Kate Rusby - 'My Music'

27 May 09 - 03:24 AM (#2641660)
Subject: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

OK, it's a few years old now, but for those who've never seen it, Kate's documentary is out there on Youtube:

"She's managed to take the best of traditional songmaking and make it her own, to take it forward, and to take it to people who've never heard folk music....."

"Kate Rusby's voice is a thing of pure beauty...She's an utterly beguiling performer."


Here's the first part, the others are easy to find in the right hand list on the page there:

Kate's 'My Music' - Part 1

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27 May 09 - 04:20 PM (#2642160)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,van lingle

Thanks, Lizzie. Made my day.

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27 May 09 - 04:40 PM (#2642175)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Georgiansilver

I guess my favourite Kate song is "The Wild Goose" but I just love all her stuff... she has the voice, the music and the coveted 'presence'.
Best wishes and Thanks Lizzie, Mike.

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27 May 09 - 04:56 PM (#2642183)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Peter the Squeezer

Brilliant

I'm beginning to wonder whether Kate's version of "Who knows where the time goes" is better than Sandy's.

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27 May 09 - 05:12 PM (#2642201)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Oh yes, Peter, I agree! I love them both, but Kate's just has the edge for me..

Glad you're enjoying Kate, Mike and van lingle. :0)

Every time I see her on TV, I'm transported back to the last ever Sidmouth International Folk Festival, sitting on that hillside, literally 'Underneath the Stars' as Kate closed the show...holding near on 5,000 people totally spellbound with her music and her charm. That was such an emotional night.

Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Kate

Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Sandy

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27 May 09 - 05:59 PM (#2642247)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: TonyA

Kate Rusby always makes any song sound better to me. She even makes me like songs I never liked before.

Thanks so much for the link to the documentary, Lizzie. The part about her family being her record company, booking agent, sound engineer, and business manager is delightful!

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27 May 09 - 07:35 PM (#2642316)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,van lingle

Hard to choose on "Who Knows Where the Time Goes", but if you get a chance check out Eilis Kennedy doing it on "Time To Sail".

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27 May 09 - 08:04 PM (#2642336)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: olddude

Lizzie
absolutely incredible thank you

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27 May 09 - 08:24 PM (#2642348)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Nick

For me, absolutely not.

But it's silly to compare isn't it. They are both excellent singers and it's a lovely song.

Is there a better version of Joni Mitchell's 'A Case of You'?

Are covers better than originals?

When I heard 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor I found it hard to think how you could do it better/different. Until I heard Richie Havens sing it. Then I wondered for a while which was better. Now I enjoy both but perhaps tilt the balance towards the original.

There is a quality to Sandy Denny's voice and delivery that is very special on some of her songs for me and this is one of them. I could tell you exactly the moments. A fragile floating beautiful quality. Listen how she sings the words 'sky' 'leaving' and 'go' in the first line or so (eg as the word 'go' trails off).

Or 'leaving' and 'ah' and 'but' in the second verse (or 'thought of leaving')

Beautiful singing.

And Richard Thompsons not bad. And the drumming in the third verse is excellent.

I could go on. You can probably tell it's a favourite.

And it reminds me of summer evenings looking at the sky at Cropredy. For me her voice floats and flies with the birds that she sings about.

But the Kate Rusby version is very nice too and different enough.

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27 May 09 - 09:25 PM (#2642370)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Guy Wolff

Hello Lizzie C

Thanks for the YT links . I do love Kate's music and her take on making music from the place she comes from .. There is an inner strength that comes from knowing the rocks under your feet and the trees and hills around you . I would like to hear her mom sing some more and the two of them together.. Warmest regards , GUy

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27 May 09 - 09:41 PM (#2642376)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: irishenglish

I'm a big fan of Kate, but her Who Knows is ok, but for me no ones, not Kate, or Eva Cassidy, or Susanna Hoffs,or Judy Collins, or Kellie and Chris While, or Vikki Clayton, or anyone else can ever match Sandy singing it. Lets not forget the Unhalfbricking version wasn't even Sandy's first recording of it, but Martin Lamble's subtle drumming and Hutchings bass line counterpoint still remain with me. Now, virtually anything else Kate has done.....a definite highpoint for sure. I agree with Nick though, both excellent singers, etc.

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27 May 09 - 09:45 PM (#2642377)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lox

Very nice. My first taste of Kate.

I'll be coming back for another helping.

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28 May 09 - 03:27 AM (#2642497)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: SteveMansfield

I'm transported back to the last ever Sidmouth International Folk Festival, sitting on that hillside, literally 'Underneath the Stars' as Kate closed the show...holding near on 5,000 people totally spellbound with her music and her charm. That was such an emotional night.

I was there that night, and it was indeed a fine and special concert, probably my favourite of all the KR shows I've seen - but the emotional effect of 'Underneath The Stars', with the brass (which makes it so very special), was just as strong in the comparatively antiseptic setting of The Lowry theatre in Salford a year or two later ...

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28 May 09 - 05:16 AM (#2642544)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Smedley

Sandy Denny's version is unbeatable, in my opinion. Although I wish Kathryn Williams would record it.

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28 May 09 - 10:04 PM (#2643282)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: michaelr

Thanks, Lizzie, a great program. After watching this, I can understand KR's detractors even less than before. I mean, her voice may not be to everyone's taste, but the music is always top-notch, and how can you not love that charming personality? Plus the admirable way in which she's taken control of her career, with her family all pitching in, and making records on her own homespun label.

Three cheers to Kate, carry on, you're doing great.

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29 May 09 - 01:22 AM (#2643361)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

This poorly-made C5 film was received with approbrium at the time of transmission when it allowed Ms kRusby senior to spout sloppy attribution of The Recruited Collier on air.

Far from being "a Yorkshire song about miners" and thus by false association "appropriate to Barnsley", it is merely a Bert Lloyd industrialised rehash of a Cumbrian poem Jenny's Complaint about a pressganged farmworker.

Ample research on the song's origins and history has been published extensively in innumerable threads passim, here and elsewhere. The film is notable for its very nice shots of Andy Cutting but needs, otherwise, a comprehensive re-edit leaving, additionally, all the tedious shots of her screwing up in the studio on the cutting room floor.

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29 May 09 - 03:14 AM (#2643394)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

There are such *lovely* comments in here.   I'm so glad you're all enjoying watching Kate. :0)

Apologies for the few drops of bitterness.




Here's her myspace page, the new one that is, as the other one 'got lost' somewhere in space, just in case anyone hasn't found it yet...

Kate's myspace

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29 May 09 - 04:00 AM (#2643412)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: nager

Hi Lizzie:

I haven't seen it yet but will get there tonight and take a look.
Love Kate Rusby's voice and her Live at Leeds DVD is great. Cheers, Paul in Oz.

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29 May 09 - 03:57 PM (#2643797)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Hello Paul!   :0)

I hope you're keeping well..xx

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30 May 09 - 02:03 AM (#2644033)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

You are right Recruited Collier was not a Yorkshire song as such but I do agree that all the sentiments expressed and as sung by Kate can easily apply to the Yorkshire mining industry, as it could to any other mining area of the day

The beauty of the song is in its interpretation and delivery

Recruited Collier was also sung by Fred Jordan and was one of his favourites

Ray

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30 May 09 - 03:52 AM (#2644048)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: nager

Hi again Lizzie:
Watched it today and it was a lovely insight into how the family puts it all together, each with their own role to play.
Hope you too are keeping well over there in the UK summer.. spare a though for us in Newcastle NSW. It's almost winter, raining and a mere 17 deg C.
I am singing tonight at the Newcastle and Hunter Valley Folk Club as support for the Wheeze and Suck Band - might even throw in a Kate Rusby song!!
Cheers for now, Paul

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30 May 09 - 04:37 AM (#2644062)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

BEAUTIFUL, hot, sunny day over here in Sidmouth, Paul! (ooh, there's mean) ;0) Hope the gig goes well.

One of my favourties of Kate's...

'Falling'

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30 May 09 - 07:23 PM (#2644489)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: nager

Great song that one and also one of my favourites too. It is on one of the CDs I have of her. I had no idea there was so much Kate Rusby on Youtube. Yes, the folk club went well and I actually got an encore! Well, its still raining on and off here today - ah well it sure beats bushfires and drought! Keep well Lizzie - I am going back to Youtube. Catch up again soon.

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31 May 09 - 01:13 AM (#2644636)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Reinhard

Diane Easby's learnedness is an uncredited quotation from this earlier and much more comprehensive Mudcat Caf쳌«² thread about the Recruited Collier. The bold slight about the “now Lord Justice of Appeal” seems to be her own, though.

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31 May 09 - 05:28 AM (#2644695)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

As I said in my earlier contribution:

Ample research on the song's origins and history has been published extensively in innumerable threads passim, here and elsewhere.

