Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle

Subject: Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle
From: GUEST,matt milton
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 09:44 AM

I was considering buying these, reprinted by Faber:

https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571245703-the-idiom-of-the-people.html
https://www.faber.co.uk/9780571245710-the-everlasting-circle.html

But I was wondering how different the songs' lyrics actually are? Is it literally a case of a word or a line here and there? There aren't any songs in these books that I don't already have in printed form somewhere - how revelatory are James Reeves' restored versions?

Can anyone tell me what Reeves' actually did to 'restore' the songs? Where did he source the original censored words? Printed broadsides? The original unedited notes of the song collectors?

Thanks all.

Subject: RE: Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 10:18 AM

In a nutshell the books are useful for reference. You can get the tunes from the Full English, and details of the singers from the 'Cecil Sharp's people' website.
A lot of Reeve's input is very dated thinking. To be fair the books were published in 1963/4 However as an example, Reeve's explanation of 'The Foggy Dew' is over researched nonsense.
In respect of the words contained my view is go to the original and make a comparison and see which you like best if you are a singer. Other than that the books are a starting point for further research, but I personally paid under ten pounds for each book on Ebay.

Subject: RE: Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle
From: RTim
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 11:04 AM

I have had a hard back version of The Everlasting Circle since 1974...my first wife bought it for me as a birthday present.
By contrast I bought a paperback version of The Idiom of the People in a Cape Cod bookshop about 10 years ago.
As Nick correctly said......They are useful as a reference, and you can access all the raw data you need on The Full English web site.

I would add that in The Everlasting Circle is the only reference to the Version of "Bonny" collected from James G. Bounds where he sung - "John Brown's War" in the chorus instead of the more normal - "Jean Francois". This is the ONLY version of this collected by Gardiner.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 12:15 PM

Backing up Nick and Tim, they are not essential and as Nick said misleading in places. Having said that I find them useful for a quick text if I'm doing a multi-version song study, rather having to go online and fiddle around with an image to get it printable. i can just scan print Idiom and Everlasting.

Subject: RE: Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 12:31 PM

Are the Reeve books accurate transcriptions of the Sharp manuscripts?

Subject: RE: Idiom of the People & Everlasting Circle
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 01:14 PM

Without checking every song it is difficult to say.