Kipling with the Tradition

Subject: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 05:11 AM

For our Special Project at this year's Fylde Festival we'll be doing a show entitled Bellamy : Kipling with the Tradition which will be exactly what it says on the tin - a programme of gleaming new renditions of Peter Bellamy's settings of the poems of Rudyard Kipling, newly interpreted but with direct reference to the original performances - and in some cases (we hope!) they will be direct covers of one or two classics (The Liner She's a Lady especially and last night's unrecorded rendering of Frankie's Trade turned out to be quite a cringing hommage to Jon Boden's version on the Oak Ash Thorn album).

In the build-up to the show, we'll be documenting the Progress on-line with a free & fully downloadable Soundcloud Page linked to its sister on Facebook.

We began last night with a smattering of false starts and rollicking renderings, but only one when the mics were switched on: a rendering of A Tree Song (AD 1200) (AKA Oak, Ash & Thorn) which takes it back to Bellamy's original Wassailing feel. The lead is sung by Ross Campbell with harmonies by Rapunzel & Sedayne. More to follow anon, and updates to follow, so - do please watch this space, enjoy the recordings & hopefully see you at the show in a few weeks time!

Soundcloud: Earthbound:KiplingBellamy

Facebook: Earthbound:KiplingBellamy

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 08:14 AM

Here's the first song as a direct link:

A Tree Song (AD 1200)

Click on the picture to download artwork...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 09:25 AM

Very good - loved it. Sweet, resonant harmonies - and I'm looking forward to some more...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 09:33 AM

Cheers, Will - and there will be more, lots more. According to Ron we've got up to 90 minutes for the show (!) and up to two hours on Soundcloud (!!) and more KiplingBellamy songs that you might sing in thrice that time at least (!!!). Note here I use the exclamation point in its original intended sense of being shorthand for the Latin Io, which, of course, means Joy, so, in the words of M R James, let us have few more!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 12:45 PM

There is a huge project of collecting the tunes that people have put Kipling verse to. Just google it...I have Helen all Alone and put a couple more to standard tunes. mg

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 01:11 PM

Indeed - we're focussing exclusively on Bellamy here, but following Bellamy's remit as to Kipling's obvious familiarity with the English Tradition of Folk Song and Music, I've set several myself to traditional English tunes to great effect. For example - Puck's Song fits Idbury Hill / London Pride like a glove, slowed down though...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Cats
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 04:24 PM

The Kipling poems dedicated to Emma were dedicated to my grandmother who was the young Quaker girl he fell in love with. He asked her to marry him and she refused him. I have the pink pearls from Harrods he gave her instead of an engaement ring

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 07 Jul 11 - 10:46 AM

Tuesday 2 August
BBC Proms Plus Literary: Rudyard Kipling
5.15pm – c. 6.00pm Royal College of Music Free entry

Great bard of the Empire - or propagandist for imperialism? Rudyard Kipling died 75 years ago. Kipling specialist Daniel Karlin and historian and political activist Tariq Ali discuss the writer whose reputation has divided readers over the past hundred years. Rana Mitter hosts.

Listen to an edited version broadcast on BBC Radio 3 during interval of Prom 24

Prom 24: Elgar, Grainger & Strauss 7.00pm, Royal Albert Hall

Tasmin Little, Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony perform contrasting impressions of Elgar and Grainger and to mark the 50th anniversary of Grainger's death, his In a Nutshell suite receives a first outing at the Proms.

Prom 25: Grainger 10.15pm, Royal Albert Hall

Grainger is celebrated in a special Late Night sequence as star Northumbrian smallpiper Kathryn Tickell and friends take a fresh look at the prodigious activities of one of music's great originals.

Also features June Tabor and The Wilsons.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 10:24 AM

A wee fragment from Rapunzel & Sedayne as we prepare for the Earthbound Kipling:Bellamy show at The Fylde:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t1w3NmL-bM

More to follow soon with Ross 'n' Ron...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 10:32 AM

Lovely stuff. More, please!