My second post was a brief précis of just some of these readily available published sources which no-one, particularly not those involved in producing this substandard C5 docco, has been arsed to peruse. The purpose of a researcher in television production is to forestall errors of attribution, not to allow the subject's mother to perpetuate them.

Stephen Sedley, author of Seeds Of Love (wherein Recruited Collier and its notes was included) when a young law student, amateur singer and writer and a near neighbour of mine, is now the Lord Justice of Appeal. Not a "bold slight" (whatever that is), simply a matter of fact.

If this thread has any purpose at all, its function ought to be one of (somewhat belated) documentary-making criticism, not of fatuous, sycophantic fan worship.

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31 May 09 - 07:29 AM (#2644733)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Tell me, Diane, why is it, the merest mention of praise is considered by you to be so sickening?

You praise George when you've seen him play. You wrote a wonderful piece, once, on Chris Wood, as I recall.

People on here love Kate's music. They are NOT fanatical 'fans' as you're trying to make out, just people who appreciate her gentle voice and character.

There is nothing wrong with praise.
There is nothing wrong with gentleness.

Life is not all about vitriol, you know.

And now, back to Kate Rusby and 'her music'

From the concert I spoke of earlier in this thread, where she sang 'Underneath the Stars'..here's Kate singing the song she wrote for her grandmother, telling the love story of her grandparents...

Kate singing 'My Young Man' at the final Sidmouth International Festival 2004

Kate's not frightened of chopping and changing traditional songs around, she readily admits that, and perhaps that's why she gets such strife from some folks in the pedantic English folk world, who demand that songs are sung the 'correct' way, 'their' way.

Kate Rusby does it 'her' way.

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31 May 09 - 07:58 AM (#2644740)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

I'd agree with Diane in that a thread reviewing a video, cd, etc. should be balanced (and free speech) enough to allow criticisms as well as praise and that it might be worth pointing out factual errors, if for no other reason than to try to avoid the next dose of wrong information on Mudcat when a song thread crops up. That said, in this instance, I do disagree with Diane's overall assessment of the documentary. I think it works well.

I would however question (or answer as he phrased it as a question) michaelr's comment:

After watching this, I can understand KR's detractors even less than before. I mean, her voice may not be to everyone's taste, but the music is always top-notch, and how can you not love that charming personality?

As it happens, I do agree that KR comes over as having a "charming personality". I fail to see why that need be related to liking (or otherwise) her music. Thinking back on the few music documentaries I've seen over the last couple of years, I remember a Rolling Stones one. I really could not stand the personalities but I still find their music really good. On the other hand, I can imagine KR as being a nice person to meet but, for me, I don't find her music above a sort of competent and pleasant enough (I'd listen to her happily in a folk club) "average" - I don't understand the sort of "star status" with her.

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31 May 09 - 08:20 AM (#2644744)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

Clearly I haven't a clue what you are on about!

As a Yorkshire Collector of songs I find that the song base is and should be there to let others find songs of interest and significance and to bring them to a wider audience

The primary concern and idea is to sing songs in a way that is entertaining and communicates the words and feelings through the musical arrangement

We are now in the noughties, but the old traditional songs are still truly valid

Let the pureists [and I know some!] continue with their academic discourse, yes there is a place for all of this

BUT without people singing and making up songs the song "tradition " is surely dead (I do know the difference between trad and written thank you)

The life blood is out there in the pubs and more commonly now in the folk clubs and festivals

Good luck to all of you ~ Kate and all those who are keeping the English songs alive!

Ray

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31 May 09 - 08:21 AM (#2644745)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

The OP chose the thread title, namely a C5 documentary of several years ago.
It was poorly researched and perpetuated monumental errors which could very easily have been avoided by consulting readily available research (where indicated with appropriate attribution, viz the writings of Sedley and Palmer). Some of it is even available on this very site, as someone called "Reinhard" indicates.
Clearly I offer no "praise" for such shoddy research and poor-quality filmmaking.
All of which is entirely unconnected to a performance by the subject at a festival in 2004, 10 minutes of which I witnessed myself.
It has, furthermore, absolutely no bearing on the subject's approach to arrangement and composition which, as is the case with most artists in the industry, more appropriate and successful at some times than others.
And none on whether the subject is "nice" or not. Having met her briefly but once, several years ago, she seemed to be. "Nice", that is. So what, entirely irrelevant. This does nothing to raise her music above the bland R2 level for me, though this is clearly her aim and aspiration.
Choose your own platitude from boats and floating, horses and courses.

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31 May 09 - 08:31 AM (#2644754)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

If asking me, Ray Pagget, "Clearly I haven't a clue what you are on about!", etc. My comment I guess you are addressing relates to missinformation on threads. It's nothing to do with purism, how the song may be adapted, or sung, but it is to do with the next person coming along looking for information on the song.

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31 May 09 - 08:38 AM (#2644762)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Silas

Well, we all seem to like different things for different reasons. Personally, I could listen to Kake all day, I think she has a stunning voice and her interpretation of trad songs is very good, but her own songs are incredible - My Young Man, Underneath the Stars etc - fantastic. Just because she is popular does not mean that she is mor.

Someone mentioned Fred Jordan. I knew (slightly) Fred, but I have to say that I could not stand hearing him sing - he always sounded to me like the parody that Peter sellers did of a folk singer.

So, lets just live and let live.

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31 May 09 - 08:39 AM (#2644763)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Silas

*Kake*!

Freudian slip there I think!

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31 May 09 - 08:46 AM (#2644768)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

To word it another way Ray. Going by what I've read here for example, if anyone asked about "The Recruited Collier", we should be answering this is AL Lloyds reworking of Jenny's Complaint about a pressganged farmworker. rather than "this is a traditional song about colliers". It's not a judgement on the later work or a suggestion that there is anything wrong with a derived work. It would merely be the factual information someone wanting info on the song might require.

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31 May 09 - 08:52 AM (#2644770)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEKVeI_VD3E
here is a version with accompaniment concertina

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31 May 09 - 09:39 AM (#2644803)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Bert Lloyd,clearly wanted the song to enter into the tradition,and be sung, which it is,he did not want credit for it.
it is a beautiful song.
here we are in 2009,and owing to technology,we are in a position where we know the origins of everything,and the value of nothing.
what matters is that it is a beautiful song,it is not so important that it is allegedly a rewrite of something else,why?
because no composer is being plagarised,or deprived of royalties,while it may be useful to mention briefly,its alleged origins,what is really important is for the singer to try and do justice to the song.
I would like to thank LLoyd for passing this song into the revival.
lets get on with the singing,and stop worrying about trivialities.
sing and enjoy.

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31 May 09 - 09:42 AM (#2644804)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Here, here, Dick! Nice video too. :0)

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31 May 09 - 09:49 AM (#2644811)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

I don't really see where you are going there Captain. I think there are differences between ejoying songs and tunes and singing and playing for the enjoyment of it and the position of someone looking for information on a song. Would you for example suggest Malcolm Douglas was wrong in correcting the many (sometimes repeated) sets of wrong information here?

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31 May 09 - 10:05 AM (#2644816)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

BTW, I may have missed something but if it was my

"it might be worth pointing out factual errors, if for no other reason than to try to avoid the next dose of wrong information on Mudcat when a song thread crops up."

That sparked this off, I'm once again mystified by the powers of Mudcat. There is nothing there that suggests reworks must by wrong, that people (including me) may not like just a set of words to sing to, demands for "purity in song" etc. But the replies seem to read as if I'd suggested otherwise.

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31 May 09 - 10:12 AM (#2644819)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

"I don't really see where you are going there Captain. I think there are differences between ejoying songs and tunes and singing and playing for the enjoyment of it and the position of someone looking for information on a song. Would you for example suggest Malcolm Douglas was wrong in correcting the many (sometimes repeated) sets of wrong information here?"

Agreed. Bert Lloyd's approach to "collecting" and attribution is still hotly debated, and to say it doesn't really matter so long as the song is nice muddies the waters of the argument. It's perfectly fine to enjoy a song on its own terms as a bit of entertainment, but if you're going to bother to give it an attribution, what is wrong with trying to get that attribution right?

I would like to point out, before this post is interpreted as an attack on Ms Rusby, that I know both Kate and her family, and in fact gave her last CD a very favourable review.

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31 May 09 - 11:05 AM (#2644846)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

but we dont know the attribution is right, Bert Loyd is not here to defend himself , he may well have collected the song.we do not know.
how singers introduce songs when performing is entirely up to them,but the introduction to the song should never be more important than the performance.
the performance of the song is more important than anything else.
long live singers down with anoraks

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31 May 09 - 11:31 AM (#2644868)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Sedayne (Astray)

I must say my entire Folk Faith has taken quite a battering of late with all these revelations about hitherto cherished songs being the constructions of A.L.Lloyd et al. As a singer, provenance is so much part of the appeal for me; and a fake, no matter how pretty, is still a fake. All the more irksome when The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs was once my bible. I feel betrayed. 35 years betrayed!

