song of the shepherd, dick miles

Subject: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 01:24 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnICYw1_2fc&feature=youtu.be

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 19 Jul 12 - 03:29 PM

That's pretty good, Dick. (Had to be careful with the punctuation there).

Did you consider doing a verse where a leopard came, perhaps escaped from a zoo and took a lamb? It could lead you into a whole new part of the song - where the shepherd goes to the zoo to let his anger be known to the zoo keeper and is trampled by an elephant? Or charged by a rhino, perhaps. Less obvious, more enthralling for the listener.

A good song though, even without the leopard / rhino coda.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Uncle Jaque
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 11:09 AM

That's quite nice IMHO.

Sounds like Dick knows what he's singing about. Is he from Scotland?

Reminds me a little of the old hymn "The Ninety and Nine".

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 20 Jul 12 - 04:56 PM

Very fine song. Well done Dick. It has slight echoes of My Grandfather Knew The Plough, but not a copy by any chalk.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 04:00 AM

thankyou,Diane

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 04:55 AM

Lovely stuff, Dick - but all your own words? I'd say 'Parrock & twin and cheat with a skin' are the line is borrowed wholesale from The Shepherd's Song from the singing of the late great Willie Scott. Credit where credit's due I say!

Actually, I had a crack at this myself recently:

http://soundcloud.com/sedayne-fiddlesangs/the-shepherds-song-9-3-12

We've got a good wee deal going on this down at our folk club where as well as other singers the chorus is joined by melodeon, hurdy gurdy, second fiddle, concertina (and even Mudcat's own LesB on guitar on Friday neet gone). I must record that one night...

I find it amazing that 3 of my all-time favourite songs share the title of The Shepherd's Song - the Willie Scott song, and those by the Strawbs and Amazing Blondel, not that I sing the latter, I've loved 'em since I was a wee boy and listen to them not to commune with the innocence o' auld times.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 05:35 AM

I'm sorry, I'll say that again...

I'd say the line 'Parrock & twin and cheat with a skin' is borrowed wholesale from The Shepherd's Song [...as sung by...] Willie Scott.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: johncharles
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 11:54 AM

it is a fine line; there is a definite shortage of songs which include parrock.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Speedwell
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 01:24 PM

I really like the song Dick.
We sometimes sing "When sheep shearing's done" which has the same tune but doesn't seem to get much of an airing.Thanx for putting it on youtube.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 01:56 PM

jesus christ,
how petty and nitpicking can you get, do you think REALLY think wille scott would care that i used the word parrock, has he got some copyright on this one word
there is no similarity between the songs other than they describe the life of a shepherd.
if you dont like it, change it to cheat, fake and twin., BUT STOP WASTING YOUR TIME on picking nits.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 02:25 PM

I recorded our sheepsherings done back in the late 80s, Richard Grainger sang a bass harmony, i think it is a fine tune, but never felt the words were very convincing.
I think the new set of words are an improvement, I am glad you like them Speedwell.
I have never had a problem using existing trad tunes, after all some of the greatest songwriters[ MacColl and Bellamy and Dylan] have done it, what is good enough for Ewan and Peter and Bobbie dee is good enough for me .

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: johncharles
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 03:10 PM

parrock = one word
I can parrock, I can twin, Aye, an can cheat them wi' a skin = a sentence.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 04:22 PM

John Charles,as i said if you dont like it change it to, we must cheat and twin and fake them with a skin., it is describing how to do a certain task in a shepherds job., or do you object to me using cheat and twin and fake them with a skin, if you do you nit pick off

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Continuity Jones
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 04:35 PM

I don't think it matters a jot if you borrowed a line. What did wild Oscar say? Talent works and genius steal? Something like that. Dylan stole half songs, Paul Simon, Madonna - they're all it, Dick. It's a nodding tribute to that song - like the bass line in Dub Be Good To Me. A tribute to Guns o' Brixton. It's an old line in a new song and works well in it's new place. Don't worry though, it's still in it's old place too. Like a whore, who can sell their goods and then still have them goods to sell to the next man.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 04:43 PM

or if you like, john charles,how about cheat and fake and fool them with a skin
people like u and guest blind diva manage to illustrate how enthusiasts turn into anoraks

