'Historical' Ballads

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Reiver 2
Date: 21 Oct 99 - 12:18 PM

Wolfgang, Thanks for the post regarding Susanne's Folksong Notes. A great resource that I hadn't been aware of, newbie that I am to the Mudcat Cafe. I've bookmarked it for future reference. I'm glad to have the background of Aragon Mill explained.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Reiver 2
Date: 14 Nov 99 - 10:26 PM

Just located my source for "Belfast Mill" on a recording by The Furies. Guess they must have taken Aragon Mill and adapted it to the home country. Just as appropriate to Ireland as to Georgia, I think. Very topical for this era of "downsizing" with shutdowns and layoffs.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Barry Finn
Date: 14 Nov 99 - 11:54 PM

As far as I know there's no Framington/Farmington, Mass but close by there's a Farmington, New Hampshire. Framingham, Mass. is home to the world famous Women's prison which they never mention out that way. We were always told as kids to watch out for the sound of the rattle when out in the woods and I'm sure would've been far more common back in those days. Barry

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jeri
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 12:29 AM

I don't know how helpful it is, but I've been to the grave of Timothy Myrick (Mirick/Merrick) in the Deacon Adams cemetary in Wilbraham, MA. I was riding back from a festival with Linn the Bat Goddess and her husband. We also stopped at F.J. Child's grave. (And I got a rubbing of the stone, but I don't have a clue where to hang the thing.)

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From:
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 12:53 AM

There is also a Farmington in Connecticut about 45 minutes from Springfield, MA. Farmington is one of the very old towns in CT and could well be the town referred to in the song Springfield Mountain.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Anglofile
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 03:00 PM

This thread may be played out on its original subject, but I want to add that, whether a ballad contains historically accurate information or not, it usually gives the student insight into the mind of its author. And that allows us to touch the past in a unique way.

For example, in The Bonnie Fisher Lass the narrator says, "Her handsome leg and ankle, they so delighted me." It's amusing to contemplate how that fellow, so taken by that rarely exposed female extremity, would react to your average Baywatch episode. Probably have a stroke.

So, apart from historical fact (the discovering of which is half the fun of traditional music, I think), the feel for life in the past that we get from old songs is to me one of the most illuminating aspects of traditional music.

BTW, I live near Springfield and Wilbraham, MA. There are still rattlers in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains to the west of there.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: paddymac
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 03:50 PM

I get shot at (metaphorically) from time to time because of my penchant for trying to tell the "whole story" in some of the "historical" ballads I do. I'm trying to do a better job of reading the audience, but there are a lot of folks out there who seem to think that any song of more than three, possibly four, verses is "too much". The "fast food" approach to story telling in song probably speaks volumes about contemporary culture. The most frightening thing is to realize how many historians, of both the academic and song-writer varieties, look to newspaper accounts for their foundation notions about an event.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From:
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 04:42 PM

"On Springfield Mountain": according to Phillips Barry in BFSSNE the earliest form of the ballad is "The Pesky Sarpent", c 1840, as sung by Mr. Spear, the tune being "The Quaker's Wife" [Mudcat's Links- Levy sheet music collection, Box 55, item 42]

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: kendall
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 06:35 PM

Just to muddy the waters a bit, in 1761, Massachusetts was part of Maine, and there is a Farmington Maine. We no longer have rattlers, but we did in colonial times. As far as history goes, it is of course, written by the winners mostly. The battle of the iron clads was a good example, The ship that fought the MONITOR was the VIRGINIA, not the MERRIMAC. When the war broke out, there was a wooden ship on the ways in Norfolk which was named MERRIMAC. However, she was captured by confederates forces, fitted with metal plates, and renamed the VIRGINIA.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Bruce O.
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 06:54 PM

Judge Learned Hand sings "The Iron Merrimac" on Library of Congress LP AFS L29, to the tune of "Pretty Peggy of Derby, O", the tune also known from a later song as "The Landlady of France". A early longer version of Judge Hand's song, citing the latter tune, is in the Levy sheet music collection, Box 193, item. 153, "The Monitor and the Merrimack". [Levy collection is in Mudcat's Links]

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 07:27 PM

History in song isn't always written by the winners.