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31 May 09 - 11:49 AM (#2644887)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

"long live singers down with anoraks"

I'm just off to get that tatooed on my chest, Dick! :0)

Love it!

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31 May 09 - 12:04 PM (#2644899)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Silas

"long live singers down with anoraks"

I'm just off to get that tatooed on my on my dick, chest.

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31 May 09 - 12:08 PM (#2644904)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Ooh, you're a brave man! ;0)

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31 May 09 - 12:12 PM (#2644908)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

"but we dont know the attribution is right, Bert Loyd is not here to defend himself, he may well have collected the song.we do not know."

There has been enough research after AL Lloyd's death to cast doubt on a number of his "attributions" - it's not just The Recruited Collier. And it is disappointing because it undermines his body of work, much of which has been of huge benefit to the revival.

"long live singers down with anoraks"

As a singer, I'd like to thank you for this vote of confidence.

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31 May 09 - 12:16 PM (#2644910)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

all traditional songs were written by somebody,they have often been added to by anonymous improvers[Over a period of time],yet no one calls them fakes,if a song is well written and has a good melody,and sounds traditional,I will sing it,if it was written by Ewan Maccollor any other traditional style songwriter,or is anon,or is anon altered by Lloyd,that will not stop me from singing it.
the tradition is an ongoing process,people have always altered old songs,I am sure Bert LLoyd wanted people primarily to sing the songs,he realised that the tradition was not something to be frozen,if he did what has been alleged[and this is yet to be proven[as far as I am concerned],how is that any different from all the other alterations to traditional songs[such as the addition of the Parrot in the outlandish Knight],or the Bob Roberts version of Gamekeepers lie Sleeping.
songs and stories will always be altered either accidentally or deliberately,we as singers, have the luxury to choose which version we wish to sing.

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31 May 09 - 12:24 PM (#2644914)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

Hey some of you guys, get real, Who's betrayed you, why did you buy something not for sale. If you enjoyed the song, still enjoy it. Chaucer, Shakespeare and many others based their works on unattributed bversions of oyhers. Its good that scholars can unearth the genesis and development of some storylines, but it makes absolutelym no difference to the quality of anything that Chaucer, Shakespeare, or bert LLoyd did.

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31 May 09 - 12:25 PM (#2644918)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

BTW, Kate Rusby is a wonderful singer and personality, get off her case and enjoy her wonderful singing and real attachment to a local tradition that she, unlike many above, has lived with all her life, lucky girl.

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31 May 09 - 12:29 PM (#2644921)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

As far as I understand it, those who feel betrayal are feeling it on finding/believing something that was reported as traditional at least probably isn't. It doesn't read to me to be a question of the quality of the some but about whether the truth was told about its origins.

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31 May 09 - 12:39 PM (#2644928)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

Dick, I think there are a few issues here, without (I hope) dredging up all the old AL Lloyd arguments again. Firstly, there is a differce between a body of songs changing organically over a period of time, and one person, with access to mass-market publishing and broadcast media, stepping in and deliberately and substantially changing a number of them in a much shorter period of time.

Secondly, there is the issue of what his responsibility is to the music, given his position. As a fairly unknown singer in a pub, or even as a well-known singer with a recording contract, he would have been free do what he liked to the songs. But as someone who has set themselves up as a researcher, an expert, even a semi-academic, to re-write songs and make up false sources for the new versions is pretty much indefensible. Thirdly, there is the question of motivation. A number of AL Lloyd's "re-writes" were created to serve his own political leanings - where songs did not exist to support his politics, or where he felt their sentiments were not expressed sufficiently strongly, he changed them, and then pretended that these songs, as they stood, were part of the fabric of social history. I can't help seeing this as a betrayal.


I hope you understand my point: anyone who wants to can do anything they like to any song. Just please be honest about it.

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31 May 09 - 01:08 PM (#2644942)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

Yes, and Recruited Collier is a prime example of ALL using (and subverting) a text to meet a political purpose. Coalmining as opposed to ploughing had become far more politically sexy and, besides, such a title would fit nicely into Come All Ye Bold Miners.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with basing a song written in the tradition on an existing poem of known authorship, or of updating an existing text. As long as you SAY SO. Origins are interesting and add to understanding. Bert, however, chose to deceive. That is both misleading and disappointing. This is a man who used to read and then correct my Morning Star pieces in single spaced manual typescript and so I wonder now just what else he wasn't quite honest about.

Surprisingly, the OP claims to have seen at least one of my pieces about Chris Wood. This is a musician who works closely with people in their environment and workplace, fitting his words and music to rhythms of speech. He uses existing work and original composition together to create something new and fresh, but never conceals. That is the difference: respect for the tradition but the freedom to break convention.

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31 May 09 - 01:59 PM (#2644977)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

I should add, if it isn't clear from my post above, that despite my misgivings about the songs he may have altered or made up, I still feel that Bert Lloyd contributed a huge amount to the folk revival and we owe him an enormous debt.

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31 May 09 - 02:05 PM (#2644984)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

Well, of course I concur entirely with Ruth's assessment of ALL's huge contribution to the revival. It's just that there are often two diametrically opposing sides to a person's character, their motivations and repercussions arising therefrom.

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31 May 09 - 02:15 PM (#2644995)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

Indeed. Isn't it nice when we all agree? :)

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31 May 09 - 03:41 PM (#2645066)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Bonzo3legs

Frankly I've read a load of pompous bollocks here. Many thanks to Lizzie, and how boring is the lady from N11. Why not enjoy Kate for what she does........sings a bit o' folk music very well.

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31 May 09 - 04:17 PM (#2645095)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Ralphie

Hey Bonzo.
Who says that we don't like Kate?
She's a great singer, but I'm sure she (like many other performers) is heartily sick of the rantings of misguided fans who know nothing about her.
She's a fine lady, great player, great singer.....Trying to earn a crust. and doing very well.

Go back to your 5 star hotel in Buenos Aires.

---

31 May 09 - 07:49 PM (#2645227)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

Oh dear a little bit of sweetness and light breaks out and straight away two size ten boots jump in. Actually, I was an academic all my working life, and of course respect academic integrity. I also applaud political integrity... If I could have mangled some references and allusions to score a telling point against Thatcher, or Hitler, of course I would have done. I would have expected my scholarly folkorist
colleagues to have rumbled my interventions, but would also have expected, at least some of them, to have applauded my actions, knowing that the oppressed folk whose stories the songs tell, needed all the help they could get.

---

31 May 09 - 08:03 PM (#2645231)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

That's an interesting point, Mr Cox. I was a university lecturer for several years myself, and I'm a socialist. But I find it hard to justify Lloyd's deliberate re-writing of certain aspects of working-class history through his mis-attributions, because it wasn't really necessary and ultimately it undermined his work and his reputation, which is very sad.

---

01 Jun 09 - 02:50 AM (#2645371)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

" I Clearly haven't a clue what you are on about" is a rhetorical statement aimed at me and no other person on this thread (or others herewith!)

I will now have a look to see what you are all on about!

Ray

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:13 AM (#2645392)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Jon

Sorry then Ray. I guess I'm getting a bit jumpy over here then. Trouble is people respond to things they think they read, want to interpret as, other threads get started on these things (eg. a criticsm of a program becomes KR getting flack and a desire through trying to be factually correct becomes sort of wanting to keep music away from "the people" and "disallowing" singers to make their own changes to songs) so I guess I can find it easy to assume someone else is doing the same.

From my pov, it is probably best just to accept that any debate on English music, the folk scene in England and those concerning certain artists have become a complete and utter waste of time for me on Mudcat. Ultimately, they will only be allowed to go in certain (and I believe somewhat distorted) ways.

I'll try once again to stay away from here.

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:47 AM (#2645400)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

I was a university lecturer for several years myself, and I'm a socialist. But I find it hard to justify Lloyd's deliberate re-writing of certain aspects of working-class history through his mis-attributions

Yes. As theleveller said recently on another thread,

"Surely the whole point of folk songs is that they are more than just songs – they are our history, our roots, an oral history as seen from a different perspective to the educated classes who wrote the history book, and they deserve to be preserved as such."

The Recruited Collier isn't part of our history - except that part of it which post-dates Bert Lloyd! The same goes, I strongly suspect, for The Blackleg Miner. And I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past, however good a point you can make. After all, the reason we want to hear stories about the past - in the political context most of all - is that we think the stories tell us something true: we're fighting just like they fought before us. And if some well-meaning activist has created "them" in our own image, then we're just breathing our own recycled air.

Compare The Blackleg Miner with the Yahie Miners (which I believe was Bert's source). Yahie is about a strikebreaking workforce being bussed in, which is a much more clear-cut case than the average "strikers and blacklegs" situation - and even then, it's a significantly less violent song than Blackleg (no tripwires, no "dying day" lines, etc). Yahie comes out of an entire community shunted to the margins by the bosses, and its mood is grumpy and resentful. Blackleg purports to come out of a divided community, and its mood is savagely angry - very much as a radical outside observer would hope strikers would feel. But I don't think it's a song strikers would actually write, given that strikers and blacklegs will always have to work together eventually (not to mention living in the same community). I don't think Bert did us any favours at all with that one.

