trad pop songs

Subject: trad pop songs
From: diggle2
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 04:27 PM

I'm looking at which traditional songs have been the most popular in the current, 45-year revival in the UK. Not necessarily the most recorded or done by professional performers, but by the rank and file in the clubs and festivals. Has anybody got any data, or feel they could write down a top 20 with confidence?

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 04:43 PM

I thought this was going to be a thread about which pop songs have passed into the tradition... and it's probably going to provoke the usual arguments about "what is a traditional song"...

Probably quite a few Copper family songs, and songs popularised by the Watersons and Young Tradition, like "Thousands or more", "Byker Hill".

Other songs have fallen in and out of fashion over the last 45 years, and lots of really popular ones have seeped into the tradition after being written by Keith Marsden, Dave Webber, John Conolly, John Tams!

Kitty

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Susan of DT
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 05:09 PM

I thought it was going to be what hit parade songs were traditional - like Tom Dooley, Scarboro Fair, Frankie & Johnnie. Popular in 60s in US

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: GUEST,Barry, at sis-in-laws
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 05:32 PM

Trad to pop

Tom Dula
Sloop John B
Lavender Blue
Midnight Special


Pop to trad

Fiddler's Green
Jack-in-the-Green
Green Fields of France
Shoals of Herrgreening
Witch of the Westmorelands
Barrett's Privateers
Bring us a Barrel

Pop Trad
15 Miles on the Erie Cannal
Pleasant & Delightful
Banks of the Pounchatrain
Ships Carpenter
Barabra Allen
Pretty Polly

Barry

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Scoville
Date: 02 Aug 06 - 07:57 PM

House of the Rising Sun (trad to pop)
500 Miles (pop to trad)
Aragon Mill (pop to trad)

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: diggle2
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 02:22 AM

Thanks to those who've responded so far. The thread title is a bit ambiguous, I know, but I'm new to this. It's specificcally about the traditional songs collected by sharp et al, i.e. which ones have been the most popular in the folk clubs? I think Kitty's right to point out the influence of groups like the Coppers

Anyway, I look forward to more

diggle2

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Kevin Sheils
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 04:06 AM

The problem you'll have now diggle2 is that the thread has started in an ambiguous manner and, as frequently happens, as it gets longer most people will only read the first couple of postings and then add to it in that vein so your one above will probably get missed.

No easy way round that I'm afraid. Anyway to add some thoughts

I'd imagine that many of the most popular "traditional" songs sung in the clubs are probably not from the "collectors" (at least not performed in the collected manner) but from the revivalists who reworked them from oold broadsides and written collections and which have probably moved on from the "traditional" original.

Could be wrong though, it's been known.

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Scrump
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 04:52 AM

From: GUEST,Barry, at sis-in-laws:
"Pop to trad

Green Fields of France"

Interesting point - I wonder if a song that refers to events in a specific period of modern history (in this case WW1, 1916) can be considered traditional?

I suppose if the author is unknown then yes. But if - as in this case - the author is known (and even still alive, as here) I'm not so sure (?).

I'm not disputing Barry's suggestion above, it just made me wonder. Any thoughts, anyone?

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Scoville
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 11:26 AM

Who's Sharp?

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: GUEST,Tattie bogle at work
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 12:05 PM

Cecil Sharp that would be, famous collector of Folk Songs esp English: if you've not heard of him do a Google search and you'll find out loads!

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Scoville
Date: 03 Aug 06 - 01:14 PM

Oh, duh. Sorry, I'm on my third straight week reading the library catalog 9 hours a day--I can hear my brain sloshing around in my skull.

I can't get the Project Guttenberg page to open but of the songs listed here (scroll down):

Houston, Texas, vicinity.
I play mostly with Appalachian dulcimers so I don't know many jigs (6/8 is a pain), but I went to college in Iowa and learned a bunch of Midwestern fiddle stuff, too. Sort of a mixed background.

Everybody knows "On Top of Old Smoky".

My dad does a version of "Frankie & Johnny" but I have no idea where he got it--his mother's favorite song was "Mairzy Doats", so I doubt he learned it from her.

Everyone knows of "Barbara Allan" but I know very few who actually sing or play it. I've never heard the same version by any two singers and we can never agree on how it should be sung.