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 10:33 AM

Absolutely.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 08:57 AM

Cheers chaps!

More eh? Okay...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S-Lzzzgzfo

A nice old waltz by way of another rough try-out, for the hapless fiddler anyway! The singer seems to have it sussed, more or less. This was the same night as the other one, later, and darker, and drunker, and the pub was busier too (the noise is from the adjoining bar). This comes in on the second verse, after which Rapunzel repeats the first, so you hear both verses, just in the wrong order!

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:22 AM

Excellent work, gang!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:30 AM

Sean-

Nice banjo work by Rapunzel, and the fiddle work ain't so shabby either.

How does Rapunzel describe her banjo picking? It appears to be some form of three-finger Southern Appalachian style.

Oh, and her singing is nice too, especially when compared with the crowd noise.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:31 AM

Cheers, Charley - Just wait until you hear Ron's Mandalay & Gunda Din! And some of the saltier stuff we hope to have up there - by Sunday?? Let's hope so... Good thing doing stuff like Frankie's Trade and Anchor Song with Ron is that he'll tell what it all means - from a Davit-Guy to a Three-Reef Mainsail. Oh, I'm learning fast to be sure....

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:39 AM

Rapunzel frails or picks, not sure how else she'd describe it. She uses dozens of different tunings and is fond of high capos. That's her new Deering which isn't quite as heavy in weight or sound as the Countryman, lacking any sort of tone-ring at all. My fiddling is rough-style inspired by Michael Hurley, Jim Eldon and this venerable old timer who uses a dolly peg for a mute and spits in his peg box to keep it in tune!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_q4m4PeEMA

The noise is in the adjoining bar; we never notice it in the session, hence Rachel's composure.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 10:32 AM

Another one from the sessions for free download on Soundcloud:

Way Through the Woods

More soon....

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 10:36 AM

That's excellent, Sean! What a great sound - singing, banjo, concertina and fiddle all blending beautifully together. Instant download for me.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 27 Jul 11 - 09:38 AM

Cheers, Will - it's all coming together slowly but surely, with lots more to follow - including Ron's characterful renderings of Gungadin and Mandalay in which we turn into a very rough sort of Concert Party in the Pierrots in the Jungle Tradition. Watch this space!

We'll be doing Harp Song of the Dane Women in the show too, our redux version (a little different from the one we did for Oak Ash Thorn on account of Harmonium Issues) you can get here:

http://soundcloud.com/rapunzel-and-sedayne/harp-song-of-the-dane-women

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 11:25 AM

Seven new songs uploaded just now!

Astrologer's Song
Bee Boy's Song
Brookland Road
Danny Deever
Cuckoo Song
A Pilgrim's Way
Anchor Song



Earthbound - Kipling:Bellamy

More to follow - we reckon on 25 in all, though how many of these we'll do at the Fylde show is a bridge we've yet to cross...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 12:16 PM

This is good music - I'm enjoying every single track I play and looking forward to even more! Every song is as fresh as a wood shining with bluebells.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Keith Price
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 08:45 AM

I think Will Fly has it just about right,well done Suibhne Rapunzel and Ross. I hope you have a great gig at Fylde.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 07:35 AM

Cheers Keith & Will. Actually Will, may I use that bluebell line in the publicity?

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 10:23 PM

Another batch up there just now, bringing it to 17 songs in all. There may be more, depending on time & other commitments.

http://soundcloud.com/earthboundkiplingbellamy

There is nothing to touch the Bellamy originals. The more I work on these the songs, the more I realise that we're unlikely to see anything approaching that sort of melodic & idiosyncratic musical genius again - certainly not in Folk anyway. As I said in my wee note for The Liner She's A Lady If Peter Bellamy's classic 'power trio' arrangement of this was the mighty Warship, then this humble cover version is most surely a little cargo boat bobbing in its wake.. Actually, that's not such a bad place to be really.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 10:27 PM

Actually Will, may I use that bluebell line in the publicity?

With pleasure!

