-Loom Weaver version much more, in fact, than Bert's Poor Cotton Weaver on Iron Muse, which is quite catchily tuneful, & whose text, as I have already remarked, is very close to Mrs Gaskell's Oldham Weaver. Bert, incidentally, in his Iron Muse note, expresses the opinion that this version excels the Grinfilt version, unlike most of many parodies of the latter which he doesn't adduce; adding the information [but without citing any authority] that his version is known as 'Jon o Grinfilt Junior'; but within the context of the theme of this thread, it may be begging the question to mention this, or to know how seriously to accept it as fact.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Sep 09 - 11:38 PM

BTW - in a post of 06 May 08 0910a.m., Pavane drew a distinction, which seems relevant to this thread, between 'intellectual' & 'scholar'; Bert was much aware of this distinction, discussion of which forms a fair part of the theme of an interview I did with him for Folk Review (published in issue of September 1974 under title "The Donkey & the Zebra" [a phrase he used to illustrate how two kinds of song could have similar outlines but not be identical, part of the traditional/contemporary distinction]. The main theme of this thread obviously didn't explicitly arise as the doubts hadn't really surfaced then; but some parts of the interview might nevertheless be germane — Dave Arthur has commented to me that he found my interview helpful in the biog of Bert we know he is working on, though 'Bert chose to ignore huge areas of his life as he always did'. If anyone would like to read this interview but can't access it [I am not sure how accessible back numbers of folk review are after all this time], I should be glad to send a copy to anyone who requests & lets me have a steam-mail address - my email is - [e-mail][dot]uk -

Michael Grosvenor Myer

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 06:00 AM

>> 'a kind of droning recitative, depending much on expression & feeling'. This description fits MacColl's Jon o Grinfilt's 4-Loom Weaver version much more, in fact, than Bert's Poor Cotton Weaver on Iron Muse, which is quite catchily tuneful <<

I don't think I've ever heard 'The Iron Muse', but if the tune there is the same as the one printed in 'Folk Song in England', then it's the generic tune to which all of the broadsides of the 'Jone O'Grinfilt' family were sung (Sid Calderbank gave a very interesting presentation on the history of these broadsides at Sidmouth a couple of years ago).

I would hardly describe the tune to which MacColl sang 'Four Loom Weaver' - a magnificent, soaring Dorian melody that's one of the most dramatic in the revival canon - as a 'drone'.

>> The question I have is whether the "Mary Barton" version reflects the politics claimed to have been reversed/inserted by Bert Lloyd? <<

The original broadside, as Pip says, contains all the bitter expressions of anger and injustice that we know from the song. The interesting question is whether those scars ran so deep that the song was still alive in the memory of a singer in the immediate vicinity of Greenfield as late as the 1950s - when MacColl met Beckett Whitehead. One of these days I really am going to get down to the necessary research, but my hunch is that Mr. Whitehead (a prominent local historian and dialect enthusiast, rather than the humble mill-hand of legend) might well have had a copy of the text in Harland and Wilkinson's 'Ballads and Songs of Lancashire', rather than holding the piece in his repertoire of songs.

We already know that 'To The Begging' appeared in the Folk Revival with a completely different tune from the Beckett Whitehead original.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 07:41 AM

Brian, I am surprised to see you say that you haven't heard "The Iron Muse" as it probably still stands as a milestone in recorded folk music. As well as Lloyd it featured some of the major singers and musicians of the day including Bob Davenport, Louis Killen, Anne Briggs, Ray Fisher, Matt McGinn, Colin Ross, Jim Bray and Alf Edwards.
Bert uses the 'Jone O'Grinfilt' tune, as in Folksong in England, but he omits the three verses concerning the bailiffs on the LP.
When I first heard it, around 1968, it was undoubtedly the main item on the album and I still go back to it on occasions. I once asked Bert to sing it but he told me that he didn't do it very often and that it was rather long.
Since those days I have heard the original "Jone O'Grinfilt" sung on various occasions and I have seen printed versions of the ensuing family of songs.
Hopefully I'll see you at Grand Union Folk in a few weeks time, if so I'll try to remember to bring you a tape of "The Iron Muse"

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 07:59 AM

Yes, Dave, it's a gap in my education and I'd love to hear a copy, thanks.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 09:37 AM

Brian - I agree that Ewan's '4-Loom Weaver' has a fine dramatic tune, which would appeal to us as folk-oriented people [I know you will understand what I mean by this]: but I don't think that sort of 'soaring Dorian-ness' is the sort of thing to appeal, melodically, to a Victorian Noncomformist minister's wife as melodic, but rather as a sort of recitative. Our ears are attuned to a certain kind of air, which non-folkies just don't get: — my father, just for a for instance, could never even hear any tune whatever in Fanny Blair, which I think has one of the most magnificently scary tunes of the lot of them.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 10:21 AM

Point taken, MtheGM (and who wrote the 'Fanny Blair' tune??). I've just realised - my recent messages repeat completely a load of stuff I'd already posted. Whoops. And still no smoking gun on the 'FLW' tune after a year and a half! One day...