---

01 Jun 09 - 06:29 AM (#2645431)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

it is necessary to put what Bert allegdly did[there is no proof that he didnt collect the song] in the context of the time.
as a communist/socialist he would have believed that the end justified the means.
to him it was probably more important to get a good song, sung.
he was right.
it is also correct that the performance of a song,is more important than the verbal introduction,the verbal introduction notes and or correct scholastic notes do have a degree of importance,but they are of lesser importance.,when the song is being sung,and do not help the singer to do justice to the song.
quite frankly,I shall continue to sing The Recruited Collier as Bert collected it,because it is a fine song.
It would be ridiculous to stop singing it because it was allegedly not traditional,that is as half baked as not singing it because it was not English.
It all depends where you are coming from ,I sing songs because I like them,I do not stop singing a song because someone has allegdly tampered with it.,or because someones scholarship is dodgy.

---

01 Jun 09 - 06:36 AM (#2645434)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

"quite frankly,I shall continue to sing The Recruited Collier as Bert collected it,because it is a fine song.
It would be ridiculous to stop singing it because it was allegedly not traditional"

Dick, no one said you should stop singing it. If you like it, sing it. That's really not the issue.


"as a communist/socialist he would have believed that the end justified the means."

More Machiavelli than Marx, surely?

---

01 Jun 09 - 06:38 AM (#2645435)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: MartinRyan

There is little to choose, ultimately, between those who WON'T sing songs like The Recruited Collier because the song has been consciously manipulated for political reasons - and those who WILL sing it ONLY or largely because it has! Both miss the point.

Regards

---

01 Jun 09 - 06:54 AM (#2645438)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

Martin Ryan above, certainly, completely misses The Point, not that he is alone, this IS Mudcat.

The Point is not whether or not the song is good (it is) or who should or shouldn't sing it (anyone who can and wants to). It is that a TV production company allowed a howler go out on air. For the purposes of anyone researching material, it is important that attribution is correctly recorded.

---

01 Jun 09 - 07:00 AM (#2645439)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

And I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past, however good a point you can make.

Glad no-one convinced Homer or Shakespeare about that.

---

01 Jun 09 - 07:07 AM (#2645442)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: MartinRyan

Diane

Calm down! I'm well aware of the impact of misattribution and of simple myth-making - particularly in the context of mass media. We've no shortage of examples of it in Ireland, to put it mildly. A recent Irish language TV series on songs of historical interest had one or two programmes which were laughably misleading.

My point was about the impact of agitprop/anti-agitprop attitudes both on singers and on listeners.

Regards

---

01 Jun 09 - 07:42 AM (#2645453)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Martin ,spot on ,I choose to sing the song because I like it.
Ruth Archer
Means and Ends

The dialectic of Means and Ends is of deep historical, ethical and political significance. The "Means" is the activity a subject engages in with the intention of bringing about a certain "End." The "End" has initially only an ideal existence, and the Realised End – the actual outcome of the adopted Means – may be quite different from the abstract End for which the Means was adopted in the first place.

Both Means and Ends are therefore processes which are in greater or lesser contradiction with one another throughout their development – constituting a learning process of continual adjustment of both Means and Ends in the light of experience – until, at the completion of the process, Means and End merge in a form of life-activity, which is both its own End and its own Means. The dialectic of Means and Ends is manifested in certain maxims which express aspects of the dialectic in a one-sided or limited way.

"We do not have the means to achieve our ends" is something which radical socialist groups have been saying for more than a century, reflecting the absolute gulf between their capacity to imagine socialism and the smallness of their own resources. The problem here is simply to mistake the socialist imaginary for an End, and to understand the purpose of socialist agitation to be to bring into being a socialist utopia. The socialist utopia is an ethical precept rather than a state of affairs which has to be brought about. As Marx said in The German Ideology:

"Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence." [German Ideology]

Thus, the perception that there is an impossible gulf between ends and means results from an abandonment of the critique of existing conditions, in favour of a hankering after a distant utopia, or simply a role far out of line with a group's actual sphere of activity. Whenever a radical group finds itself with such an absolute contradiction between means and ends (perhaps resulting from a gradual change in conditions, a weakening of its base), then it should consider re-orienting itself towards the critique of existing conditions, since these conditions necessarily provide the means for their own critique.

"The End justifies the Means" is a maxim which originated in an accusation made by Protestants against the Jesuits. Although few would openly proclaim such a cynical maxim, it is clearly the conception which justified the atrocities of Stalinism and the use of terror by some who claimed to be pursuing the socialist objective. The idea that some means (such as the use of violence against political opponents, or lying to the working class) which is inconsistent with the aim (socialism, world peace) can in some way serve that end is untenable. There is always some "tension" between Ends and Means – Means refer always to existing conditions as they are while the End refers to how things ought to be. But the means must be adequate to the ends; that is to say, the means must be such that attaining the End will mean the fullest development and flowering of the Means. So the idea, for example, that deceiving the working class could be any part of the struggle for socialism is an absurdity, because the fullest development of the Means (deceiving the working class) could only be the disorganisation and subordination of the working class, the opposite of socialism. On the other hand, a picket line in support of a wage-rise is a far cry from socialism, but insofar as a picket line is a manifestation of the self-organisation of the working class and manifests elementary class discipline, it is a "means" which can be understood as an "embyronic" expression of an admittedly distant "end."

Base political methods however, such as lying, conformism, personal denigration, which are to be found within the workers movement, would find their fullest expression, not in socialism, but only in some kind of Stalinist gulag. So a claim that such unprincipled means are justified because they serve the End of socialism is false; in fact, base means can never serve noble ends.

Eduard Bernstein (the former collaborator of Marx and Engels, for whom the term "revisionist" was first coined) said: "To me that which is generally called the ultimate aim of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything." [Evolutionary Socialism] This is going to the other extreme and is equally as wrong as "the End justifies the Means." If a movement has no "end" – an ideal or vision – which is in contradiction to existing conditions, including the movement itself, then such a movement can be nothing more than a celebration of existing conditions and a support for the status quo. The deception involved in the idea of the "movement is everything," the rejection of any ideal which contradicts what exists, is not only incompatible with Marxism; such a reconciliation with the existing world is actually contrary to human life itself, which is always striving for something.

The process of Means and Ends is a process of the manifestation of Means in the form of the Realised End, and the contradiction between Abstract End and Realised End transforming the conception of Means and Ends, much like the continual adaption of species in a changing environment of which the species is itself a part. The adequate Means becomes itself an End, the discovery of which itself entails certain Means; on the other hand, an adequate conception of the End is a powerful Means in its own right. The dialectics of Means and Ends is referred to as Teleology (purposive development), and in Hegel's terminology, passes over into the dialectic of Life and Cognition – "history as a learning process."

Further Reading: See Trotsky's Their Morals and Ours on the subject of "The end justifies the means," Hegel's Shorter Logic and Means and Ends.

---

01 Jun 09 - 07:44 AM (#2645454)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

And I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past, however good a point you can make.

Glad no-one convinced Homer or Shakespeare about that.

Sigh. I'll clarify:

I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past and passing them off as true, however good a point you can make.

The Recruited Collier is a good song. "The Recruited Collier is a folk song from a mining community" is a false statement.

---

01 Jun 09 - 07:55 AM (#2645461)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Mary Brennan

I think that the Point of this thread is to discuss Kate Rusby and 'My Music'.

---

01 Jun 09 - 08:07 AM (#2645470)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

My Music is an old TV film. Among other flaws, it perpetuated an error of attribution of the song Recruited Collier. Since it has been dredged up again, people are:

(a) correcting the error and
(b) examining ALL's ethics (or lack thereof).

---

01 Jun 09 - 08:21 AM (#2645482)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

"Base political methods however...would find their fullest expression, not in socialism, but only in some kind of Stalinist gulag. So a claim that such unprincipled means are justified because they serve the End of socialism is false; in fact, base means can never serve noble ends."

Indeed. Stalinism rather than Marxism, and not an inherently socialist perspective. So what's your point, Dick?

---

01 Jun 09 - 08:31 AM (#2645487)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin

I don't think it's a song strikers would actually write, given that strikers and blacklegs will always have to work together eventually (not to mention living in the same community).

In this village, in 1926, a bunch of striking miners got together to make a bloody great gravestone with "BLACKLEG" on it and stood it up in a blackleg's front doorway. Is that so different from what "The Blackleg Miner" says? And is it so unusual for a village to contain groups of people who hate each other's guts?

(I've no idea how far back the song actually goes - but you can't decide on the basis of expressed attitudes in that way).