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: EmmaHartley
Date: 17 Aug 11 - 11:30 PM

Have you heard Pilgrim's Way, a new band who are actually named after a Rudyard Kipling song set to music by Peter Bellamy? First album just out and I loved it...

http://theglamourcave.blogspot.com/2011/07/pilgrims-way-bestows-wayside-courtesies.html

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: tijuanatime
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 04:00 AM

Do you know the date and time of your performance yet?

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 04:26 AM

TT, it's on Saturday 3rd September at 3pm - The Mount, Fleetwood.

Details here

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 06:20 AM

Yo, Spleen - that's pretty neat. I've done posters with Ron's drawing of our heroes. Our strapline -

A Performance of the Folk Songs of Rudyard Kipling and Peter Bellamy: from Oak, Ash & Thorn to the Road to Mandalay

I'll try to do one as a PDF and post it up some place...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Brian Grayson
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 01:56 AM

What a delightful set! I'd love to be there, but...

I had the pleasure of Peter B's acquaintance in the 70s - still and always sorry he's gone.

Along time ago (before I heard him singing 'We Have Fed Our Sea' on Wake the Vaulted Echoes, and if you don't have it, RUN, don't walk, to anywhere you can buy it), I set the poem to 'The Star Of the County Down', slowed down somewhat. It works.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 02:35 AM

I think it's a time machine you need for VTVE now, Brian! A nice set, but I always thought he deserved better somehow - which is why it's so good to see the new editions slowly coming to the surface, though I still hope some enterprising type brings them out on vinyl!

*

That Kipling borrowed heavily of Traditional Verse Idioms (call it what you will) is pretty much self-evident these days, which makes Bellamy's epiphany all the more remarkable; indeed, in the context of the Folk Zeitgeist of the 1960s it must have seemed pretty shocking; God knows it's still shocking to some today. Hell, even I might balk at the inner sentiments of some of this stuff - from the paternalistic conservatism of The Land to the mawkish racism of Gungadin, I have a hell of a job justifying doing it on any level without subjecting Kipling's motives to wholesale reconstruction, much less apology. I suppose it's because he got it right in so many other ways and poems like A Pilgrim's Way and Tommy seem eternally relevant. But even the otherwise innocent wassail of A Tree Song becomes a vehicle for jingoism - or is it just national pride? I have my doubts. Kipling's causal vision of England her Her History is writ pretty large in that stuff - from Warships, Liners and the Little Cargo Boats, his right-wing functionalism sits uneasy with us today. Here in Multi-Ethnic Britain, what use have we of his reactionary racist paternalistic imperialism? The question these days must be not whether or not Kipling borrowed on Folk Song, but Why?

*

I once set Puck's Song (more historical jingoism!) to Idbury Hill (London Pride) and it fits like a glove. Maybe there should be project to explore just what Kipling poems fit which traditional song tunes. Ron will tell you about the parallels between Danny Deever and False Knight on the Road - a song that Kipling knew by all accounts. If he's anywhere near a computer today & reads this he might even stop by and tell us the story...

Meanwhile, been enjoying the ABC four hour documentary (1982) in which Bellamy talks about Kipling in great depth - full of classic anecdote which brings the thing alive for me, like how he saw ghostly lights fleeing in the woods which had been planted over an old road. Oo-er...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 03:32 AM

I've always thought Kipling was a more complex character than he's been painted, and there's always a moralistic/historical warp when we try to assess the accepted viewpoints of his society from our own standpoint over 100 years later. It's a little like being disgusted at the casual anti-semitism displayed in Dorothy Sayers' detective stories, which is deplorable now but was thought less so then.

I've never read "Kim", for example, without seeing an acceptance of India as it was by Kipling. To be sure, there are still underlying structures of racism, paternalism and imperialism, but Kipling goes further than many other people of his time to describe the adventures of Kim on the road with his chela and the other characters encountered with genuine affection.