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 04:49 PM

I'm not nitpicking, Dick - just pointing out the obvious fact that you plagiarised a line wholesale from another song. I'm not judging you for doing it, just pointing out that you did it, unless it's by some uncanny coincidence, or else some other more occult mechanism of the folk process. Chanelling perhaps? In the video you call for respect for your authorship of the piece, but you didn't mention you'd nicked a line of various Border diacted shepherding terms to give your own a tinge of the authentic. As Uncle Jaque said above Sounds like Dick knows what he's singing about.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 05:19 PM

if you dont like it sing the alternatives i suggested, in the meantime stop wasting time with this carping crap.
incidentally in my opinion your slowing down of willie scotts version of the other song is not an improvement, the way willie sings it has life and swing

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 06:00 PM

Again, Dick - credit where credit is due. I'm not criticising you - just pointing something out that you didn't see fit to mention. As I said in my post, lovely stuff, Dick.

My singing goes and in hand with my fiddling & asthma. Willie Scott is the master - I'm certainly not trying to improve on him - and I always give credit to the source.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 06:15 PM

Blandiver, as I understood from someone else on this forum,[was it vic smith] the song was traditional,and not written by willie scott.so why should I give willie scott credit.
stop being a pillock,any singer is free to sing the line of the song in the different ways i have suggested., it is a song wriiten in a tradtional style which I have put up on you tube, if people wish to learn it, YOU MAY BE INTERESTED TO KNOW I have not registerd it with prs, so its not as if i am claiming royalties for it, people like you make me sick, i put something up on you tube with no intention of financial gain, and anoraks like youself come along with this nit picking shit.
. I too, always credit my sources, I also mentioned the tune was traditional, although i am under no obligation to do so, and was under the impression that the the song was traditional
I am not interested you or in your asthma

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: johncharles
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 06:27 PM

Calm down dear it is only a song!

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: johncharles
Date: 22 Jul 12 - 06:46 PM

p.s. "blind diva" ?typographical error. It should be Blandiver.
Off to get my anorak.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 04:31 AM

yes, go and do some train spotting.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 04:59 AM

and was under the impression that the the song was traditional

Does that mean we can plagiarise it willy-nilly without even crediting the fact that we've done so? I think not. Much less credit the fact Willie Scott remains the source of the song? In Herd Laddie of the Glen (2006), Geordie McIntyre says the song comes via Willie's brother Tom from the singing of John Irvine of Irthingshire, which is backed up by Maurice Lindsay in the notes to Willie Scott's The Shepherd's Song (1968) album on Topic. McIntyre also rightly points out that it was Willie Scott's signature tune, reflecting half a century of shepherding experience.

Traditional Songs are full of the muck of the genuine experience of people who made & sang them; Folk Songs are the romantic dreamings of Folkies yearning after the unsayable & unwritable for the best of reasons. No harm in that, like I say (without wishing to incur your further outrage), Lovely stuff, Dick. Just credit please where credit is due, as you've so often said yourself.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 06:12 AM

listen mate, the words have been changed now, to cheat fake and fool with their skin , which owes nothing to the other song but describes a shepherds job, now i suggest you go off and do some anoraking.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 06:26 AM

or even better is, we must graft and switch and scent a new skin to see that the ewe takes the lamb.
here for our two anorak friends is some suggested reading,grafting, a lamb mamnagement saving tool, by a richard cobb.
i hope you two anoraks dont mind me using this authentic source?

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: johncharles
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 06:37 AM

The original line is fine, as I said previously. It may be the best line in the song and should stay. I suppose unless you are trying to make money from it, the issue of crediting anyone is down to one's conscience.
john

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 06:53 AM

it is a good line in my opinion because you have an internal rhyme twin with a skin, but it could be graft and switch and twin with a skin.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 08:03 AM

the above has only one word in common, which is hardly plagiarism, or even..
graft and scent and pin a new skin.
here is a description
Orphan lambs can often be found lying in frozen fields left out in the cold overnight and half to death. Unless you intervene your lamb will die. Bring the lamb into your kitchen and if you have a wood stove place it next to this in a cardboard box lined with woolen blankets. If you don't have a wood stove or fire going, place two hot-water bottles in the box with the lamb. Cover the hot-water bottles with towels so as not to burn the lamb. If it revives and shows signs of life, feed it with 120ml of colostrum immediately.

You may have to feed it using a stomach tube, as most lambs in this state don't suck readily. You can get special lamb reviving stomach tubes from some farm or veterinary outlets. If you cannot find a stomach tube, use 600 mm or 3 mm bore plastic tubing. Round the end in a flame and punch a few holes near the end with a leather punch. Hold the lamb's head up so that the neck is straight and gently push the tube down its gullet. Make sure that the tube doesn't end up in the lungs.