---

01 Jun 09 - 08:34 AM (#2645489)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Morris-ey

>>>I think there's a real danger in making up stories about our past and passing them off as true, however good a point you can make.<<<

In the context of a programme about folk music, I seriously doubt that any misinformation could constitute "a real danger" to anything or anyone.

---

01 Jun 09 - 08:38 AM (#2645494)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Chris Murray

I often think it's a class issue. The songs originated among the working classes and are now being preserved by the middle classes.

I know it's silly to overgeneralise, but the working classes couldn't give a toss about the Tradition.

---

01 Jun 09 - 09:16 AM (#2645512)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

I know it's silly to overgeneralise

Not always.

---

01 Jun 09 - 09:23 AM (#2645517)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Base political methods however...would find their fullest expression, not in socialism, but only in some kind of Stalinist gulag. So a claim that such unprincipled means are justified because they serve the End of socialism is false; in fact, base means can never serve noble ends."

Indeed. Stalinism rather than Marxism, and not an inherently socialist perspective. So what's your point, Dick?
my point is this, hear I speak from experience.
that phrase was a common mantra amongst communists of the 1950s,including my parents who knew Bert Lloyd well,I am sure that would have influenced Berts thinking[IF he did not collect the song]and did it slip it into the tradition,he would have thought it is more important that the song is sung.
Bert handed out many songs to singers in the late fifites early sixties.
I dont know where you were Ruth[living in America?]
but I was there at BERT llOYDS HOUSE,at his childrens birthday parties etc,I remember clearly phrases like the end justifies the means being used by COMMUNIST Friends.,it may have been originally a phrase used by machiavelli,but it was a phrase still used by communists even after Stalins death.
Bert lloyd claimed in 1952[That was before Stalins deathin 1953 ]that he had collected the song,the mindset of many communists at this time was the end justifies the means.
that should be clear enough Ruth

---

01 Jun 09 - 09:40 AM (#2645523)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

Oh honey, I wasn't even born in 1952! In fact, it was some considerable time before I arrived blinking into the light. But I've talked to several people who knew Bert Lloyd, and they all have different theories as to why he took the approach he did - one of which is that his misattributions were more a matter of poor memory than anything else. Someone else suggested that he never realised how seriously his pronouncements would be taken so he just made up any old nonsense - he never thought these things would become a matter for posterity. The idea tha the misattributions were borne of a political agenda is almost the opposite concept - trying to have a direct impact on history.

So there you go - different ideas, different theories, by people who all knew Bert Lloyd. However, one thing IS for sure: the great work he did for the folk revival is undermined (to what degree you can decide for yourself) by these issues, which is a shame.

---

01 Jun 09 - 11:09 AM (#2645582)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

WEll I have had a look at myspace Kate Rusby!

The countryside around Barnsley is quite delightful and I found the clips very interesting

It is about 3 miles from me

I think that it is important to include the earliest sourced set of lyrics and indicate where known along the way if changes have been made

I have no doubt as has been said that Bert Lloyd and Ewan Maccoll et al changed things to make 'em fit!

If songs from the tradition are used and changed then from the academic side of things these should be stated (probably by the academics here! on mudcat

In the meantime we need to sing the songs and make new uns

Ray

---

01 Jun 09 - 11:35 AM (#2645597)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave

Bert lloyd claimed in 1952[That was before Stalins deathin 1953 ]that he had collected the song,the mindset of many communists at this time was the end justifies the means.

There is a long paper from an academic here discussing Bert's tinkering with songs.

Although it concerns itself mainly with "Reynardine", there is a discussion about "Recruited Collier" is discussed over pages 3 and 4.

It might be helpful to those who wish to join in this discussion to read this first.

For those interested in where Dick's long definition about Ends and Means came from it is here.

---

01 Jun 09 - 11:36 AM (#2645601)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave

Sorry, that was posted before I had finished editing it.

But the sense is there.

---

01 Jun 09 - 11:42 AM (#2645613)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

I have no doubt as has been said that Bert Lloyd and Ewan Maccoll et al changed things to make 'em fit!


We all do that - when I sang Jenny's Complaint I did it in Standard English, which is the last thing its author would have wanted (it's from a book of dialect poems). The charge against Bert Lloyd is that he not only altered songs but disguised where they came from, to the point of making up the names of the singers he'd supposedly collected them from. Steve Winick's article, linked from Dave's comment, has the details.

---

01 Jun 09 - 11:56 AM (#2645630)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

"Bert lloyd claimed in 1952[That was before Stalins deathin 1953 ]that he had collected the song,the mindset of many communists at this time was the end justifies the means."

Bert Lloyd would have claimed he invented the wheel as well, but someone else had already done that.

Ashley Hutchings noted on the liner notes for Hark! The Village Wait about The Blackleg Miner

"It is strange that a song as powerful and as singable as this should be so rare, yet it has only once been collected, from a man in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1949."

and

"This is the most modern traditional song on the album, possibly dating from the early part of the 20th Century...."

Hardly surprising considering it is thought that Lloyd wrote the song himself.

---

01 Jun 09 - 01:28 PM (#2645694)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Hardly surprising considering it is thought that Lloyd wrote the song himself.[Thought, by whom?]
but not proven.
neither has it been proven that he did not collect The Recruited Collier.
The Penguin book of English folk songs was edited not just by Bert Lloyd ,but also Ralph Vaughan Williams.

---

01 Jun 09 - 02:02 PM (#2645717)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

Dick, read the link that Folkiedave posted at 11:35. It tells you who thinks Lloyd wrote it, and why - and gives some insight into what his motives mayhave been.

'Although it concerns itself mainly with "Reynardine", there is a discussion about "Recruited Collier" is discussed over pages 3 and 4.'

One of the sources cited is Roy Palmer, another is Vic Gammon. Both have done a lot of research on the subject.

---

01 Jun 09 - 02:23 PM (#2645731)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

I have read it and as far as I am concerned,there is no proof that Lloyd did not collect the Recruited Collier,if you will excuse me,I am off to do some singing.

---

01 Jun 09 - 03:37 PM (#2645788)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

"from a man in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, in 1949."

Considering how thorough song collectors tended to be, how come a name for this "man from Bishop Auckland" was not obtained? Im sure the good captain will enlighten us.

---

01 Jun 09 - 03:52 PM (#2645799)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

it is not for me to enlighten anybody ,it is up to those who doubt it to prove it.
innocent till proven guilty.
BertLloyd is dead,he is not here to defend himself,if it cant be proven,it is better not to besmirch his name.

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:05 PM (#2645813)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

Sorry I'm no fan of Bert Lloyd.(or Ewan McColl come to that).

I wasted money (albeit only a small amount, I'll admit) on his incredibly self serving book, Folk Song in England (1967). It's considered a masterpiece by some, I understand.

".....it is better not to besmirch his name."

Just because someone's dead doesn't make them immune to criticism

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:14 PM (#2645824)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

"it is not for me to enlighten anybody ,it is up to those who doubt it to prove it."

Which is why the academic articles exist, and why research has been undertaken by people like Roy Palmer, who has enormous respect for Bert Lloyd's achievements. Did you get to his talk about Lloyd at Glasson last year, Dick? You may have been singing at the time and therefore unable to attend. If you had, you would have seen that Roy Palmer does indeed know a huge amount about Bert Lloyd, and has great respect for his achievements. Yet still he clearly feels it is right to interrogate these sources and these songs, because ultimately it's not really about Bert Lloyd, it's about the social history behind the songs and their basic integrity.

It does no service to either Lloyd or the music to unquestioningly accept everything he said, even where there is strong evidence to the contrary. I think I was once told that a lot of the research into the less likely claims was actually held back until after Lloyd's death, purely out of respect.

As the article Dave posted says at the beginning, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" - but there IS a convincing weight of evidence and research. Personally, I think the case has pretty much been proved, Dick.

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:18 PM (#2645831)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

criticism has to be justified,no one has proven he did not collect the recruited collier,until it is proven ,then it is better not to attack him.
mean while no one has attacked Bob Roberts,for POSSIBLY passing off his own material as traditional.

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:19 PM (#2645833)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

The fault was partially mine for not identifying the fact that I had read that article before posting. None the less I stand by what I say.

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:34 PM (#2645845)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

These old traddies....What are you going to do...

Sorry I'm convinced he was passing his politcal propaganda off as traditional, and propaganda it is!

and interesting side bar (at least to me)The missing Radio Ballads

the two Radio Ballads were not considered part of the canon....why you may ask? The answer's simple, Ewan McColl wasn't involved with either of them...reminds me rather of Roger Waters's response when he heard Pink Floyd had reformed without him. "It's not Pink Floyd"

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:46 PM (#2645851)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

really interesting, Rifleman! I knew Ian briefly about 15 years ago, and had no idea that these programmes had been made, but it's interesting that he'd included on his most recent album a song from a folk opera/radio ballad-style show.