And, of course, he paid for his imperialism with the tragedy of his son.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 04:06 AM

He's a compelling character for sure, Will, which makes him endlessly fascinating - Bellamy too of course. It raises all sorts of issues regarding human reality in the face of too-simplistically 'right on' world views that don't always square up with human reality. In this respect alone I find him rich and intriguing - as well as in terms of history and the 'folklore of folk' - & the volkishness that pervades much 20th century thinking anyway. We must know him in context, but we also must seek what relevance he has today - apart from pure nostalgia for a vanished sense of Englishness which I for one am glad is dead & butied! My England is a very different place to Kiplings - and Bellamy's - though I suspect they overlap in the hinterlands and fringes of the human landscape.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 04:06 AM

dead and butied

Another choice typo...

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Will Fly
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 04:09 AM

Or even dead and buttered... :-)

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Speedwell
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 03:29 PM

They said Clapton is god.
I think Bellamy is the folk god. (IMHO)

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Edthefolkie
Date: 19 Aug 11 - 07:47 PM

I have a strange suspicion that the great "right wing icon" Kipling might surprise a few people were he to materialise at the Fylde. I imagine him listening with his head cocked sideways, asking you all a lot of questions afterwards.....and having a Really Good Argument with PB when he too materialises complete with flower trousers!

Wish I could come, best of luck with it all.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 20 Aug 11 - 07:04 AM

One of the tracks is on the September fRoots radio podcast, http://www.frootsmag.com/radio/ and very good it is too.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 22 Aug 11 - 05:03 AM

That's not Kipling, Steve - rather one of ours: a genuine Appalachian field holler in the Javanese Pelog mode inspired by the North American Tree pocupines in Blackpool Zoo - so sort of Kiplingesque in a Rolling Down to Rio sort of way, & Bellamist on account of his appreciation of such idioms, much less his borrowing of them - even in his Kipling settings, like The Ballad of Minepit Shaw, which we do, but don't have time for in the present show.

More Rapunzel & Sedayne in podcast: http://sidsmith.blogspot.com/

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 22 Aug 11 - 07:07 AM

Oops, sorry :) Sounded Bellamist ... Bellamyist .... anyway.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,sailo ron
Date: 23 Aug 11 - 05:37 AM

Sorry, just got back to this thread. The 'Danny Deever/Flase knight on the road'connection I found in a biography of Kipling's life up to his final 'trip home' from India. 'Kipling Sahib' is probably the best biography I have read. When Kipling, as a boy, was in England one of his relatives used to sing what we now call 'folk songs', one of which was 'False knight on the rosd'. Now consider 'Danny Deever' with 'FKotR'. There's the same Q & A, the same rhyme pattern & the same rythem, so I would say that it, in all probability he had that in mind. As to the broader Q about his use of folk song in his poems. A contempory account mentions that whilst he was writing 'My name is O'Kelly...' he was humming 'Lilli-ba-laro' to himself. Not conclusive of course but......

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Brian Grayson
Date: 23 Aug 11 - 09:23 AM

More pontificating on the subject of Kipling's politics... Oh, dear.

The whole "why was Kipling so unfeelingly politically incorrect?" argument reminds me of Bowdler's re-writing of Shakespeare's plays to cut out the naughty bits: undoubtedly well-meaning, but pointless to us today. Just read the bloody poetry/prose and listen to the songs, guys - and get a life!

'Reactionary racist paternalistic imperialism'? Good grief!

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 23 Aug 11 - 02:07 PM

Reactionary racist paternalistic imperialism

Good grief? I think you've missed the point here: that's exactly what Kipling is - accept this much and you've got the essence of the man & his oeuvre. He wasn't unfeeling nor yet politically incorrect, nor should we be inclined towards revision or apology much less cutting anything out. There no way we can just read the bloody poetry without an understanding of its context, and what it might tell us a man ande his times on one hand and the nature of Folk as a nationalist construct on the other. Get a life? Hell, such considerations are the very stuff of life!