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Anglo
Date: 16 Sep 09 - 11:00 AM

Checking the contents, I discovered that Topic's CD reissue of the Iron Muse had only seven pieces from the original LP. Not including The Poor Cotton Weaver. I have a strong memory of Lloyd singing it. I thought I had the original LP, but can't turn it up, so that may be a figment of my imagination, but the cut listing is on Musical Traditions' Topic Discography page, 12T86.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Andrez
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 07:01 AM

Refreshed so I can trace this thread.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:26 PM

To clarify an earlier point, what Martin Simpson said about "Peggy and the Soldier" is in the text of his Kind Letters CD.
Any way the original has a happy ending

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: GUEST,SteveG
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 03:08 PM

If it helps, what Bert did was part of a long-lasting tradition indulged in by many highly-respected and great men, some of whom, but by no means all, came clean and regretted their forgery. Almost all of them were poets or were well endowed with creative genius. None of them ended up in prison!

Allan Ramsey, Thomas Percy, Robert Jamieson, Walter Scott, William Motherwell, Peter Buchan, Sabine Baring Gould, to name but a few.

As a singer I greatly admire their forgery/creative genius, indeed the mischief maker in me admires their daring.

However, as a researcher, it saddens me that some of them didn't see fit to eventually come clean or leave behind better clues to the extent of their creativity.

All of this sums up my feelings towards Bert.

BTW a project I'm involved in involves the recording of a version of The Weary Whaling Ground. Can anyone please give me the date of Bert's whaling season out of Hull? The recording is for Hull Maritime Museum and we will be crediting Bert with the song. We won't be including Bert's version of Heave away my Johnny, but not because he wrote it, because it's crap!

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: Matthew Edwards
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 04:10 PM

According to David Gregory's article in the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1997) A.L. Lloyd and the English Folk Song Revival, 1934-44 Bert sailed from Liverpool on board the Southern Empress for a seven month whaling voyage in 1937, and on his return he shipped aboard a freighter out of Liverpool in 1938.

I can't recall where I read that Bert joined the ship in Birkenhead Docks and found it crewed mainly by Welshmen who sang hymns. It may be somewhere in his sleeve notes.

Matthew

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: mark gregory
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 02:56 AM

Bert: The Life and Times of A.L.Lloyd by Dave Arthur is being launched on 31 May 2012 at

Venue: Cecil Sharp House
Start Time: 7:30:PM

Music by Dave Arthur and his band, Martyn Wyndham Read and Iris Bishop.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs?
From: The Sandman
Date: 21 Apr 12 - 07:57 AM

We won't be including Bert's version of Heave away my Johnny, but not because he wrote it, because it's crap!"
   your subjective opinion, others may view it differently, your post reminds me of early folk song collectors who did not include songs in their collections, because it did not fit their idea of what a folk song should be.

Subject: RE: Bertsongs? (songs of A. L. 'Bert' Lloyd)
From: GUEST,Pseudonymous
Date: 29 Jul 18 - 10:40 AM

I know this is an old thread, but I only just read Arthur's book and have found it interesting on a range of topics. I was surprised it hadn't been discussed more on this site.

To this list of 'Bertsongs' I would maybe add 'The Coalowner and the Pitman's Wife'. The EFS version seems to be a composite with tune selected by Lloyd. Lloyd did not say so in that book, though he seems to have done elsewhere. Given how highly he praises his own 'improved' version several times in that book, it seems a bit of a cheek to me. I don't know where the originals might be, so I cannot judge how much he 'improved' upon it.

Another, which is a pair really, would be 'The Unfortunate Rake' when masquerading as a 19th century broadside, when so such thing of that name appears to exist, and a closely similar version called 'St James' Hospital' both of which seem to be Bert Composites. There is a long discussion on this website, partly on a 'The Unfortunate Rake' thread and some on another one, maybe about St James' Hospital.

Arthur also mentions the 'misinformation'/confusion about the date Lloyd returned from Australia, and gives an example or two when it seems Lloyd misrepresented his own background and/or his background was misrepresented on record covers to make it seem more folk-based than it was.

Not to downplay the contribution Lloyd made, but to try to get some sort of realistic overall picture. Like most of us, he was not a 'perfect' human being.

Sorry if I am repeating points already made on the thread: I did skim it first to see but may have missed stuff.

An interesting point raised by Arthur was that Lloyd did not remark on or write about how Traveller culture in Eastern Europe was side-lined by Eastern European folklorists of his time, and how staged folklore celebrations were put on by the regimes. I forget which country Arthur mentioned. And what Arthur said was more nuanced that this brief summary. Also you cannot expect Lloyd to know/do everything: not expecting him to be Superman.