Week 310 – Staines Morris

I think I must have first heard ‘Staines Morris’ at the end of Shirley and Dolly Collins’ Anthems in Eden suite, but learned it – as, no doubt, did countless others – from Shirley’s singing on Morris On. The source of the song is William Chappell’s Popular music of the olden time (1859). Chappell says

This tune is taken from the first edition of The Dancing Master. It is also in William Ballet’s Lute Book (time of Elizabeth); and was printed as late as about 1760, in a Collection of Country Dances, by Wright.

The Maypole Song, in Actæon and Diana, seems so exactly fitted to the air, that, having no guide as to the one intended, I have, on conjecture, printed it with this tune.

John Playford’s Dancing Master was first published in 1651, while the Actæon and Diana referred to here is Acteon & Diana with a pastoral storie of the nimph Oenone followed by the several conceited humours of Bumpkin the huntsman, Hobbinal the shepherd, Singing Simpkin, and John Swabber the seaman, by Rob. Cox, acted at the Red Bull with great applause, circa 1655. You can find the complete text on the University of Michigan’s Early English Books Online website. These verses are sung by “Country Wench 1”.

These days I’m pretty resistant to all this Merrie England guff, but I’ve retained a soft spot for this song. After all, the words might be a bit twee, but it is a rather fine tune. In our teens we used to sing it in our vocal harmony group Gomenwudu (in fact I’m pretty sure Mike used to sing Ashley Hutchings’ bass line). I’ve always thought of it primarily as a vehicle for vocal harmonies. But a couple of years ago I realised that it was possible to play it on the anglo. I didn’t really get it together then and, if I’m honest, I haven’t entirely got it together now. But as May Day approached I had another go at it. Put into a more singable key, with different fingering, on a different concertina, it seemed like a more viable proposition. And here it is – somewhat under-rehearsed, but if I’m ever going to post the song on this blog, it really has to be on May 1st – with multi-tracked vocals and two concertinas. Oh, and a Tierce de Picardie at the end. Again, something I tend to avoid like the plague, but here it just seemed right.

Maypole dance – from an early 20th century postcard, unknown location and date.

Staines Morris

Andy Turner – vocals, C/G and C/F anglo-concertinas

Week 307 – When Adam was first created

I must have been singing this song for very nearly 45 years. Always unaccompanied in harmony, of course, as is right and proper for a song from the Copper Family repertoire.

In the last year or so, I’d toyed with an arrangement in F on my C/G anglo. But this morning I decided to try it on the more sonorous Crabb F/C concertina which I found myself unable to resist at this summer’s Whitby Folk festival. It seemed to fit, and although my voice hasn’t been at its best of late, it didn’t seem too croaky. So I decided to slap it down on “tape” and post it here straightaway.

The song’s central point is – as James Brown would attest – that man is nothing without a woman. But, as with so many traditional songs, the words are written very much from the man’s perspective, and betray the fact that the song originated in a male-dominated society. I feel that the song’s heart is in the right place: it insists that Woman is not to be trampled upon by Man, but that she was created “his equal and partner to be”; but then blows it in the very next line by stating “when they’re united in one, sir, the man is the top of the tree”. Oh well.

Looking at broadside versions of the ballad on the Bodleian website, it’s clear that these lines weren’t inserted by the Coppers, but were there from the start. They’ve been softened a little in the the rather nice version of ‘When Adam was created’ which Sharp collected in 1918 from Jasper Robertson at Burnsville in North Carolina – in fact the song has been explicitly turned into a wedding song.

In praise of dear women I sing – ballad from the Bodleian website

 

When Adam was first created

Andy Turner – vocal, F/C anglo-concertina

Week 298 – The Unfortunate Tailor

I learned this, of course, from John Kirkptarick’s superlative performance of the song on Morris On. That was a real eye-opener in terms of what the anglo-concertina can do (if you’re as gifted as John Kirkpatrick).

I’d be very surprised if John didn’t learn the song from Frank Purslow’s book Marrowbones. Purslow gives two Hampshire sources: George Lovett from Winchester, and Alfred Oliver from Basingstoke, collected by George Gardiner in 1906 and 1907 respectively. Their very similar versions can be viewed – words and music – on the VWML site. Alfred Williams also took down a set of verses from John Webley of Arlington in Gloucestershire.

The song was in fact written by Music Hall entertainer Harry Clifton, and published in 1868 by Hopwood and Crew (nineteenth century attitudes to musical copyright might be inferred from this broadside print on the Bodleian site, from Glasgow publisher the Poet’s Box, which also dates from 1868). Harry Clifton wrote some really well-known songs including ‘Polly Perkins of Paddington Green’ and ‘My Barney (Bonnie) lies over the ocean’ – and numerous others which will be familiar to those of us interested in traditional song and dance, such as ‘Dark girl dress’d in blue’, ‘The Watercress girl’ and ‘The Calico Printer’s Clerk’.

You’ll find Clifton’s words on John Baxter’s excellent site, Folk Song and Music Hall. It seems the “Oh! why did my Sarah serve me so?” verse was in fact originally a chorus.