The subject matter sounds really interesting - I wish we could hear them.

---

01 Jun 09 - 04:55 PM (#2645860)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: greg stephens

Rifleman's posting re Ian Campbell and his two non-canonical(apocryphal?) Radio Ballads was very interesting. There was also a third, that Charles Parker made with Alisdair Clayre(SP? I always get it wrong!). I worked on that programme a bit, locating and recording singers. The subject was the Cowley car-making trade.

---

01 Jun 09 - 05:07 PM (#2645868)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

Towards the end of his life I worked briefly with Charles Parker when he was putting on productions of radio ballads at colleges. He did mention other scripts but unfortunately I never got to see them. Coincidentally, I found myself working alongside Ian Campbell in a TV production office just a few years later. Again, even more unfortunately, I never got round to talking to him about the scripts. However, I do see Ian's son David from time to time and I'll be sure to ask him if they are still in existence. As they're not in the Charles Parker Archive they may well be chez the Campbells . . .

---

01 Jun 09 - 05:16 PM (#2645875)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

that's quite possible - he'd got loads of interesting stuff in the house.

---

01 Jun 09 - 05:31 PM (#2645886)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Kate singing 'Planets' - Youtube

---

01 Jun 09 - 06:12 PM (#2645905)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

no one has proven he did not collect the recruited collier,until it is proven ,then it is better not to attack him.

Lloyd wrote: "A set of this 18th century song was printed in Anderson's _Ballads in the Cumberland Dialect_ (1808)."

But Robert Anderson's Ballads (etc) isn't a collection of traditional songs - they're all Anderson's own work (and there aren't any other versions of "this 18th century song"). That's misrepresentation in itself.

Again, this has nothing to do with the quality of the song - I think Lloyd did us all a service by bringing the song back to life. But it's a shame he couldn't do it without falsifying the history.

---

01 Jun 09 - 06:37 PM (#2645933)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Maybe he was sniggering, as he falsified.. ;0)

---

01 Jun 09 - 07:15 PM (#2645954)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave

Lizzie - you are out of your depth. Stop digging.

---

02 Jun 09 - 04:54 AM (#2646239)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

I'm not digging, merely I'm bringing some light-heartedness to a now er....somewhat tedious thread...

Come on, guys, lighten up a little, eh?

Who cares what A. L. Lloyd did or didn't do....I mean, come ON, at the end of the day the songs are here, whether he tampered with them or not..and they're loved by many...

Oh lordy...facts, *always* facts!

Bring back the beauty!

And talking of beauty........

Kate singing 'Bring Me A Boat'

---

02 Jun 09 - 05:37 AM (#2646259)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

Who cares what A. L. Lloyd did or didn't do

Some people do care, some don't. If you're one of the ones who don't care, you're probably in the wrong discussion.

facts, *always* facts!

You know, it's possible to enjoy - and love - the music, and to care about getting the facts right.

---

02 Jun 09 - 05:41 AM (#2646264)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Yes, but it can go too far....

When you get to the point where the squabbles over who said what, when, where and why, drown out the beauty, then it's time to sit down and LISTEN TO THE MUSIC!

This isn't a discussion about A. L. Lloyd, it's about Kate Rusby's music!

I know...I started it, Pip.

Yes, all discussions go off at tangents, but heck, if I do that, then I get the book thrown at me...yet The Professors seem to think that they can take over any discussion with their facts....

Gee whizz, it's sure tough being a Peasant! ;0)

---

02 Jun 09 - 09:42 AM (#2646423)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,Ralphie

Lizzie.
Facts are facts. And facts are important.
If you don't get that. You don't get anything.
Without the truth, the world is lost...
Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? The Government?
Who do you believe?
Look around you woman, and see the real injustices in this world. Show Of Hands not winning Celebrity Big Brother Get Me Out Of Folk On Two because Britains Talent Grand Euro Lotto Draw didn't vote for them? It's so unfair isn't it?

Doesn't amount to a hill of beans...
The past and our history is important, and my hat is doffed to the wonderful people who embrace it.
So Lizzie, back to your sycophantic doghouse.
(Don't think that Phil Beer will be visiting soon)

---

02 Jun 09 - 09:54 AM (#2646429)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

I think you can let that one pass, Lizzie. Can't you??

---

02 Jun 09 - 10:11 AM (#2646445)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

the business of the missing radio ballads has been dealt with on this forum before,I was kindly sent a cd.
some of you were not so busy scoring points you may have noticed.      GuestRalphie ,if you have nothing pleasant to say,it would be better to say nothing.

---

02 Jun 09 - 10:19 AM (#2646452)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

Telling madlizziecornish that facts are meaningful and important and that ordering of priorities matters may well be a complete waste of time and breath.
Needs to be done though.
Again and again and again.
Omigod, Tennyson and his brook . . .
She does, doesn't she?
Go on, I mean, for ever and ever and ever . . .
Hey Ruth, that slurry drainage system that's getting built down Ambridge way, can you bring it on here?

---

02 Jun 09 - 10:21 AM (#2646457)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

"some of you were not so busy scoring points you may have noticed."

I must have missed that thread. Any chance of burning me a copy, Dick?

---

02 Jun 09 - 10:22 AM (#2646459)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

missing radio ballads . . . I was kindly sent a cd

Well, do tell where you got it from, Dick, or provide a link.

---

02 Jun 09 - 10:40 AM (#2646478)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

guest Ralphie[and other gradgrinds],the facts are these Bert Lloyds claims have not been disproven,two scholars have questioned them,BertLloyd has taken the answer to the grave.
if Bert is looking on,I am sure he would be chuckling,Iam also sure he would endorse these sentiments I am off to practise.
when I have more time ,Iwill be back to talk about the missing ballads

---

02 Jun 09 - 10:53 AM (#2646489)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

Is this about Kate Rusby please?

Ray

---

02 Jun 09 - 11:02 AM (#2646496)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Kate at Cambridge 2007 being interviewed about 'Awkward Annie' and singing 'The Blooming Heather'


Kate talking, exuberantly, about her love of traditional music, and how she was told the stories at bedtime...how they were like mini films to her...

Kate has 'magic' :0)

---

02 Jun 09 - 01:08 PM (#2646630)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Bonzo3legs

"Telling madlizziecornish that facts are meaningful and important and that ordering of priorities matters may well be a complete waste of time and breath.
Needs to be done though.
Again and again and again.
Omigod, Tennyson and his brook . . .
She does, doesn't she?
Go on, I mean, for ever and ever and ever . . .
Hey Ruth, that slurry drainage system that's getting built down Ambridge way, can you bring it on here?"

.......waste of print!

---

02 Jun 09 - 01:36 PM (#2646656)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

Bert Lloyds claims have not been disproven

Bert Lloyd claimed that when Robert Anderson wrote Jenny's Complaint, he was writing down a "set" (i.e. one version) of an 18th-century song. This is not true and never has been.

---

02 Jun 09 - 03:21 PM (#2646752)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Bonzo3legs

Who cares?

---

02 Jun 09 - 03:39 PM (#2646774)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

"Iwill be back to talk about the missing ballads"
this will be the only authorised version, of course...

Personally I'll go to the source, The Charles Parker Archive for my information

---

02 Jun 09 - 03:58 PM (#2646793)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

Who cares?

Some people do, some don't. For those who do, them's the facts. For those who don't, why don't you find a topic that you do care about?

---

02 Jun 09 - 05:32 PM (#2646884)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

Some lovely nostalgic singing here from Kate on Wild Mountain Thyme

Yea Whitby ff last nights with Wild Mountain Thyme and Holmfirth Anthem and who remembers Les Barker with Ear we Go and the toilet rolls?

Ray

---

02 Jun 09 - 05:51 PM (#2646902)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Rifleman.
you can go where you like.
Authorised versions of what?
ah, I am talking to Mike H.
now I understand.

---

02 Jun 09 - 05:57 PM (#2646904)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

the facts are that no one has proved BertLloyd did not collect The Recruited Collier ,can you prove it.

---

02 Jun 09 - 07:18 PM (#2646964)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

How could anyone prove it?

---

02 Jun 09 - 07:19 PM (#2646967)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

That's a serious question, by the way - if you're saying that we shouldn't say that Bert Lloyd faked the attribution of that song because it's not been proved, fair enough, but the question then is what would amount to proof.

---

02 Jun 09 - 07:52 PM (#2646998)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

In a case like this, all you have to go on is the weight of evidence. At the moment, the weight of evidence certainly is very supportinve to the theory that he wrote some of the songs and made up attributions for others.

---

03 Jun 09 - 03:45 AM (#2647134)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave

what would amount to proof.

Bert to come back from the dead and announce he did it for some people.

And let me add I am a great admirer of Bert. Like many others who have done things to songs, he did it with great skill.

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:38 AM (#2647246)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ron Davies

I agree with Lizzie--that (2004?) Sidmouth concert was simply sublime. And on top of that, Kate has a great dry sense of humor.

