Subject: RE: Obit: Bob Copper
From:
DMcG
Date: 03 Apr 04 - 03:24 AM
here is 'The Guardian' obit., taken from this link
Sussex's master folksinger
Michael Grosvenor Myer
Saturday April 3, 2004
The Guardian
Bob Copper, who has died aged 89, was a leading member of the famous singing Copper family of Rottingdean, East Sussex, and an important collector of English folksongs. His earliest musical memories were of sitting around the fire singing with his father, Jim, and his grandfather James Copper, who was born in 1845. Indeed, a paper on the songs of James Copper and Thomas Copper, Bob's great-uncle, was presented at the inaugural meeting of the English Folk Song Society in 1899, while some of their songs were printed in the first number of the society's journal.
The Copper family have lived in Rottingdean, where Bob was born in a farm cottage, since the 16th century - Kipling mentions them in Rewards And Fairies. The family were not gentry (Bob's father would tell of having been caned at school for forgetting to raise his cap to the parson), but were always respected members of the community, working as farm bailiffs, publicans, policemen and and even, occasionally, as soldiers.
Bob's father was the bailiff of a large estate, and as a boy Bob helped with farm chores, such as bird-scaring. He left school at 15, went to work in the village barber's shop and then became a soldier, briefly serving in the Life Guards before joining the West Sussex constabulary. (But, as his son John once told me, he gave that up because he was getting too much chaff from his friends about being PC Copper.)
Until the folksong revival of the 50s brought the family fame and recognition, Bob and his cousin Ron, who died in 1978, kept alive the family songs. Grandfather James had written down a few for the daughters of his employer, a local farmer - one, for instance, he entitled Hears A Dew Sweet Loveley Nancy. In 1936, his son Jim, Bob's father, collected nearly 50 of his songs into a book which the family still carry with them to all their gigs. It was dedicated to Bob.
All these songs had been learned orally, at father's or grandfather's knee as he repaired shoes or mended sacks, or within the family circle. In their youth, Bob and Ron would often treat the tradition with a certain levity. "While one of the old boys would be singing 'Oh, the mistletoe bough, Oh the mistletoe bough'," Bob confided to me once, "Ron and I would be sat in the corner mouthing 'Oh, the miserable row, Oh the miserable row'!" But Bob had always, in fact, loved the family's tradition, to which he paid tribute in a poem he wrote in 1947 called The Old Songs (this was set to music and sung by Peter Bellamy shortly before his early death).
Then in 1949, Bob's father told him that he had been listening to a BBC Home Service programme called Country Magazine in which someone had sung one of "our" songs, "only he got the words wrong". Bob wrote to the presenter Francis Collinson, who hastened down to Rottingdean, where he recorded several songs from Jim, Bob and Ron at the Central Club in Peacehaven, a social centre run by Bob and his wife Joan, whom he had married in 1941.
This encounter triggered a relationship with the BBC, for Bob who himself became a wandering collector and recorder of songs around Sussex and beyond. Bob also featured in a Sunday morning radio programme, As I Roved Out, which was broad cast from the Central Club in 1953 and 1954. A collection of his recordings later became a book, Songs And Southern Breezes, published in 1973, with a foreword by John Arlott.
By the time of Ron's death, Bob's son John was waiting to take his place to provide the harmonies that make the Copper family singing so distinctive. Later, the line-up expanded to include John's wife Lynn, his sister, Jill Copper, and her husband John Dudley. Even more recently, John's and Jill's children have joined in too. Bob, his son and daughter and their spouses and children can all be heard, for instance, on the English Folk Dance and Song Society's recording Coppersongs (1987), singing Thousands Or More.
Towards the end of his life, Bob frequently expressed the greatest satisfaction that the family's fine tradition was safe for at least the next two generations.
Shortly after his 87th birthday, Bob went to New York to meet the American folksinger Pete Seeger, five years his junior, whose work he had long admired. A programme featuring their conversation, songs and views on their family traditions and on folksong in general was broadcast on Radio 4 in January 2002.
Bob Copper's contribution to folksinging was recognised by the English Folk Dance and Song Society in 1978, when he was awarded its Gold Badge; he received an honorary degree from Sussex University in 2000. Four days before his death he was invested with an MBE.
He is survived by his two children and six grandchildren. His wife died in 1983.
· Robert (Bob) James Copper, folksinger, born January 6 1915; died March 29 2004
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sj