On this Mudcat thread you’ll find both words and music, in ABC format. Copying the code into ABC Explorer reveals that, in the hands of country singers and musicians, both the song and related morris tune had departed some way from Clifton’s tune (which, in turn, reminds me of various older sailor-themed dance tunes). Here it is, in case you fancy learning a different version from that usually sung on the folk scene.

I’ll Go and Enlist for a Sailor, Harry Clifton, 1868. From the transcription by Artful Codger on Mudcat.

The Unfortunate Tailor

Week 268 – Treat my daughter kindly

Farmyard scene from my parents’ postcard collection

When I heard the Watersons’ LP For pence and spicy ale in about 1977 ‘Chickens in the Garden’ was one of the songs I learned from it. Along with ‘Country Life’, ‘The Good Old Way’, ‘Bellman’, ‘Swarthfell Rocks’ and the two Wassail songs. In other words, about half the songs on the album. At the time, and for many years afterwards, it seemed so very Yorkshire, I almost couldn’t imagine it having been sung in any other part of the country – a local composition, perhaps. These myths were dispelled when I heard the Veteran cassette Old songs and folk songs from Essex featuring Fred Hamer’s 1967 recordings of a ninety-three year old Harry Green, from Tilty in Essex. Here it was – evidently the same song – but with no mention of Yorkshire whatever.

Harry Green, photo from the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust

The same recording of Harry Green was later included on the Veteran CD The Fox & the Hare. And from John Howson’s notes to that CD I learn that

This song, originally entitled The Farmer’s Daughter, or, The Little Chickens in the Garden, was written by American songwriter James Allan Bland (1854-1919) who also wrote Golden Slippers. Sheet music was published by Oliver Ditson & Co in 1883 and the cover states that it was the “Greatest success of the season with 10,000 copies sold in the first week!” Its popularity meant that it easily slipped into the tradition, particularly in America and Canada. It also found its way to these shores and it was published by the Poet’s Box in Dundee and turns up in Jimmy McBride’s collection from Donegal and Neil Lanham’s recordings from Suffolk and Essex. It was also a favourite of Norfolk singer Walter Pardon.

The Farmer’s daughter; or, The Little chickens in the garden. From the Library of Congress sheet music collection.

Harry Green’s version seems to be much closer to James Bland’s original than the North country ‘Chickens in the Garden’. The words of further versions are provided on this Mudcat thread. These include sets of lyrics similar to Harry’s from North Carolina and Arkansas but, intriguingly, the version recorded from Lena Bourne Fish of New Hampshire starts “While traveling down in Yorkshire”, and also has the phrase “so blooming shy” which was such a memorable feature of Mike Waterson’s rendition.

 

Treat my daughter kindly

Week 180 – The Lass of Swansea Town

Just after Christmas I was in the car, singing the ‘Gower Wassail’. When I finished, without thinking, I found myself launching into this one, which I’d not sung for a very long time. The link of course is that both were collected from the “Gower Nightingale”, Phil Tanner. But just as I first heard his Wassail song performed by Steeleye and the Watersons, I first encountered this one on Mike Waterson’s eponymous 1977 LP. I actually learned the song from Roy Palmer’s book The Rambling Soldier. Roy takes three of Phil Tanner’s four verses, and completes the story with additional verses from a late nineteenth century Harkness broadside.

There are many broadside printings of the song listed in Steve Roud’s Index, but few from the oral tradition – besides this one from Wales, there’s just a handful of examples, from Scotland, Northern Ireland and Canada. You can hear brief recordings of a couple of Canadian versions on the website MacEdward Leach and the Songs of Atlantic Canada here and here (they look like blank pages at first, but scroll to the bottom and you’ll find a transcription, sheet music and audio). The song’s setting is by no means fixed to Swansea – indeed many of the printed examples allow the singer to substitute the place name of their choice, such as this one from Lucy Broadwood’s collection.

The Lass Of —- Town. From the Lucy Broadwood Manuscript Collection, via the EFDSS Full English archive.

The Lass of Swansea Town

Week 154 – Allan MacLean

Here’s one which I’ve recently revived after a long gap. I learned it originally (under the title ‘The Minister’s Son’) from Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger’s book Travellers’ Songs from England and Scotland. They had recorded the song in 1963 from Charlotte Higgins – you can hear a slightly earlier recording made by Hamish Henderson on the excellent Tobar an Dualchais site (search hint when using that site: if you want to search by Roud number, use the Classification field in Advanced Search and prefix the number with “R” e.g to find other versions of this song search for “R2511”). For reasons which I no longer recall, I chose not to sing Charlotte Higgins’ tune, but instead used Harry Cox’s tune for ‘Blackberry Fold’ (or at least, Harry Cox’s tune as learned from Peter Bellamy’s rendition of it on The Fox Jumps Over the Parson’s Gate). It seems to fit pretty well – at any rate it’s flexible enough to accommodate the lines which simply have too many syllables to fit.

The song concerns a student who is expelled from his College following a sexual liaison initiated at a party. Of course, Universities and Colleges still take a very strict line on this kind of thing. As a result, noone in higher education today would ever contemplate getting involved with sex and drinking and that kind of thing. That’s what my children tell me anyway…

 

Allan MacLean