Hold up the funnel and fill it with colostrum. If using a plastic tube, a syringe may be easier to feed the lamb with, since a funnel with a neck thin enough may be hard to come by for some.
Raising Lambs: Hand-Rearing Lambs or Fostering Lambs?
Now when you find your lamb you have a dilemma. Are you going to be raising lambs through hand-rearing or are you going to foster the lamb out? Lamb fostering is by far the easiest method for you if a suitable ewe is available to be the surrogate mum, and is willing. However, even when this looks like an easier option, often the ewe won't readily accept the lamb, and then it becomes a battle of will and wits.

If the ewe's own lamb has just died, one can try and fool the ewe by tying the dead lamb's fleece on the orphan lamb until she accepts it. However, this doesn't always work and you will have to look for other devious methods, and other methods that just doesn't give the ewe much of an option! If she has a lamb of her own, having another to feed will not affect the milk production for her own lamb.

One devious method is to try and confuse the smell of the lamb. The ewe is always able to identify her own lamb out of a flock by smelling the lamb's head and rear end. To cause the confusion rub a strong-smelling liquid on the lamb's tail and head such as an antiseptic or even olive oil, and at the same time, also rub it on the ewe's muzzle. Another method, is to rub the foetal fluids of the dead lamb all over the lamb to be fostered, paying particular attention to the head and tail areas, which the ewe will sniff.

Another method is to put the ewe and the lamb together in a fairly dark, restricted area with food and water. Confine them in this area until they have bonded. This should happen over the next 2 days. If not you will then have to restrict the ewe by tying her up in such a way that the lamb has access to the milk and the ewe cannot reject or head-butt or hurt the lamb.
Raising Lambs: Bottle-Feeding your Orphan Lamb

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: C Stuart Cook
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 08:20 AM

We can all do what must have been common in the past. Half remember/learn the words of a song then do our best to remember it at the appropriate occasion, sometimes getting confused as to what bits really belonged where and filling the rest in with new or borrowed.

We've continued the Folk process and constructed a variant, as was so evidently done with so many songs in the past.

Or we could take the precisely written/recorded and preserve it in aspic.

Ever tasted aspic on it's own?

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 08:48 AM

We've continued the Folk process and constructed a variant, as was so evidently done with so many songs in the past.

I disagree. There has to be a cut off point between The Old Songs and The New Ones. The former are Traditional Songs born of a Living Tradition - the latter aren't; they are, in effect, fakes made up by Folkies & fakery is not continuing anything.

For sure, you can do what you want, but don't think you're continuing (or contributing to) The Tradition because that's something else entirely.

Folkies write Folk Songs in what they perceive as A Traditional Style. Dick isn't alone in this - we all do it - but this doesn't make them Traditional Songs - rather quaint pastiches of traditional songs that will no doubt appeal to certain Folkies, but which won't carry the same cultural & historical weight as a real Traditiional Song. It's like the Model Railway enthusiast making models - even the most purist railway modeller knows that his authentic layout in the attic isn't real, or continuing any tradition other than railway modelling as a (possible) folk art.

Now there's a thing: Fake folksong making as Folk Art anyone?

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 09:02 AM

well, sunshine, about the only folk songs that appeal to non folk enthusiasts are wild rover,nightingale, and black velvet band ., which could partly be due to lack of exposure to anything else.
   and i do not agree with your assessment as to what is a traditional song and quite frankly[before you get started with one of your quasi diatribes] the only thing that makes me decide to do a song is the merit of the song not what category it fits in to, all this taddle about fakes is irrelevant, what is important is whether the song has merit, there are plenty of crap folk or traditional and plenty of good songs just as there are plenty of crap composed songs and plenty of good composed songs

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 09:36 AM

I don't think that you have quite understood Blandiver's point, Dick. He was trying to distinguish between the songs that have emerged from the tradition (which he would call authentic) and the modern songs that have been written by folk singers for a folk club/singaround audience (which he would call pastiches).

For people like Blandiver (and for myself, actually) the distinction is important - and clearly he wants to keep the two separate.

On the other hand, you make an important point when you say "the only thing that makes me decide to do a song is the merit of the song not what category it fits in to". There is some drivel that has emerged from the tradition and some modern songwriters who are inspired by the tradition have composed some superb songs. I would give Dave Goulder as my example of the best of these.