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 23 Aug 11 - 03:28 PM

Oh silly me..I can read the bloody poetry without understanding the context, as I can enjoy most songs without understanding the context and quite a bit out of it. He is primal and I think universal...he understands things and hits the nail on the head so often in my uneducated opinion. mg

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 24 Aug 11 - 07:45 AM

In approaching any historic material one has to contexualise it in order to appreciate it (& enjoy it) all the more. For sure much of his more evident sentiments are of the primal / universal / nail-on-the-head variety but not so his Folk Songs which are of a very different order as touched upon above. For example, it helps to have a working knowledge of sailing ships to understand Anchor Song, and an awareness of maritime history to get the references in Frankie's Trade. Likewise the Barrack Room Ballads insist upon a casual smattering of military history before they really work (Ford O' Kabul River isworth checking out in this respect). In his Puck Songs he's expecting a lot of his young readers - maybe because that's the way things were back then; or simply by way of engendering the prospective urge in the minds of his readers, which is no bad thing. For sure it works today for all ages. The Smuggler's Song is a clever piece of double-edge edged cunning in which the simplification is part of a far more sophisticated method on the part of poet and smuggler alike, and it's worth checking the details of Cuckoo Song and A Tree Song with respect of a wider folklore and the assumptions thereof. For example A Tree Song makes a lot of assumptions on the Frazerian Variety, albeit set in 1200 to further enforce those sorts of romantic continuities which Kipling so relishes. Hearty stuff for sure, but very much of their time. And I often wonder how that River Bit in The Land is faring these days; probably under a garden centre carpark I shouldn't wonder...

So read it, enjoy it, but as with all things (especially in Folk Realms) we enjoy it a whole lot more the more we know about it.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:46 AM

Catch us live at Fylde on The Drift, Radio Lancashire! Uncredited! Oak Ash & Thorn! Comes in around 19.30; hear us at 20.25 - blink and you'll miss it...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/p00jy0c1

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 11:29 AM

Talking of Kim, there's an excellent book by Peter Hopkirk, Quest for Kim: In Search of Kipling's Great Game. They say that even people who really, really don't like RK think Kim is a great story.

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Penny S.
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 06:04 PM

Go to Google Maps and search "Batemans, Bateman's Lane, Etchingham, East Sussex", and you'll see the river bit is safe and well and not built on.

We knew a family with connections in Burwash (Burersh) and he was not, apparently, much liked in the village. There was an incident when his "Hobdens" thought they should be getting paid more and he didn't, and was not happy about the suggestion of their striking. Two sides to the respect for the working man who really owns the land.

Penny

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Penny S.
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 06:12 PM

And I wonder if anyone can help me with a bit of interpretation of one of his Indian poems "La Nuite Blanche) in which he describes a night of hallucinations.

I recall once reading in a footnote that when he says "they said I had the jims on" it was a reference to datura, or jimsonweed, which would fit the context. I have not been able to find this again anywhere, and there are other possibilities. Have any of you who read him seen this anywhere? I can't believe I imagined it.

Penny

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 06:57 PM

Penny - see the notes on the Kipling site: La Nuite Blanche" - notes:

"jims Dr. Gillian Sheehan writes: 'the jim-jams' - slang for delirium tremens, which usually occurs in a chronic alcoholic following a bout of heavy drinking. The symptoms include hallucinations which are usually visual and terrifying, insomnia, agitation and delirium. [G.S.]"


Mick

Subject: RE: Kipling with the Tradition
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 07:15 PM

Further to that, Partridge Dict of Historical Slang says it was perhaps influenced by whim-wham (=female pudend, same source). OED says possible related to fanciful reduplication with altered vowels like flim-flam and whim-wham, but says the source is unsure.

Partridge also says that it was usually reduced to the jams, not the jims! Perhaps both were used or Kipling was taking a liberty for the sake of rhyme with crimson.

It seems to me unlikely that it referred to jimson weed (which I always think of as a US term - see Jamestown-weed as OED says - Jamestown, VA), but I could easily be wrong - the name had been around for a long time by then.


(Previously is meant a knick-knack).

Mick