For example Stan Hugill records that when singing about Santy Anna and General Taylor, most times sailors would have Santy winning and Taylor running away, to annoy the Yanks, and bugger the history.

Sop which is the historical way to sing it - the way the history happened, or the way the people who made the song liked to sing it?

And there are lots of other examples where the songs alter the history, but where that very alteration is part of the history. For example cowardly and psychopathic outlaws given heroic status, because people needed heroes.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: kendall
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 08:08 PM

good point, I understand Billy the Kid was little more than a homicidal moron.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Nov 99 - 08:51 PM

Hi Kendall, set me straight, Mass apart of Maine or Maine apart of the Mass Bay Colony? I didn't think that the Allagash or that Acadia even existed when Mass was voting in govenors as a matter of REAL fact Maine wasn't allowed to have grow trees there until Mass set you free. Barry

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 02:32 PM

Well I've heard the same, about good old Billy, kendall. But personally I think "moron" is a word it's about as good to use as "nigger". One that's passed into history, I hope. (I reckon Billy would probably have used both words.)

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From:
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 02:56 PM

Can anyone tell me if "Famous Flower of Serving Men" has any basis in historical fact. It is one of my favourites but I know little abot it. Aldus

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: T in Oklahoma (Okiemockbird)
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 03:03 PM

On a recent Woody Guthrie retrospective I heard of a song which started, "Come all you fast-food workers" (TTTO Canaday-I-O) about a McDonald's strike in Ohio. But I didn't hear who the author is, or the title. Does anyone know ?

T.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 03:05 PM

No basis known. It's by Laurence Price. See it in the L. Price file on my website. www.erols.com/olsonw. On the other hand I think Price's slightly later ballad "James Harris/ The Demon Lover/ The House Carpenter/ A Warning for Married Women" was probably based on exaggerated reports from Plymouth. His "Famous Woman Drummer" was on a Mrs. John Clarke, 1655, but this ballad is noticeably defficient in hard facts.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 03:45 PM

That Billy Bonney was a killer there seems little doubt, but most of the evidence indicating he was a mental deficient seems to stem from the one extant photograph of Billy, the one where he is shown wearing a narrow-brimmed hat and holding a Winchester by the barrel. The vaccuous look in his eyes seems to belie any spark of intelligence. But consider the crude photo techniques of the time, and consider that Billy was fluent in English and Spanish, that he engineered two jail-breaks and evaded capture for 4 years in the face of a bounty on his head, and that most of his victims were on the other side of a New Mexico range war in which he had the misfortune to be on the losing side. The balance of his victims were Law Officers engaged in apprehending or holding him. In this instance, contemporary songs and stories that were sympathetic to Billy may indeed be more accurate than revisionist history that paints him as a slobbering psychopath.

In the American West of the late 1800's, the Law was rarely enforced objectively, and being an Outlaw sometimes meant you were just on the wrong side of the fence in a dispute involving land,cattle, and power.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Bert
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 03:52 PM

He certainly comes across as reasonable well educated if you read his letters to the governor.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Midchuck
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 04:07 PM

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Midchuck
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 04:12 PM

Sorry about the blank. Hit "enter" instead of the tab key. Damn hair-trigger web pages anyway.

What I meant to say was:

"In the American West of the late 1800's, the Law was rarely enforced objectively, and being an Outlaw sometimes meant you were just on the wrong side of the fence in a dispute involving land,cattle, and power...."

So are you implying something's changed, other than cattle being less basic?

Compare "Claude Dallas" by Tyson and Russell. Who said outlaw ballads are a lost art?

