Source Singers

Subject: Source Singers
From: GUEST,Embarrassed Catter
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 03:13 PM

I know this will sound a very simple and basic question from someone who has been around for years but what exactly is a source singer. *Blush*

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: greg stephens
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 03:20 PM

I suppose the term originally referred to the singers the folk song collectors got the songs from. Now more loosely used to mean traditional(learnt their songs off other traditional singers in the family or pub etc) as opposed to revival singers(who get their songs off books/records/folk club singers/traditional recordings etc). That's how i undersdtand the term anyway.

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: Skipper Jack
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 03:53 PM

I would put them in two categories:

"Folk singers" (the true traditional singers who learnt the songs first hand from their family, fellow members of their community, etc.)

Then there's the "Singer of Folk Songs" which might well fit Greg's interpretation of a revival singer?

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: GUEST,celtaddict
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 05:31 PM

I have understood the term to be narrower yet, to refer to the individual from whom a song was "collected" when it was first recorded or published.
Ellis Peters' book "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Heart" is a contemporary (OK, 60s) novel in which the plot hinges on recognizing an obscure Child ballad. But a character in it points out, when called a folksinger, that she calls herself a ballad singer. She says people don't agree on what a folk singer is (many threads attest to that!) but what she does is sing ballads, so she is a ballad singer.

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: Leadfingers
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 06:35 PM

Most of the source singers are now dead although Bob Copper is still going strong fortunately.They were the people who the Current Singers
of traditional songs learned from,who learned the songs within their
family or community environmrment.
Just as a matter of interest how many U K Catters are aware that Bob Arnold who played Tom Forrest in the Archers for many years until HIS demise was a Shropshire source singer.I have a lovely version of Stow Fair(Not Widdecombe) from Bobs singing.

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: Art Thieme
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 08:44 PM

JEAN RITCHIE is all of the above plus being a singer- songwriter. When she sings the songs of her Kentucky mountain family she is definiotely a source singer and she is one to the enth degree. As an example of a source singer, you will find no better example.

Check out the Folkways recording THE SINGING FAMILY OF THE CUMBERLANDS to hear fine examples of this important music. Her dad, Balis Ritchie's version of "JOE BOWERS" is one of my all time favorite renditions of any song ever. Jean is kytrad here at Mudcat.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: GUEST,andymac
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 09:23 PM

Isn't it simply the case that as generations age and pass on, the people who learned those songs from "source singers"become the source singers for the next generation? Isn't that the oral tradition. It has only been the advent of collecting and then modern recording that has enabled people to be labelled as the "source singer" for a particular song. Surely with time the distinction becomes artificial?

For me, the most important thing is a sense of authenticity and a connection made between the singer and the song which is, in turn passed on to the listener. The point made about Jean Ritchie is absolutely right and can be made about a whole number of other singers.

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 09:42 PM

The point is continuity. The term "source singer" was coined to describe someone whose repertoire and whose understanding and interpretation of that repertoire came from an inherited tradition. Revival performers who learn from "source" singers only become "source" singers in their own right if they assimilate not just the material, but a significant amount of the context to which it belongs. Revival performers who learn only from other revival performers may learn a great deal about the revival, but are unlikely to learn, or be able to pass on, very much about the tradition.

Subject: RE: Source Singers
From: Hrothgar
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 06:18 AM

... and a lot of them needed to drink a bit of sauce before they started singing.

:-)