Of course, new songs must be written; we cannot allow our movement to ossify, but when I hear songs that sound as though they have been written with the market in mind - whether it be for a folk music audience or for a broader music industry audience I, for one, find it a real turn off.

As for quoting a short piece from a traditional song in a modern composition, I think that many people would regard this as a tribute rather than plagiarism.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 10:15 AM

about the only folk songs that appeal to non folk enthusiasts are wild rover,nightingale, and black velvet band ., which could partly be due to lack of exposure to anything else.

In my experience this simply isn't true. Non-Folk audiences have a healthier respect for Traditional Songs that Folk audiences - witness the current Folk Scene, which is mostly Idiomatic Revival MOR Folk with dumbed down guitar accompanied renderings of traditional material for audiences who'd rather listen to that that the real thing - or anything that addresses itself to the real thing. This has been the reality during all my Folk Years, and with but few exceptions it remains the case today.

we cannot allow our movement to ossify

I'm not sure I'm part of any movement as such; in fact, I'm quite sure I'm not. I love Traditional Songs as part of much wider appreciation of Ken Hyder once called Music of Human Interest. Again, with few significant exceptions, the Folk Scene hasn't demonstrated a general worthiness to that legacy, IMHO - but another reason I like to drive the wedge in between Traditional Songs (real) and Folk Songs (fake). In an ideal world Folkies wouldn't touch Traditional Material at all, which would be elevated culturally to the status of National Treasure and valued as such.

I think some damn fine fake Folk Songs have been written - look no further than Peter Bellamy's songs & his Kipling settings; and there are songs from The Tradition that I wouldn't touch with a proverbial barge-pole. But that's hardly the point - even the most ghastly broadside is a product of something very different indeedcto the most perfectly crafted modern song. Same goes for violins I guess - or houses, or anything else.

It's weird because I'm a modernist at heart, just when it comes to Contemporary Musical Idioms I see them in terms of their Living Breathing Tradition - be it hip-hop or free-jazz. Folk, on the other hand, is something very different - it neither lives, nor yet does it breathe, except somewhere out there on the feral fringes of wyrdshire wherein there weaves a special magic in some liminal realm. Nothing like a good old seance, however.   

I think that many people would regard this as a tribute rather than plagiarism.

Okay then - how about a sort of random sampling? I've no doubt Dick's motives are sincere enough; he is a chap noted for his vociferous idealism in respect of fair-play. I've never said he shouldn't sing the line, rather that he should own up to where it comes from. Sourcing is so very important; without the provenance my Great Aunt Persephone's Pizzle (circa 1910) is just a tarnished brass hunting horn with a curiously shaped bell.   

[before you get started with one of your quasi diatribes]

Nothing quasi about my diatribes, Dick - they're the real thing; polemical rants from my throbbing heart because I care about this music.

Now quasi Folk Songs are a different matter entirely...

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 10:58 AM

Folk, on the other hand, is something very different - it neither lives, nor yet does it breathe, except somewhere out there on the feral fringes of wyrdshire wherein there weaves a special magic in some liminal realm.

I'm sure that there is a really interesting idea struggling to get out of this statement and I would really like Blandiver to expand his thoughts on this more fully and more clearly. The statement, "the feral fringes of wyrdshire wherein there weaves a special magic in some liminal realm." sounds fascinating but I am not sure that I understand the implications.

The thing is that I think I agree with Blandiver but I need more clarification.

Has the tradition died? What about those very aware moderns, The Young Coppers, who I know pretty well and like. For you, are their performances "authentic" or does the fact that you would be more likely to see them clubbing than in any folk ot traditional music gathering make them a "pastiche"?

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 11:11 AM

The real question is: is fluffy morris authentic? I suspect it is.

Nice song Dick, by the way!

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 11:14 AM

Folk, on the other hand, is something very different - it neither lives, nor yet does it breathe, except somewhere out there on the feral fringes of wyrdshire wherein there weaves a special magic in some liminal realm.

I just realised that I neither know nor care whether I agree with this (I think I do), but I really like how it sounds. Lovely sentence, Blandiver. Thank you.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 11:14 AM

As a non-folkie, I'd like to ask one question of the singers of the stuff: Are you a part of what you're singing about?