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 04:17 PM

Sorry on my last post above in answer to the question by Aldus, I should have mentioned the subject as "Famous Flower of Serving Men". I had thought my response would follow immediately after the question, but obviously didn't.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 04:57 PM

Nice slant Barry, but, as Harry Truman said, "Lets take a look at the facts." The original Mass.Bay colony consisted mostly of the district of Maine. Maine covers an area of over 30,000 square miles. Mass. is just 8,000 sq. miles. Now, going by that, what was part of what? Furthermore, we wernt "let go" we escaped!! Hooray for the Missouri Compromise. Of course they have not forgiven us, and, they are buying Maine back one house lot at a time!! put um up..put um up LOL

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: kendall
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 05:01 PM

this is of course, mostly tongue in cheek.. do you get it catspaw??

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Art Thieme
Date: 16 Nov 99 - 09:44 PM

Billy was a hero to the folks fighting to keep the range open and unfenced during the Lincoln County War---was he not? One man's terrorist/psycho killer is another guy's Menachem Bagin. It's all relative I suspect. One of my favorite books of all time is Howard Zinn's PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. If accurate, what a hell of an eyeopener. I heartily recommend it. Debunks so many myths (supposedly).
History, like folk music, does not always lie.

Art

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: kendall
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 08:29 AM

thats a fact Art, to King George the 3rd, George Washington was a terrorist.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Aldus
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 10:12 AM

On the subject of Billy The Kid, Jesse James et al... Perhaps it would be wise to keep in mind the following when mythologizing persons of this particular ilk.... The primary function of their activity was to enrich themselves at the expense of others. In doing this they murdered many people including innocent bank employees, railway passengers, bystanders, small town law officers and railway guards. Also, mental derrangement does not mean a lack of intelligence, in many cases it implies a lack of conscience. I belive the facts will bear out that many off these so-called heroes were nothing more than sociopaths who were worshipped for all the wrong reasons. To depict them as Gun toting socialists out to seek economic revenge on behalf of the suffering masses is just historical manipulation. What is wrong with much of revisionist history is that it is often an attempt to bend the facts to suit current sociology. These were bad men..they killed people for money...it is that simple.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Bert
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 10:43 AM

I don't know how you can group Billy the Kid with Jesse James, their stories are quite different.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: kendall
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 11:52 AM

hey Aldus, you are so right. We seem to have a great desire for heros, and lacking real ones, we create them. Someone said it is the deep seated desire to have a king that we turn to people like Ronald Reagan and John Wayne. People who spent their whole lives pretending to be someone else. Their make believe lives are so attractive that we get to live vicariously through them.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: aldus
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 01:05 PM

Dear Bert;

I was not suggesting that they shared the same story. I am convinced however, that they shared the same social philosophy.....life is cheap.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 01:18 PM

Again, I think it is easy to generalize about "badmen" of the Old West. Billy was never engaged in the kinds of activities that were designed to give him instant rewards(train, bank,and stage robbibg). He was a fairly typical saddle-bum who was handy enough with a weapon to be hired as a range enforcer- and that's when his troubles began.

Jesse was a veteran of the Guerilla Raider arm of the Confederacy, having ridden with Quantrill in the Missouri and Kansas area. He was very young when he joined up, and was soon caught up in the "gray area" of war that is guerilla fighting. A fine line between depriving the enemy of needed supply, and just plain robbing and terror.The end of the war was not clear cut to these people, and many continued this course of action against the Reconstructionist government. Frank and Jesse certainly continued to excuse many of their actions in this way, although their activity was certainly directed toward ready sources of loot, such as the banks.

Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, lawmen and heroes, certainly walked on both sides of the law in their time, and Wild Bill Hickok was one of the most bloodthirsty of them all, but because he was Sheriff of Deadwood and had a hit tv show in the 50's, is often held up as an idol of the Old West.

What I am saying is, the more you understand about the history, the more complex are the individuals and circumstances involved in it. And personally, I find the facts much more fascinating than the stereotypes.