It was a privilege to be there for that.

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:41 AM (#2647248)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Yes, Ron...that is part of Kate's charm, her wonderful humour. I'm glad that concert brings back happy memories for you too...It was so moving.

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:46 AM (#2647252)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Borchester Echo

That kRusby concert @ Sidders was OK (the 10 minutes or so of it I watched). This has, however, no bearing whatsoever on the telly docco transmitted last year on C5. You might as well start talking about the Clash in Victoria Park in 1979, since it was a whole lot better than:

(a) being in the Arena or
(b) watching the telly.

---

03 Jun 09 - 08:21 AM (#2647272)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

just because two scholars HAVE cast doubts,That does not constitute proof,it will never be proven.
so Instead of wasting time,wringing your hands at the[alleged] dastardly doings of Bert Lloyd,you should let the matter got to rest.
to cast doubts on the penguin book of English folk songs is equally stupid,the book was edited by two people Vaughan Williams and Lloyd,the songs should be judged on their merit,which should be the criteria for judging every song, I do not choose to sing songs because they are English[thats BNP territory]neither do I choose them because they are not contemporary or because they are traditional.there are a few Traditional songs I detest [eg LordRandall]

---

03 Jun 09 - 08:34 AM (#2647280)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

That does not constitute proof,it will never be proven.

So asking for proof is just a way of shutting down the discussion.

so Instead of wasting time,wringing your hands at the[alleged] dastardly doings of Bert Lloyd,you should let the matter got to rest.

Believe it or not, Dick, some of us find this stuff interesting.

---

03 Jun 09 - 08:39 AM (#2647286)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

if Bert did what has been alleged ,it shows that he thought the most important criteria is that the songs are sung.
while scholarship is necessary,it is secondary to singing the songs,if nobody sang the songs, the songs would be archaic mementos in a museum .

---

03 Jun 09 - 08:43 AM (#2647290)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

Dick, it really, really isn't about judging the songs themselves. As it happens, I think Bert Lloyd wrote some lovely songs, even the ones he claimed were traditional. If they're good songs (and they are), by all means sing them.

All this really relates to is trying to properly attribute the songs as either Trad or not. I'm afraid that what I've read and heard through several respected sources, not just the two scholars cited in the article above, is pretty convincing evidence.

It's not an attack on Bert Lloyd, nor is it meant to disrespect his great contribution to the folk revival, it's simply an appropriate re-assessment of SOME of his work, based on what we now know.

---

03 Jun 09 - 10:34 AM (#2647378)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Sorry,It is no more than jumping to conclusions,nothing has been proved,just because a song was only collected once,proves nothing,neither does the fact a similiar inferior song existed,it is a possibilty that Lloyds singer rewrote the song ,it is also possible that the two songs existed.
yes ,doubt has been cast ,but nothing is proven.inmy opinion Scholars should find better things to do with their time such as:
now lets look at the song of The Dawning Of The Day,and Raglan Road [Patrick Kavanagh]is there any proof that Kavanagh nicked or was inspired by the existing song?

---

03 Jun 09 - 11:12 AM (#2647418)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

nothing has been proved

But by your own admission, nothing can be proved! So we go on the weight of the evidence - what seems more likely?

Several songs collected by Bert Lloyd seem to follow this pattern:

- Scruffy, reasonably good song appears in sources dated 18-something
- Lloyd produces a really good song which no one has seen before, but which is recognisably related to the earlier song
- Lloyd claims that his song had actually been around for ages, and the earlier song was really a variant of it

What seems more likely? (And again, this has nothing to do with whether they're good songs or not.)

---

03 Jun 09 - 01:29 PM (#2647526)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Pip,it is more important that the songs are sung.,not gathering dust in a museum.would they have been sung,I doubt it.
if Scholars have nothing better to do,than waste their time on this,it is a sad day,I just hope that taxpayers money wasnt used to fund this kind of scholarship.
I suppose someone will be wasting their time next on establishing whether Fakenham Fair is a fake

---

03 Jun 09 - 02:05 PM (#2647552)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Phil Edwards

it is more important that the songs are sung.,not gathering dust in a museum.would they have been sung,I doubt it.

I agree, and I think we all owe Bert Lloyd a huge debt for the work he did - both as a scholar and as a writer. He wrote (or rewrote) some great songs.

---

03 Jun 09 - 02:12 PM (#2647556)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,richd

So, is AL lloyd a 'snigger-snogwriter' then?

---

03 Jun 09 - 02:13 PM (#2647557)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin

if Scholars have nothing better to do,than waste their time on this,it is a sad day,I just hope that taxpayers money wasnt used to fund this kind of scholarship.

There is a pretty obvious positive reason for wanting to investigate this - if Lloyd was telling the truth about where he got those disputed songs, there were a whole lot of songwriters out there we know nothing about and who did some really good stuff. So you'd want to track them down and find out what else they created, surely?

That simply MUST have been the primary motivation for people getting into this. And understandably people who went off searching with their hopes raised by Lloyd's work would be a bit pissed off at being sent on a wild goose chase and would want to make sure nobody else made the same mistake.

---

03 Jun 09 - 02:36 PM (#2647572)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Jack Campin,Thats the case with all traditional music,they were all written by someone,trouble is they are all dead,including Lloyd,so perhaps we can let him rest in peace with all the other composers of traditional songs,and just sing the songs,or in your case play them on your scottish pipes.
alternatively have a seance

---

03 Jun 09 - 02:56 PM (#2647586)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

"So, is A.L. Lloyd a 'snigger-snogwriter' then?
yup! *LOL*

---

03 Jun 09 - 03:55 PM (#2647624)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin

"Rest in peace" is pretty unhelpful for somebody who is on the sort of search I was describing - if you've heard of some fantastic miner-songwriter from Durham, you're going to want to find as much of his work as possible so you can get new songs to sing, and find out what you can about him as a person. You are then going to feel cheated if he turns out to have been imaginary.

There is one good honest reason why Lloyd might have invented imaginary sources. A mineworker who'd written something like "The Blackleg Miner" would probably be less interested in getting credited by name for it among miners the length of Britain than in making damn sure his own mine manager never found out he was responsible for it. I've no idea if protecting sources was ever Lloyd's motivation, but I'm sure the idea has crossed the minds of people trying to find out more.

---

03 Jun 09 - 04:19 PM (#2647640)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Hey, I have a BRILLIANT idea!

We could start a thread on A. L. Lloyd...then....we could all talk about Kate Rusby! :0)

Good idea, huh?

---

03 Jun 09 - 04:23 PM (#2647644)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin

Did somebody just fart?

---

03 Jun 09 - 05:00 PM (#2647681)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Dave Sutherland

If you can get your hands on them, read the sleeve notes of the countless albums that Bert Lloyd recorded. Then count the number of times that he states that he "devised" a particular song or set a certain tune to an existing set of words. The fact that over the years people who have never heard of A.L.Lloyd are singing these songs does him credit.

---

03 Jun 09 - 05:14 PM (#2647693)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Richard Bridge

Snigger snogwriter?

Ah yes, I heard him sing, and he did indeed snigger. What was that story he used to tell about "the sleeve job"?

Oh, and as for snogwriter - you should have heard my late wife who knew him in the 60s on the topic of his greatest interest about her (an unfulfilled one, I think).

---

03 Jun 09 - 05:23 PM (#2647699)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Folkiedave

Bert? An interest in young women? Surely not!!!

Simply avuncular.............

---

03 Jun 09 - 05:47 PM (#2647716)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)

"Hey, I have a BRILLIANT idea!

We could start a thread on A. L. Lloyd...then....we could all talk about Kate Rusby! :0)

Good idea, huh? "

Jeez Lizzie, you are so driven and able to err, get people to do exactly what you want...
If only we could get you on board with the whole traditional music is interesting and worthy of support thing, you'd move fecking mountains!

Unfortunately the people you do support have already got multiple oodles of support... Your efforts are wasted and unappreciated. Just come over to the fusty side! Pop on your brown sandles and belong.. you so know you want to...!

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:06 PM (#2647760)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Spleen Cringe

CS, I owe you a pint for your last post!

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:14 PM (#2647771)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: nager

"Your efforts are wasted and unappreciated.." Not so. I really appreciated the link to this Kate Rusby video and throughly enjoyed watching it. I have just come back to Mudcat today and can't believe some of what has been written above.

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:20 PM (#2647776)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

Nager, beware Irony bypass, crow sister , Great. Lizzie, thanks for the link, I enjoyed it, almost everything else on the thread belongs elsewhere.

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:23 PM (#2647780)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Tug the Cox

Still agood post, SC, but going upwards, I didn't know you were quoting Lizzie, hey, good one 'Oh she who must not be mentioned.'

---

03 Jun 09 - 07:26 PM (#2647783)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: r.padgett

Thread drift?