It doesn't matter a hoot, as far as I'm concerned, whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', but I suspect that, in most cases where traditional or quasi-traditional songs are being, the answer is 'no'. and, to be awkward, I think the terms "authentic" and "pastiche" are a bit too polarised for me. "Authentic" is, to me the Real Deal - and there are perhaps a very few people out there in the real world who sing these songs as part of the life they actually lead.

I don't know what the Young Coppers (whom I also like very much) do for a living, but my guess is that they don't do what their grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather did. When you read "A Song For Every Season" - which I do regularly to remind myself what real the real folk tradition is all about - there's very little of that particular rural life, the life that generated the singing in the fields and in the house and in the pub, left. In that sense, no - the Young Coppers aren't "authentic". But neither are they a "pastiche" - because a pastiche is something which openly imitates an art form, and the YCs certainly aren't doing that either. They're simply making music using material from their own family records.

The only shepherd (retired) I know who makes music and sings (to his accordion) in folk clubs, is dear old Ray Hedges - and he doesn't sing rural songs of the shepherd's life but songs by Cicely Fox-Smith and music-hall songs! I suspect Noel Dumbrell is one who's as authentic as we can get these days.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Will Fly
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 11:17 AM

Sorry - my post was addressed particularly to Vic - who may have to put with my "authentic" renditions of a 30s show tune this Thurday evening at the Oak...

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: johncharles
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 11:22 AM

Stirrings
Issue 151 - The latest from Stirrings Central

This issue we plunge into the tangled thickets of folk's latest sub-genre, WeirdFolk, with an exclusive interview with singer, musician and storyteller Sedayne, regarded by many WeirdFolkers as the Godfather of the genre.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 11:40 AM

I don't know what the Young Coppers (whom I also like very much) do for a living, but my guess is that they don't do what their grandfather and great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather did.

Ha Ha Ha! I was interviewing the six of them for an article in English Dance & Song and they had been pretty articulate in all their answers and then I asked "So none of you have become publicans of one sort or another like the previous three generations of your family?"
It was like they have been struck dumb! Eventually Ben Copper held up two crossed fingers as if he was trying to ward off an evil spirit!

Actually, four of the six of them work for their own specialist construction doing high quality restoration and building on authentic old houses; none of these pastiche modern buildings for them. They built the house for Jon Dudley & Jill Copper on the site of Bob's old house in Peacehaven and if there's a finer recently built dwelling then I haven't seen it.

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:13 PM

For you, are their performances "authentic" or does the fact that you would be more likely to see them clubbing than in any folk ot traditional music gathering make them a "pastiche"?

I think we're all post-revival in a very real sense, and I'm not into the implications of 'pure blood-authenticity' which I get when people start talking about folk families. With the old singers it's a different issue (though still complex in terms of a perceived purity) but 'Post Folk' things are very different. I don't think the Young Coppers are any more genuine than any other revival singer, but Folk is a tad prescriptive in this sense; and in anycase I'm wary of nepotism.

As far as The Tradition goes, I'll always have mixed feelings about the sort of thing we're dealing with. The socio-cultural conditions that were the natural habitat of Idiomatic Popular Traditional Song have gone and the songs are exinct as a species. What we do have is the idiom, and the enthusiasm and the passion and the creativity which addresses itself to its 'Heritage' by way of a wider zeitgeist, but that heritage is common to us all, not just those favoured by the accident of birth.

sounds fascinating but I am not sure that I understand the implications.

I first copped Folk in 1972 or 73 when I was eleven. According to my mother, however, my father was singing shanties & folk songs (Gamekeepers Lie Sleeping was one title she remembered; Bell Bottomed Trousers was another) back in the 1950s (he died in 1961) but as far as I can ascertain he knew nothing about the Folk Movement per se, despite being related to the legendary Northumbrian Piper Tom Clough. I think in a lot of regions of the UK (Northumberland & Scotland) such 'traditional' material existed in spite of the revival, or of Folk as a movement. It was just 'there' and I was lucky enough to hear it.

When I got into Folk-Proper I was already primed by exposure to a lot of early music, prog & experimental music (Third Ear Band, Ken Hyder's Talisker) in which the Folk Zeitgeist lived and breathed very differently to the sort of more reticent / reactionary MOR I was hearing in folk clubs. I loved the old singers though - and I loved those singers who seemed to be closest to their spirit (Peter Bellamy, Jim Eldon and more grubby unknown traddy floor singers than I can shake a stick at) which to me was the same as what I heard Lol Coxhill doing, or what I heard The Fall doing a few years later. I never got folk-rock per se (it was too safe & middle-class; with significant exception - i.e. Bright Phoebus which seemed very genuine somehow, esp. the perverted rock-a-belly of Danny Rose) because it never lived up to Folk or Rock somehow; I loved Gentle Giant though, and Yes, in whose ultra-middle-class bombast I detected much by way of Transcendent Visinary Folkery. I was young, easily beguiled, but I still might listen to The Revealing Science of God and wish more folk rock bands had ventured thither.