LEJ

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Midchuck
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 02:04 PM

"To depict them as Gun toting socialists out to seek economic revenge on behalf of the suffering masses is just historical manipulation. What is wrong with much of revisionist history is that it is often an attempt to bend the facts to suit current sociology. These were bad men..they killed people for money...it is that simple..."

...and it is always evil to kill people for money, if you don't wear a uniform....

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: lamarca
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 02:22 PM

"Outlaw ballads" and tales are as old as human history. Look at the English heritage of Robin Hood and all the sneakily sympathetic highwayman ballads like Tyne of Harrow. Going back as far as Greek mythology, many Greek heroes were portrayed as being on the wrong side of the ruling power - Perseus, Bellerophon, Hercules, Achilles, Theseus, Daedulus; all were opposed to at least one king's rulings in the myths surrounding them.

It's human nature to surreptitiously (or not) admire individuals who buck authority and get away with it - up to a point. Mythologizing them tends to gloss over the uglier parts of their actions. It's funny that in the USA we have a supposed cultural admiration for "rugged individualism", and an actual societal intolerance for non-conformity...

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 03:20 PM

Being an outlaw doesn't mean you're a villain, and it doesn't mean you're a hero. Nor does being on the side of the law.

Either situation lands people in situations where they can act like villains, or act like heroes. Some people no doubt are consistently one mor the other. Others no doubt make different choices on different occasions. All kinds of people can find themselves in either situation, especially in a time of occupation and civil unrest. (Normal times, you could say, for the poor and the weak.)

If you're faced with an oppressive system, you need to believe there is someone standing up to it, someone who is on your side, and you tell stories and sing songs to tell about them as heroes.

So the songs are evidence of what people felt, and in that sense they tell the truth. Whether they are factual or not in any particular case is another story.

But I think there is little doubt that on occasion being seen as a hero can push people a little more in the direction of living as a hero, and dying as a hero.

As Ned Kelly put it when they hanged him ,"Such is Life!"

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Art Thieme
Date: 17 Nov 99 - 05:04 PM

Bill Hickok grew up about 2 and a half miles from where I'm typing this out right now---Troy Grove, Illinois.(for what that's worth)

Art

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: GUEST,coco
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 12:45 PM

I need to know all about "The Robin Hood Ballads":Historical Truth and Fabrication? Please help me? send me all the result on my e-mail? [e-mail]
Thank you so much,
cocokd

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Apr 11 - 06:37 PM

coco
There are plenty of websites where people argue about the historical accuracy of RH stories and the places/periods he's supposed to have operated in.

Having studied the ballads in depth and the plays and the books about him, I feel there's a strong likelihood there were lots of RHs, and their exploits are in reality about as romantic as Billy the Kid. The ballads/legends are pure fiction made up for pageants and suchlike in the 16th/17th centuries, some even later. The previously mentioned Lawrence Price wrote some of them, along with Martin Parker.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 03:40 AM

"The ballads/legends are pure fiction made up for pageants and suchlike in the 16th/17th centuries,"
Far, far too much of a generalisation Steve, and once again, an uncorroborated speculation only of who made them up or why.
The totally unknown ballad makers, whoever they were, made them up for a whole host of reasons we can only guess at: because the events recorded, real or imagined, touched their lives, because that is how the stories had been passed on to them, because the events depicted, sometimes real, sometimes invented, caught their imaginations enough for the makers and re-makers to have wanted them to survive... a whole host of reasons we can't possibly fathom from this distance in time.
And as for ballad accuracy, these unknown ballad makers have done no more nor less than historians have done down the ages, and presented events and tales as they would like to believe actually happened, or as they would like us to believe happened.
"The previously mentioned Lawrence Price wrote some of them, along with Martin Parker."
As I have pointed out before, we have no way whatever of knowing whether any ballad existed in oral form prior to the above mentioned getting their hands on it, or if we have, it is yet to be demonstrated.
We do have examples in places where a healthy living tradition survived (19th/early 20th century Ireland, for instance - try looking up the events surrounding Farmer Michael Hayes sometime), of ballads being made anonymously as political weapons, as rallying calls to action, as a gesture of triumphalism, or despair, or anger or simply to record an event that would otherwise have been forgotten - far, far more reliable a guide than unproveable speculation on 16th and 17th century creations about which, as I said, we can only hazard a guess.
That these pieces get changed and adapted as they are passed on orally is inevitable and is as important a part of their role in our history and culture as was their creation in the first place. Dismiss this fact and you dismiss any idea that 'ordinary people' (if there ever was such an animal) played any part in the recording of their/our history.
If any of us actually knew who wrote the ballads and why, perhaps we'd be legends in our own right, and maybe somebody would have made up ballads about us!!   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Apr 11 - 05:45 PM