We do "Cumberland Gap" all the time, with an added "B" part.

Everyone knows of "Cherry Tree Carol" and "Matty Groves" but, again, I don't usually hear them sung or played.

There are several tunes called "Natchez-Under-the-Hill", and they are very different. The one I know came from Illinois and does not resemble "Turkey in the Straw" (which was published in the 1830's as "Old Zip Coon"). I learned "Natchez" from friends but the only recording I have is in the key of A, by the Allen Street String Band [defunct]. "Natchez" refers to the old dock area in Natchez, Mississippi, but you probably know that.

I assume "Napoleon's Retreat" could be "Bonaparte's Retreat", which a lot of my dulcimer friends play (or, less likely, "Bonapart Crossing the Alps", which we also play).

Everyone knows "Shortening Bread", "Cripple Creek", "Froggie Went A-Courting", and "Sally Gooden". If I never play "Shortening" again, I'll die happy.

Most know "Cuckoo".

We can never agree on a version of "Little Maggie".

Most know "Fire on the Mountain" but don't play it because it's pointless on the dulcimer.

I know a tune called "Pretty Little Girl" but I don't know if it's the same one. I learned it from friends who got it from former members of the Freight Hoppers, who are from the right part of the country. The title is sort of nondescript, though.

I know a banjo tune called "Lost Indian" but got in from someone from Alabama, and I don't know anyone else in my area that plays it. (Also, the fiddle tune "Cherokee Shuffle" is rarely, but sometimes, called "Lost Indian", but it's a much more recent tune.)

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Marje
Date: 04 Aug 06 - 07:17 AM

Diggle2, I think you'll have to untangle a few different strands here:

First, about half of the responses will be from the UK and half from the US. This doesn't mean that the US responses won't be interesting, but they won't answer what you asked. The repertoire over there is very different - also, they sometimes take "song" to include "tune", which compounds the confusion.

I think that even within the UK you'll find there are big regional variations. Scotland has a different repertoire from south of the border, and I daresay its own regional variations. In England, the North-East in particular has its own distinctive songs, and other areas too will have their own favourites (East Anglia, Sussex, the West Country, etc).

Then, as you'll see, there are people who already have misinterpreted (or not read) what you wrote and are engaging in fascinating, if irrelevant, discussion on the crossovers between pop and folk ...

Anway, for what it's worth, here are a few songs that I think are in the category you mention, and that are widely sung and recognised at festivals etc in England:
Pleasant and Delightful
Come Write me Down
Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy
Country Life (I like to rise..)
Raggle Taggle Gypsies (and its variants)
Various shanties: Leave Her Johnny, South Australia, etc
Banks of the Sweet Primroses
Seeds of Love
The Water is Wide
John Barleycorn
Byker Hill
Cadgwith Anthem
Rose of Allendale

Is that the sort of list you're looking for? I'd hesitate to rank them in any order or even to say these were any more popular and well established than another dozen or so songs that someone else might contribute. But maybe it's a start.
Marje

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Aug 06 - 11:39 AM

See, I thought the thread was going to be about trad versions of pop songs.

So I was going to mention Niclkel Creek's version of Brtiney Spears's Toxic at Cambridge FF. Honestly, it was a joy.

As you were.

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: diggle2
Date: 04 Aug 06 - 12:05 PM

Marje is on to it.
Thanks Marje

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: GUEST,Auldtimer
Date: 04 Aug 06 - 01:20 PM

Antony Newley had a "hit" sometine in the early sixties with Strawberry Fair. Ri-foll Ri-foll fal-de-ridle-ie-doo.

Guy Mitchell recorded, Lofty Clippership, She had a dark and a roving eye, and her hair hung down in ringlets, in the late fifties/early sixties.

Stealeye Span's big "hit", All Around My Hat in the seventies.

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: skipy
Date: 04 Aug 06 - 05:11 PM

Scoville:- Who's Sharp?
Skipy Who's Blunt?
Skipy

Subject: RE: trad pop songs
From: Scoville
Date: 04 Aug 06 - 05:27 PM

Har de har har. I had that coming, didn't I?   ;-)




So I was going to mention Niclkel Creek's version of Brtiney Spears's Toxic at Cambridge FF.

Okay, that's enough to send me into convulsions right there. Seriously, I think it might be cause for UN intervention.