These days one might listen to (say) Sproatley Smith or Telling the Bees and hear that self-same feral folk zeitgeist that acknowledges on The Tradition, but doesn't seem overly Folky in the sense of easy listening. To me the very last thing Traditional Song is, or should be, is easy listening. I'd love it if Radio Three broadcast field-recordings of our Traditional Singers on the hour every hour - Willie Scott, Sam Larner, Harry Cox, Hockey Feltwell et al - as part of our essential cultural heritage, not just a select specialism of Folk Enthusiasts.

I'm proud to be associated with not just Folk Police, but also Coldspring whose ongoing John Barleycorn Reborn series stands as a vivid testimony to the sort of life this music has in the hearts of people who would ne'er darken the doors of a folk club. Volume 4 of this remarkable series of 2xCD sets is on its way; we've been on all four volumes, which isn't to boast, just stress my commitment to this living feral music which is born of a much wider & more positive vibe that the sort of MOR folk you get in folk clubs which doesn't connect with the outside world. I was talking to proprietor of Action Records in Preston and he says it's not Folkies who buy Folk Police & Coldspring CDs...

*

Forgive me, I'm just rambling here in my downtime before my wife gets in. It's not a manifesto, it's just a belief in musical truth and beauty which connects with the wider world in a way Folk as a truly quasi religion never can. This is fine by me too, it's the way of the world as I've known it since I was a boy - go into some clubs - a lot of clubs - too many clubs - and you feel them bristling at anything that comes in sounding a little bit weird to their ears, and yet in that very weirdness, I insist, is the core of what Traditional Music is; the very antithesis of the small minded MOR that passes for purism these days.

As I posted elsewhere, the feral essense lurks in the difference between Willie Scott's rendering of The Kielder Hunt and Archie Fisher's dumbed down strum-a-long version from 1963 (or whenever) that many now think of as being acceptably traditional. THIS is a recent version I did a few weeks back with live singing & folk-tronica simply way of a personal polemic on the nature of Traditional Song as Uneasy Listening, but also to celebrate this as Music of Human Interest by way of what Sun Ra would call A Joyful Noise. This is music that yearns for the same feral wilderness in which Willie Scott lived, sang & worked for fifty years. Here, Weirdshire is the lost hertitage of the border landscapes celebrated in song as pure poetic resonance - a landscape that's now submerged beneath the midge-infested waters of the Kielder reservoir.

Er - what was the question again???

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:18 PM

perverted rock-a-belly

Now there's a music I could groove to!

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:23 PM

This issue we plunge into the tangled thickets of folk's latest sub-genre, WeirdFolk, with an exclusive interview with singer, musician and storyteller Sedayne, regarded by many WeirdFolkers as the Godfather of the genre.

Now. There's another thing I don't understand... If I go to http://www.folkpolicerecordings.com/rapunzel--sedayne.html I can listen to Rupunzel & Sedayne performing House Carpenter; I can see a video of them performing one of their own songs, Smuggler.

Question: Are their performance any different in nature from the sort of thing that has been available in folk clubs in the 40-odd years that I've been going to them?
Answer: In no way are they different. They are clearly talented and interesting performers but you could not call them different.
Question: So how come they are suddenly 'Weirdfolk'?
Answer: Well, their art work is a bit strange and some of the statements they make about themselves are a bit non-standard but their music seems pretty straightforward to me. Folk clubs have always attracted slightly odd-ball, slightly eccentric people (present company included) and that has always been one of its strengths.

Maybe it's just me but the people that I really rate in folk clubs are the likes of Tony Hall and Jim Eldon who could not be further away from Blandiver's "MOR Folk with dumbed down guitar accompanied renderings of traditional material".

Jim was at our club at the Royal Oak in Lewes with Lynette last Thursday and he sung "I Wish There Were No Prisons" which I know that he learned from the Sussex traditional singer, George Spicer, though Jim has added a few verses of his own. He followed that with another voice and fiddle number, "Jailhouse Rock", which I think he learned from another traditional singer but I just can't remember his name.