Jim,
ALL of the scholars accept that those ballads Parker, Price, Lanfiere, Wade, Climsall, Deloney, etc., etc., put their names/initials to were theirs. A few from each passed into oral tradition but the majority didn't. Of course we can't prove it, just as we can't prove Harry Clifton wrote his songs. On the other hand nobody has come up with a prior version of any of them, either in ms form or print. The same goes for the broadside ballad writers.

As for RH ballads, apart from about 5, of the other 40 or so they all first appeared in a much printed and reprinted Robin Hood's Garland in the mid 17th century, and I'm quite happy to accept that's where they originated.

As for farmers writing songs, I have plenty of examples of these myself, but they very seldom get the chance to enter oral tradition. In fact none of the ones I recorded were ever sung by anyone else but the writer. There is no reason to believe that your early twentieth century Irish farmer had anything relevant in common with the origins of English songs in any century. I'm well aware Walter sang some political songs but these never had a wide circulation in oral tradition. Of course there are plenty of examples of political songs on the broadsides, but the vast majority came from urban settings and first appeared on the broadsides.

Regarding oral tradition, I'm not aware of having DISMISSED anything.
The origins of something and what happened to it afterwards are two separate issues.

'wrote the ballads and why' In the majority of cases to get their shilling from the printer. (In England that is)

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 03:37 AM

"ALL of the scholars accept that those ballads Parker, Price, Lanfiere, Wade, Climsall, Deloney, etc., etc"
Doesn't mean a thing Steve; old songbooks and ballad sheets are full of traditional songs ascribed to people who obviously had taken them from earlier ones, adapted them and put their name on them to make a few pennies, or even a bit of kudos.
As I said, we have no idea whether the chicken or the egg came first and it is ingenuous to claim that we do.
All a songshheet does is capture a song at a particular stage in its developmnt - not safe grounds for disposessing a whole class of people of their creative role in their oral literature.
"As for farmers writing songs"
We've argued this before, and it's not what I'm talking about.
This area where we are living has an extremely rich song and story tradition. It has had a song repertoire of Child ballads, Anglo-Irish, native-Irish, and probably Irish-language, though Irish disappeared from here too long ago to be certain of this.
Along with this came a tradition of songmaking - not a few "farmers writing songs" but hundreds of anonymous songs reflecting the events and the life of the community. Even within the first half of the 20th century these we passing into variants and appearing in family notebooks and on the ballad sheets in numerous forms.
This happened in Scotland and produced the bothy songs, and I believed it happened under very similar circumstances to produce our sea repertoire.
I see no reason at all why it didn't happen in England in the same way - surely the English people weren't all passive recipient dullards, incapable of making songs that reflecting their lives and experiences and having to wait until somebody came along to do it for them?
We know there are anonymous mining songs - got a small sheaf of them here from Picton Library - not very good but interesting.
I did some work in The Central Library in Manchester years ago on the old Reform and Chartist newspapers, some of them running regular song/poetry columns.
Walter Pardon had a handful of songs and parodies relating to the re-establishment of the Agricultural Workers Union under George Edwards.
The Lancashire cotton industry produced songs and poems around the struggles for improvements in conditions, some of them ascribed; Bamford and Waugh, but many not bearing specific attributions, but simply headed 'A Lancashire Lady' and suchlike.
This, I have no doubt whatever, could be repeated throughout England - there is no reason why the English should be any less poetically inclined than in any other part of these islands.
We have no idea how these creations resonated on the oral tradition, or whether that tradition contains some of these compositions which were taken up and re-made, eventually becoming part of the established traditional repertoire.
Our songs were treated as artifacts by the collectors; we no virtully nothing about their making, their transition, their function within the communities, how they were regarded by the singers and the audiences - nothing at all; all we can do is draw some comparisons from the little we do know.
Taking a 17th century song and saying "That's got a name on it so it must have been written by him/her" is not a way I'm prepared to go - it is simplistic in the extreme and it means nothing whatever.
"Regarding oral tradition, I'm not aware of having DISMISSED anything."
Yes you are - you are restricting it to "passive recipient" status and rejecting the idea that the people who sang the songs might have played a part in their making - that is a damning condemnation on such flimsy 'evidence'.
"'wrote the ballads and why' In the majority of cases to get their shilling from the printer."
Again, a totally uncorroborated, definitive, dismissive and demeaning statement which flies in the face of evidence from elsewhere.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: theleveller
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 04:34 AM

