Help: Who was Albert Shaw?

Subject: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 15 Sep 99 - 04:00 AM

My thread asking for the lyrics to "The benefit concert" was a success - thanks LaMarca. The song was from the singing of Albert Shaw - unfortunately neither of us know anything about him. Anyone out ther know anything? (It may well turn out I knew all along - my memory isn't what it used to be!).

Steve

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Elaine Reese
Date: 14 Mar 14 - 04:29 PM

I realise this was posted many years ago However I have only just come across it and Albert Shaw was my Grandad. My email address is [e-mail] if you would like any further information.

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Ragman
Date: 14 Mar 14 - 06:51 PM

I used to see Albert around the Black Country venues in the early 70s. Wonderful performer with "The Benefit concert" and "Miss Tickletoby" etc. was it true he was a one armed Blacksmith?

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Mar 14 - 03:13 AM

Don't know if it's the same Albert Shaw (bit of a coincidence if it isn't) but there is a tape of dialect poems and songs by someone of that name housed at the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library AT Cecil Sharp House.
I seem to remember his having a North of England accent rather than a Midlands one, but that might be a senior moment on my part.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Mar 14 - 03:34 AM

There's a double CD of traditional performers from the old King's Head, North London, Folk Club that has some tracks from Albert Shaw, including The Benefit Concert.

Here's links to the CD notes (including lyrics) and MT Records.

King's Head CD Notes

MT Records

The CD notes, by Rod & Danny Stradling, include a brief pen picture of Albert:

Albert Shaw: A Black Country singer - I think he said he was from Cradley Heath. He mentioned listening to Irish radio, which he could often receive at home. I suspect that his mother (who had spent some time working as a chainmaker) may have been Irish, and this may have influenced his choice of songs - several of which were relatively modern Irish ballads. Albert's son told Taffy Thomas that the four years - between his retirement from the steelworks and his death - spent singing in the folk clubs, had been the happiest time of his life.

LFF

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 15 Mar 14 - 06:57 AM

Fred Jordan learnt The Benefit Concert from Albert Shaw. I wrote about the connections between the two men in the extensive biographical notes that accompanied Fred's double CD A Shropshire Lad on Veteran (2003). Fred said Albert knew "some awful rude songs". Some of the information came from Eric Shaw, Albert's son, who went to folk clubs in the 1960s and beyond - I met him at Sidmouth festival.
Elaine - is Eric your father or uncle?
Derek

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: Anglo
Date: 15 Mar 14 - 06:33 PM

My local club in the early 60s was the Boat Club in Stourport-on-Severn, when I wasn't away at uni in Manchester. Albert came down several times and always gave us a delightful evening. I still have the words of Mrs Tickletoby's in a notebooks somewhere. Other Black Country regulars were the duo of George Woodhall ( sp?) and Bill Caddick. Dave Cartwright was a regular as well. Bill is of course still very active, having gone on to fame and fortune, but I've no idea what happened to the others.

JR (longtime US resident).

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Ian Gill
Date: 16 Mar 14 - 07:15 AM

I think he was from Coseley rather than Cradley. He was certainly a regular at the Painters Arms in Roseville/Coseley during the 70's.He was a great singer with a music hall type style. I seem to remember him singing other, more serious stuff too, like 'The Trees they do grow high'. Dave Hunt will know much more as he took over running the club from Taffy Thomas when Taff went off to Magic Lantern. Happy days...

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 16 Mar 14 - 08:31 AM

My memory has dimmed after all these years, but I recall Albert Shaw as being a fairly elderly singer with a fine line in bawdy music hall type songs. A singaround which I used to go to in the early seventies invited him to be their guest. Again, I can't remember much about the night, but I do remember him singing Miss Tickle Toby's and several other songs in similar vein.

BTW., someone was wondering if he was a one armed blacksmith. That, I think would have been Walter Greaves, another old singer who emerged at around the same time, and who I think came from Leeds. Check English Folk Poetry: Structure & Meaning by Roger DeV Renwick for some details on Walter.

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Ken
Date: 28 Oct 15 - 08:46 AM

I have a hand written letter dated 26-11-1969 that Albert Shaw wrote to Eddie & Finbar Furey ( The Furey's ) in Ireland. Asking them if they would come and play for him and a few of the local lads. He obviously had a liking for Irish music. He says that he would personally guarantee their fee and also provide accommodation plus an ample supply of homebrew. I wonder if they came and played for him. Albert gives his address as 5,Wood's Crescent, Quarry Bank, Brierley Hill, Staffordshire.

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 17 - 06:49 AM

Albert Shaw was a frequent visitor to the Painters Arms folk club in Cosely in the 1970s. He definitely had two arms! A friend and I went to record him in his living room one Sunday morning, he sang half a dozen songs, one being The Young Sailor Cut Down in His Prime. He also sang Miss Tickle Tovey onto the Tape, but would only sing it if I went out of the room while he did so! He had a fine strong voice and kept pitch well, and sung with a lovely Quarry Bank/Cradley accent. I remember him as being a really lovely man. Caroline

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Guest Nick
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 11:37 AM

The VWML does have recordings of Albert Shaw. These have been digitised but not catalogued, and have no indication of who recorded them, when and where.

Subject: RE: Help: Who was Albert Shaw?
From: GUEST,Dave Hunt
Date: 10 Nov 20 - 01:51 PM

Albert was indeed a regular at the Painters Arms club (Coseley)- and had some cracking songs -It was a singaround club. Taffy Thomas MC'd and would do a song first then ask 'Which way shall we go round the room - (usually left!) and he asked everybody when he came to them if they would like to do a song or tell a story or a joke or whatever....We had guests occasionally but never advertised in advance - one of them, Willie Scott (a shepherd from the Borders) stayed with me and demonstrated how to control dogs with whistling - late at night and deafening! - and he was well into his 80s... Some of the residents/regulars included Pete Coe and Chris Richards (later Coe), John and Sue Kirkpatrick ( when they lived briefly in W-ton), Mick Bramich, Bill Caddick, Dan Fone, Woody Woodhall and Brian Clift and lots more. I took over running the club when Magic Lantern decamped to Suffolk - It all went well for quite a while until a new gaffer wanted to use the room for darts matches -(how many times have new gaffers caused folk clubs to move????) We moved to the Old Mill at Ruiton but it was never the same, and didn't last. From the club also came Painters Morris (men) and Holdens Goldens (women)