On reflection, I think that it is me that is the weird one; when I read on this thread that Mike (Will Fly) was going to being more of his 1930's songs to our club this Thursday, I thought, "Bloody Great". - Now, you've got to admit, that was pretty weird!

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:43 PM

Point of information: The Smugglers' Song is a Peter Bellamy setting of Kipling.

The thing is, I listen to Rapunzel and Sedayne's music, and it reminds me of some of my favourite folk music of the 70s. I mean this in a good way. The recordings, particularly on labels like Leader, often had a raw, immediate quality that you don't always get with contemporary folk abums, which usually have a much more polished, overtly produced sound. I think R&S have that raw quality, which is one of the reasons FPR released 'Barley Temple'. I don't think what they do is 'weird' (and certainly not self consciously weird), but it seems some people do and so they get lumped in with various other people who are also seen as weird. This is ok if we use weird in the Shakespearian sense rather than with the modern day meaning. There again if 'Anthems in Eden' or 'Oak Ash and Thorn' or 'Bright Phoebus' (to name three examples) came out today, I suspect they would be seen as quite radical and leftfield albums.

Jim Eldon, meanwhile, is a national treasure, and one who no-one could accuse of being in anyway bland or middle of the road in his approach. I wish he was more of a direct influence on the current generation of young folkies than he is. Likewise, plenty of 'em cite Bellamy as an influence but I actually HEAR that influence in very few.

Getting back to the original subject of this thread, I had the pleasure of seeing Dick Miles at Swinton Folk Club a few years back and was impressed by his performance. Again, you couldn't call him middle of the road!

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:45 PM

PS: if you ask Sedayne, he'll tell you that Rapunzel & Sedayne are completely misunderstood and they're actually a husband and wife folk 'n' fun duo...

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:51 PM

weird folk, sounds like someone is attempting to be different for the sake of it., now if sedayne had been attempting to play very modern classical music such as Sam Richards plays and combine it with with trad music, now that would be weird, but he is not, he is calling himself weird but playing in a fairly conventional uk folk style.
i think sedayne i trying to create a weird image without it being truly weird, might i suggestan image makeover a suit with bowler hat, shave off hair till he jhas a mohican, with the suit wear no socks, a robin day type bow tie, over the suit put on a kilt, and then start experimenting with atonal music, that would be truly weird

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:57 PM

oh yes
will fly, i do keep a few sheep though i dont really consider myself a shepherd, however i did spend a bit of my life working on farms... I was a stockman, so i do consider it something i have an empathy with, of course that was in the days that i had a proper job., before i was a newsagent

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 12:58 PM

I like what Rapunzel & Sedayne do...... and Dick I like your song. None of this is especially radical though (even if Sean's voice is occasionally slightly other worldly). It's all good clean folky fun.

I'm going to be deeply untrendy and say I don't "get" Jim Eldon. I guess that just makes me a bad person.

and Weirdlore/ Weirdfolk..... a brave attempt to start a marketing led popular folk movement maybe? Nothing wrong with that but lets not pretend its something it's not.

I just felt the need to contribute and keep Dick's thread near the top!

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 01:10 PM

well banjiman ,it is not compulsory that we all like the same things, some people like to have the wilsons in bed, i cant say it appeals to me , i wouldrather have them buying me a pint , and they owe me a few

Subject: RE: song of the shepherd, dick miles
From: Vic Smith
Date: 23 Jul 12 - 01:11 PM

Point of information: The Smugglers' Song is a Peter Bellamy setting of Kipling.
Thanks for this, Nigel, I suppose I knew that really. I am guilty of listening to the style rather than the content of the performance on the one time I watched that video.

And re-reading, just now, the sixth post in this thread and reading:-
Actually, I had a crack at this myself recently:
the penny dropped that GUEST,Blandiver and Sedayne are one and the same person - all too much for me who has always been plain old Vic Smith. However, it did make me listen to that Soundcloud link and in it I could hear something of the essence of that much revered way that Willie Scott had with the song.

I took quite a number of photos of Willie, both in Scotland, at Whitby Festival and on the occasions when he came down to the folk clubs that we ran in Sussex - both on his own and with Ray Fisher. I never realised that I was in one with Willie until I saw this photo of us in Blairgowrie emailed to me a few days ago - just 42 years after it was taken.