"As for RH ballads, apart from about 5, of the other 40 or so they all first appeared in a much printed and reprinted Robin Hood's Garland in the mid 17th century, and I'm quite happy to accept that's where they originated."

In his excellent book 'Liberty Against the Law' Christopher Hill devotes a whole chapter to the Robin Hood ballads and discusses why they gained such popularity in the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Apr 11 - 07:22 PM

Jim,
Long ago I conceded that parts of Ireland and the Bothy tradition have songs made in local communities that have become part of oral tradition. You are well aware that I am talking about the body of material collected by the likes of Sharp, Kidson, Baring Gould, Hammond, Gardiner etc.

I recently delivered a talk on this at Cecil Sharp House on the Broadside Day, in front of many highly respected scholars of folk music and the print tradition. (A version can be viewed on the TSF website). Not one attendee took me to task on any of the points I made. In fact they were most complimentary. They were certainly given plenty of opportunity to do so both in private and after the presentation itself. I do think you are looking at this through rose-coloured spectacles and to some extent burying your head in the sand.

But hey ho. that's one thing this forum is here for, and everyone is entitled to their opinions. We are polarised on this issue having followed similar paths in folk music. It's a shame, but there you go.
I do quite enjoy our little disagreements and I thank you for your input. It keeps me on my toes and stops me from becoming complacent.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 06:33 AM

"You are well aware that I am talking about the body of material collected by the likes of Sharp, Kidson, Baring Gould, Hammond, Gardiner etc."
All of whom had a set ide of what constituted folk, ignored everything that didn't fit, and adopted the attitude that unless it was collected then it would be lost forever - a race with the undertaker, as a collector friend put it.
The fact that not one attendee took you to task is beside the point - I am questioning your continuing definitve statements now.
You are attempting to remove the possibility that English working people did not make their own songs on the basis of a name at the bottom of a ballad sheet - I challenge you to prove it or stop putting it forward as proven fact - which it isn't so far.
As you say, we are all entitled to put our opinions, and we are all open to challenge if those opinions don't ring true.
We know little enough about our tradition as it is without adding to that ignorance by trying to fill in the gaps with unproven and illogical hypotheses.
And "so-and-so said it, so it must be true" has never been an argument that impressed me overly
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 08:18 AM

"I do quite enjoy our little disagreements"
Oh, and by the way, I usually regard being patronised (no matter how slightly) as a substitute for real argument, ad tend to reply "come back when you've worked with real traditional singers in a living tradition".
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 03:37 PM

Jim,
I'm sorry you feel like this.

