source singer: Mr Reservoir Butler

Subject: Mr Reservoior butler
From: GUEST,Ed Silberman
Date: 03 May 22 - 12:00 AM

I remember reading of someone collecting a song from Mr Reservior Butler. But I can’t remember who or what the song was. For that matter any information about Reservior Butler would be appreciated. He’s something of a mystery man tome

Subject: RE: Mr Reservoior butler
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 03 May 22 - 03:41 PM

His wife sang Christ Made a Trance to Cecil Sharp.

From the above link:

"the tune was learned by Cecil Sharp from Mrs Reservoir Butler (née Holland) who, along with her husband, sang many unique carols and other songs to collectors before WW1."

His name is, as I'm sure you know, the inspiration for the Steeleye Span album title:

Ten Man Mop or Mr. Reservoir Butler Rides Again

Subject: RE: source singer: Mr Reservoir Butler
From: GUEST
Date: 12 May 22 - 12:33 PM

Does anyone have any further information?

Subject: RE: source singer: Mr Reservoir Butler
From: Tony Rees
Date: 13 May 22 - 03:06 AM

Cecil Sharp collected at least 3 carols from Mrs. Reservoir Butler, aged 68 of Armscote, Warwickshire on June 17th, 1913 according to "Carols" by CJ Sharp, F Kidson, LE Broadwood, RV Williams (1914) Journal of the Folk-Song Society, 5(18), 1–30., available at https://www.jstor.org/stable/4434000. You can read that article via sci-hub (just append "https://sci-hub.mksa.top/" before the DOI which is "10.2307/4434000") if you want to read the whole thing. There are six uses of "Butler" in the text which lead to versions of "The Holy Well", "God made a Trance", and "Christmas now is drawing near at hand", in that order... She is described as "a gipsy".

I have not found any further information, although a couple of later sources repeat the same, in one case getting her age wrong (67 instead of 68)...

Subject: RE: source singer: Mr Reservoir Butler
From: Tony Rees
Date: 13 May 22 - 03:14 AM

Here is a scan of C. Sharp's original manuscript notation for "God Made a Trance", with informant details at the top right: https://media.vwml.org/images/web/CJS2/SHA-01-2865.jpg, as held in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (original resides at the Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2/10/2865)).

Subject: RE: source singer: Mr Reservoir Butler
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 May 22 - 01:20 PM

'God made a Trance' and 'Christmas now is' are both in our last book of Gipsy songs A Secret Stream, available from Francis Boutle Publishers, along with historical notes on the songs.

Subject: RE: source singer: Mr Reservoir Butler
From: Tony Rees
Date: 13 May 22 - 02:53 PM

Re the use in the Steeleye Span album title, it is stated in an album review (http://www.progarchives.com/Review.asp?id=205726 that in an interview, Tim Hart recalled that "Mr." Reservoir Butler was the source for one of the album songs, but he did not remember which. Since this recollection is at best second hand and possibly third, it may be either garbled or unreliable; it seems that M. Carthy was the one familiar with at least one of the "Mrs" R.B. songs elsewhere, so the true information may be available from that source, if he remembers of course; alternatively there may be songs collected from "Mr" R.B. of course, though I have not located them (the Mainly Norfolk article cited above does hint at this, but exactly to what it is referring is unknown to me).

Cheers - Tony