Please start another thread so those who wish to chat about Kate can and those who wish to chat about Bert Lloyd and Maccoll can, maybe?

Ray

---

03 Jun 09 - 08:01 PM (#2647811)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin

Given what Lizzie usually does to other people's threads, no. Time for her to see what it feels like. Besides, Rusby is boring and Lloyd wasn't.

I might be in northern Albania briefly this autumn (got a holiday in Montenegro booked, it's a short trip from there to Shkodra). Anyone know how easy it is to find CDs of the sort of music Lloyd found in Albania? Or am I only going to run into electro-pop?

Lloyd's Albanian collection for Topic

I'm more interested in the southern (Tosk) stuff, the polyphonic choral singing that's like the Greek music of Ipiros.

---

03 Jun 09 - 08:12 PM (#2647816)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: GUEST,JohnE

I happened on this thread from another, skimmed it, and rapidly "lost the will to live". No wonder some people ask whether/why folk music and clubs are dying!
Oh, and I do love listening to Kate Rusby, I think she's a great singer and would be in any genre.
And please, please, - don't start an endless academic discussion of the absolute meaning of the term "great".

---

06 Jun 09 - 03:40 PM (#2650127)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Rifleman (inactive)

"Rusby is boring and Lloyd wasn't

My idea of hell is to chained to a seat in a locked room and forced to listen to Kate Rusby, the alternative is the same scenario but with A.L. Lloyd rather than Kate Rusby. I find them to be equally boring

---

06 Jun 09 - 04:44 PM (#2650182)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Jack Campin

Lloyd's vocal timbre usually ranged across the spectrum from grey to beige, but this has a good energetic feel to it, no?

Two Magicians

---

06 Jun 09 - 09:02 PM (#2650294)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: The Sandman

Jack,I agree,a great version.

---

07 Jun 09 - 08:22 AM (#2650500)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

From Jack: "Given what Lizzie usually does to other people's threads, no. Time for her to see what it feels like..."

Nope, nearly every thread I've ever started in the 'music' section gets taken deliberately off course, but that's OK, that's what conversation does, goes off at tangents, and often interesting things are to be discovered. Sometimes though, it just gets more than a little boring when the Minutia Brigade kick in bigtime, as they've done in this thread.

I rarely join in the music threads these days, because if I do, again, the threads go off course, into personal attacks. Strangely, I'm left alone in the BS section, probably because there are far more American and Canadians, Below Stairs, and nearly all of them are nice, laid back people who don't get their knickers on backwards in a rage if one tiny thing is reported wrongly.

I think it'd be a great idea to start a thread on A.L. Lloyd and then talk about Kate, as I mentioned above. Try it Jack, and see what happens, and then please note that I'm not throwing things out of my pram in this thread, merely linking to Kate again here and there. and letting you all talk Allloydadinfinitum,'cos that's what turns you on. :0)


From Crow Sister: "Jeez Lizzie, you are so driven and able to err, get people to do exactly what you want...
If only we could get you on board with the whole traditional music is interesting and worthy of support thing, you'd move fecking mountains!"

I would Crow Sister. Indeed, I DID, back on the BBC, shortly after I discovered the music of Coope Boyes & Simpson. I turned that board into a meeting place every Monday evening, when Lester Simpson and Mick Peat's radio programme 'Folkwaves' came on. We'd all listen to it 'live' on air, as at that time, Folkwaves didn't have a Listen Again button.

After watching the success of that thread, seeing the responses it drew, hearing that Mick and Lester themselves were watching that thread from time to time, the BBC finally gave in to the pressure I started up to give Folkwaves a 'Listen Again' button, and it happened.
It's still there to this day.

Of course, the BBC then got a little miffed, when the Folkwaves thread reached over 500 posts, becoming almost a folk cult in a way, albeit a small one...and they closed it down, with Mel stating that the BBC board couldn't take threads that went beyond 500 posts...The biggest lie going, of course, because there are many on the Music Club board that are well over 1,000. They just got miffed because folks were talking about that show and not their one, the Smooth Ops one, of course, as they run the F&A board and they do the Mike Harding show, which barely got a mention back then.

So...they closed it down. Here's the thread I started about that...I'm the 'number' in the first post.

The 2 BBC Folkwaves Threads


I've spoken about a great deal about traditional artists, songs, music, gigs, festivals etc..but 'they who must be obeyed' would have you think that the ONLY people I ever talk about are 'they who must no longer be mentioned' and Seth Lakeman. That's been the whole point of their campaign...

They don't *want* me talking about traditional music, because it's *theirs*...

Here you go,Live From Sidmouth - 2005 about the first ever Sidmouth Folk Week, when I decided to become a Roving Reporter (with a sense of humour) ;0)

And here, the now infamous Myspace thread, started just as Myspace was starting to get popular...Again, started by me, but the BBC have removed my name from every single post I ever posted, along with many of the thread titles, and closed many of them down too, as I think they did with this one also...Why? ALL it was about was spreading the word about people's music. (Oh, and Lizzie Bashing, of course) ;0)

BBC Myspace thread




Kate Rusby has, still to this day, not been completely forgiven by some in the folk world for DARING to be in Equation with Seth, his two brothers, Cara Dillon and Katherine Roberts. If you don't believe me, read what Colin Irwin has to say in his wonderully amusing book 'In Search of Albion' where he has an entire chapter about Seth Lakeman. Kate did go part way to getting some respect back, because she chose not to go with Equation to the USA when they were signed up to Warner Brothers...but the rest of them were banished from the Inner Folk Sanctum from that moment on...and still, to this day, haven't been forgiven by many.

It's vindictive rubbish...

"Unfortunately the people you do support have already got multiple oodles of support... Your efforts are wasted and unappreciated. Just come over to the fusty side! Pop on your brown sandles and belong.. you so know you want to...!"

Yes, they have. But I found Seth's music when hardly anyone knew about him. I knew, the first moment I heard him play that he'd be a star, said so too...and again, didn't they just hate it all. I'm so pleased he's got to where he should be...but there are many more who should also be there...

The thing is, with the English folk world, is that you are NOT supposed to be enthusiastic about this music, because if you are, then you're branded a 'fanatical fan' a 'stalker' and you're ridiculed beyond belief. I decided to bypass all that total crap, put up with it, shout out against it...

And then...one day, I thought..."Sod it! If they want their music hidden, then let them hide it away!"

So I removed my Live From Sidmouth blog from my myspace page, because one of those now so involved in Sidmouth is also one of those who's managed to put me off one helluva lot of folk music, turning it into one of the bitchiest worlds I've ever come across.

As I've said over and over..the English have a great deal to learn from the Americans and the Canadians..and it saddens me further that one of those who've given me such grief is of course American, but then they've adopted the English outlook 100%, so I can't really hold that against the US.

In short, Kate Rusby makes very beautiful music, and I love talking about folks who's music I love, be they 'famous' or 'unheard of' If music touches me, it touches me, and I've no problem with some who are further above the parapet than others.   If their music deserves mention, then mention it I will...in my own way, in my own words, in the way that is totally natural to me.   No-one has to read it....

But yes, thank you for your words, for I could have 'moved feckin' mountains'. I know I still can do. For now though, I'm just taking a rest from all the rubble that gets thrown down upon me from time to time, from those who feel those mountains belong to them.

"You do not own the land that people walk upon" - Crazy Horse.

"And you do not own the music that people love" - Mad Lizzie. ;0)


And now...back to Kate Rusby :0)

Kate singing 'The Good Man' at The Union Chapel in 2003

---

07 Jun 09 - 09:49 AM (#2650531)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Ruth Archer

Jack, have you heard Bert Lloyd singing The Captain's Apprentice? The power and starkness of the song is really suited to Lloyd's voice, I think. It's a song that's rarely been covered in the revival, and Jim Moray decided to do it for the RVW day at Cecil SHarp House last year - it has since entered into his regular repertoire, and he makes a great job of it.

I don't know how likely you are to find similar Albanian music while you're there, but I hope you are successful. On a related tangent, Dessislava Stefanova of the London Bulgarian Choir sang with Frankie Armstrong at the Bert Lloyd day at Cecil Sharp House last year. She described hearing his record of Bulgarian folk music when she was young, and how well and accurately they delved into her musical tradition - and how surprised she was to learn that a foreigner had made such a brilliant, representative collection. Which is quite a tribute.

---

07 Jun 09 - 10:11 AM (#2650540)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: Lizzie Cornish 1

Good Lawdy! I think this is Kate and AL Lloyd duetting....

---

07 Jun 09 - 06:18 PM (#2650842)
Subject: RE: Kate Rusby - 'My Music'
From: BB

Quite apart from the recordings of Bert Lloyd, which may not be to everyone's taste even if they're into traditional songs, to see him live was just wonderful. He had such enthusiasm, and an almost impish humour, and made you really listen to the songs he sang, or the music that he collected. Fantastic!

Barbara

---