First of all only a very small proportion of my arguments are based on a name at the bottom of a sheet. They are based on 40+ years of studying in minute detail both songs from oral tradition and those printed on street literature.

Secondly 'come back when you've worked with real traditional singers in a living tradition'. I have! My own family for starters. My recordings from the 60s and 70s are available to all on the BLSA as I think are some of yours, and I counted Fred Jordan as a personal friend, and do so Will Noble and various other singers from the east Pennine tradition.

Of course the early collectors were being very selective and did things with the songs we nowadays disapprove of, but whether we like it or not, what they collected is by and large what passes as the corpus of English folk song.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 04:05 PM

"what they collected is by and large what passes as the corpus of English folk song."
That remains to be debated Steve - you say that there was not a tradition of songwriting in England - I say there must have been and there are still traces of it - and it flies in the face of all the evidence to suggest there was not.
With respect to your family; as early as Sharp and his contempories, folk songs were being remembered rather than being given from living traditions.
There have been efforts on the part of some researchers to arbitrarily re-define the tradition to include ready-made and unchanged pieces (music hall - early pop etc), but as far as I can see, this has gained little ground and the recognised tradition has been long dead.
None of which changes one iota the fact that we have no idea where the songs origniated, and probably never shall.
What we do have are indications that they arose directly from within communities that passed them on to us - the use of vernacular, the familiarity with trade terms, working practices, folklore, geography, topography... all make this fairly likely - to me, if not to you.
The suggestion that there was a school of writers with a grasp of all these seems to me arrant nonsense.
This is the impression I have gained directly from two main sources - from the Irish settled tradition which was still thriving within the lifetimes of the singers we recorded, and from the Travellers who still had a living tradition, though it quickly disappeared soon after we started working with them. The latter group included a ballad seller, a survival of the old broadside trade and the nearest we have of any detailed on-the-spot information on the practice.
I really don't want to enter into a pissing-contest with you to prove whether your 40+ years is worth more or less than my 50 years; I would much rather swap real arguments.
If you can really prove that our folksongs and ballads originated on the broadside presses - show us your willie - metaphorically, of course!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Apr 11 - 04:24 PM

I think we've got back to 'You show me yours and I'll show you mine' again, Jim.

I'll extend the offer I made a few months back; YOU select any ballad from the corpus of material mentioned above, barring some of the older Child ballads, and let's take it from there.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 04:38 AM

"I'll extend the offer I made a few months back"
Better than that Steve - give me any traditional song that you can claim without fear of contradiction, originated on the broadside presses and was not in circulation in the tradition in one form or another beforehand.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 02:32 PM

Wow that's generous, Jim!
I could name about 2,000 off the top of my head and be confident you would not be able to find any evidence of oral tradition prior to the earliest broadside, but I'll stick to these parameters here given which you very generously offer.

Okay, the first one that jumped into my head for no particular reason was 'Young Napoleon or The Bunch of Roses O.' Pretty obviously the ballad must postdate Bonaparte's demise as it's about Maria Louisa and her son. In fact it seems to postdate the death of young Napoleon who died in Vienna in 1832. A broadside issued by Hill of London credits the ballad to one George Brown of whom we know very little other than his name and it is also appended to broadsides, 'Flora the Lily of the West', 'The Merchant's Daughter and Constant Farmer's Son', and 'The Grand Conversation on Napoleon', all since then found in oral tradition. Hill was printing at about that time. Since then the ballad has been printed by just about every broadside printer in the country, and I might add with very little variation from the usual 6 stanzas. In fact there is very little variation between any of the oral versions probably as the ballad is so recent and hasn't had sufficient time in oral tradition to accrue much variation, apart from which it was so readily available in print all over Britain.

Subject: RE: 'Historical' Ballads
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Apr 11 - 02:41 PM

Oh, and I almost forgot, 100!