Week 287 – Country Life

Side 1, Track 1 on the Watersons’ classic LP For pence and spicy ale. Released in 1975, I must have first heard it the following year when I bought an already secondhand copy from my schoolfriend Peter Carlton. Pete had bought it from another classmate, Richard Marks. I’m not sure what had prompted Richard to buy it – possibly John Peel had played some tracks from it on his Radio 1 show? Anyway, I was immediately hooked. It fitted in perfectly with my existing love of unaccompanied harmony singing, and my burgeoning interest in folk carols, songs of ceremony, seasonal songs etc. It also provided my singing partner Mike and I with another source of folk songs to rip off and add to our repertoire. At one time or another we must have sung half the songs on that album: ‘Bellman’. ‘Swarthfell Rocks’, ‘Malpas Wassail’, ‘Chickens in the garden’, the mighty ‘Good Old Way’ and, of course, ‘Country Life’ (and I was also prompted to learn ‘King Pharim’ as a result of hearing the Watersons sing it).

According to the liner notes on For pence and spicy ale the Watersons got the song from Mick Taylor, a sheepdog trainer of Hawes in Wensleydale. There’s a related, but different song, which shares the same Roud number, sung by Walter Pardon amongst others. As you’d expect, you can find more details, and links to follow up on the Mainly Norfolk website.

We were far from the only people on the folk scene to learn this song. If you’ve been to any kind of folk club or singing session over the last 45 years it would be very surprising if you hadn’t found yourself joining in the chorus of ‘Country Life’ at some point. Our only complaint was that the song was too short. So Mike remedied that by making up an extra verse.

It’s been a long time since Mike and I regularly sang together, and it’s not often I think to sing this song. The last time I sang it in public, I think, was at the 2016 Teignmouth Folk Festival, when Magpie Lane were on the same bill as local harmony trio The Claque, and we finished the show with a very pleasing massed rendition of ‘Country Life’ (well, very pleasing for us!). Not having a vocal harmony group to hand when I came to record this for the blog, I decided to make do with a simple concertina accompaniment.

Country Life

Andy Turner: vocal, C/G anglo-concertina

Week 243 – When Spring Comes In

It has felt truly Spring-like this week, which prompted me to record this song for the blog. The song seemed rather less appropriate when I woke up today to find it was a cold, grey, wet morning – apparently it had been snowing earlier – but I decided not to let that put me off and, indeed, like many a dark and a cloudy morning, it has turned out to be an OK sort of afternoon.

My friend Mike and I used to sing this together having learned it circa 1979 from Bob Copper’s book A Song for every Season – at that point we’d not actually heard the Coppers singing it. In later years this is a song which I’d often sing on a night out with my friend (and occasional commenter on this blog) Adrian. Unfortunately nights out and sing-songs with Adrian happen all too rarely these days, but this is a song which I can’t really envisage not being sung in harmony. So, with the help of Audacity, Dropbox and an iPad, here’s me singing with a bunch of doppelgangers (quintuplegangers?). With a bit more time, this could have been quite a lot more polished. But I didn’t have more time and, besides, I don’t think it suffers too much from the slightly ramshackle feel (or the fact that I was making up most of the harmonies as I went along).

You can hear Bob and Ron Copper singing this on the Topic CD Come Write Me Down: Early Recordings of the Copper Family of Rottingdean. It was also included on the 1995 CD Coppersongs 2: The Living Tradition of the Copper Family, sung by Bob, John, Lynne and Jon Dudley And there’s a 1971 recording of Bob, John and Lynne singing it at the Lewes Folk Club on the British Library website.

When Spring Comes In

Andy Turner – vocals

Week 134 – The Birds in the Spring

Putting the recent pea-soupers to one side, there have been some very spring-like mornings this week, so in a spirit of optimism I thought I’d post this song. It’s another one from the great Pop Maynard, learned from the Topic LP Ye Subjects of England. It’s a song which I think of as being quintessentially Southern English. That impression is partly based on only having come across the song from George Maynard and the Copper Family – but in fact having looked up Roud 356 on the Full English site I see that it has been exclusively collected in Southern England, with most of the sightings coming from Sussex.

I should perhaps confess that, while I love this song, I can’t relate to it fully having, as far as I’m aware, never actually heard a nightingale.

George ‘Pop’ Maynard – photo from Musical Traditions

The Birds in the Spring