This compilation is the continuation of a project started by Dave Emery,
(who produced the In Search of album
and mastered several tracks used here), and
taken up by Ralph Jordan when Dave wanted his life back, as does Ralph after
this! Since the issue of In Search of, more recordings have been
made available to us and we have been able to include the best of them
here. Unearthed is a collection mainly of previously unreleased material
plus live versions of personal favourites and ones that we have been repeatedly
asked to include.
With many thanks to:
Dave Emery, engineer for Rufford
Park Poachers, archiving and mastering of tapes, and for his time and
continued support; Paul Adams for supplying the recording of Warlike Lads of Russia, engineered by
Bernard Whitty, and for assistance and advice over the years.
Stefano Bolzanella, Richard Callison, Bob Elliott, Stephan Grossman,
John Leonard, Duncan McLennan, Enrico Nuti, Jeff Pollard, Dave Moore, Alejandro
Roja, the West Australian Folk Federation for the recordings used in this
compilation and all those good people, too numerous to mention by name, who
also sent tapes in order to help with this project.
Martin for his digital wizardry; Tony, Helen and Peter for the artwork
and layout.
Joe for unrivalled
skills in arbitration during this project, thus preventing his mother from
divorcing his father!
Finally, a big thank you to Ralph for constructive input, time
committed, patience sorely tested and technical skills employed in producing
this CD.
Track notes
My approach to learning songs was quite undisciplined and somewhat lazy. I used to trawl through a variety of books such as the Child Ballads, Christies Traditional Ballad Airs, Bronson and the EFDSS Folk Song Journals, listen to old recordings of traditional singers. Rather than conscientiously learn the songs by writing them down and working out the accompaniment, I tended to absorb them over a period of time. Add the facts that I couldn’t read music very well and had a terrible memory even then, the end result was words and tunes were not always remembered correctly nor, in some cases, were the sources. Oh dear, Rue the Day (Rocking the Cradle), Bonny George Campbell, Fare Thee Well My Dearest Dear, Dives and Lazarus, Nine Times a Night and William of Winesbury (Willie o’ Winsbury/ Winesberry) are such songs. ~ Another example is The Prickly Bush, pulled out from distant memory on the spur of the moment (they asked me to sing something jolly!) during a set I was doing at a club in Holland, from whence this recording came. ~ Barbara Ellen is a widely travelled song spawning many versions and I have a vague recollection of this one being an American variant.
I
do remember getting Yarmouth Town
from Peter Bellamy, a diversely talented and creative man, whose singing I
loved and whose humour just used to crack me up. Always a supportive and loyal friend to us through good and bad
times, we miss Peter very much and I include my singing of it here purely as a
tribute to him. ~ Rufford Park Poachers
was learned from the singing of Joseph Taylor during one of my trips to C#
House. This rather self-indulgent recording
was the result of Dave Emery using me as a guinea-pig for testing his new
(then) recording equipment. The Wanton
Seed comes from the Hammond & Gardiner manuscript collection. ~ This adaptation of Ten Thousand Miles is a bit of a pic’n’mix from variants of Turtle
Dove, Lonesome Dove, True Lover’s
Farewell, but is probably closest to the variant collected by Cecil Sharp
from a Mrs Rosie Hensley of Carmen in North Carolina in l916. ~
For Annachie Gordon I adapted
the tune found in Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs and collated verses from Lord Saltoun & Auchanachie (Buchan’s
Ballads of the North of Scotland), Young
Annochie (Murison MS), and Lord
Saltoun & Annachie (Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs). ~ The only time I received a negative reaction
from Julia when she listened to any of the test pressings of my albums was “I
don’t like what you’ve done to Clyde
Water (Drowned Lovers), you’ve
trivialized it”. Pained me to admit it,
but I had to agree, so for her I’ve included a version of the way I usually did
it. I can’t remember exactly the source
of the text, probably verses adapted from Child via Bronson via Christie – the
tune could have been from the latter or maybe it was just one of those I
cobbled together or made up!
Possibly
to the consternation of some, I often deliberately altered or re-wrote words
and tunes of traditional songs, although I did try to keep it very much in
sympathy with the original. Broadsides,
however, offered a good source of ballads without such constraints and gave me
the freedom to compose around the text without offence. Described on a broadsheet as A new song – Buonaparte’s escape from Russia,
I added a few extra words, wrote a tune and called it the Warlike Lads of Russia.
This recording was originally on a compilation album the late Fred Woods
brought out called The First Folk Review and
subsequently featured on the compilation album Flash Company, recently re-issued by Fellside in celebration of their 25th Anniversary.
~ Billy
Don’t You Weep for Me came from a broadside entitled Unfortunate Sally or Billy Don’t You Cry for Me; I wrote the tune
in 9/8 time to accommodate the odd metre of the text.
Two
songs revisited quite a while after I had originally recorded them were Captain Glen and Master Kilby. Versions of this song entitled either Captain Glen or William Glen appear in both Bronson
(found in an appendix to Brown
Robyn’s Confession) and in Christie’s Traditional Ballad Airs.
For this version I adapted the
text I found on a broadsheet called Captain
Glen, which differs slightly from both the Bronson and Christie
versions. The tune used here is an
adaptation of the one found in Christie’s.
An EFDSS Folk Song Journal was the source of Master Kilby.
Any song that tells a story, is well
crafted and has a good tune is appealing to me. The Jukebox as She Turned by
Jeff Deichman, I learned from the singing of Rick and Lorraine Lee. Icarus
was learned from Anne Lister herself and the Taoist Tale from a Tucker Zimmerman recording. ~ I
am a great admirer of Cyril Tawney’s singing and song-writing and I used to
sing a couple of his songs, The Ballad of
Sammy’s Bar and On a Monday Morning. I was outvoted about including this track,
which I feel doesn’t do justice to the song. I mistakenly sang it as an
overly serious ballad rather than what it really is, a humourous song, so if
you haven’t heard Cyril sing it, I urge you to get a copy of one of his albums.
~ Although I’m a Bob Dylan fan, it was
actually my friend and co-Bandoggs member, Tony Rose, who knocked me out with
his singing of Boots of Spanish Leather
which really brought the song to life for me.
Tony recently re-recorded it for his latest album Old Bones. ~ I started singing I’m
Going in a Field by Ivor Cutler because it summed up my life’s philosophy,
however, having recently heard a recording of Ivor singing it, I think I was
thinking about something entirely different to him! This is the only recording we could find and as I like the song
so much I wanted it included, breaking guitar string and all. My apologies to Ivor for getting the words
wrong. ~ Any parent will
recognise Repetitive Story Syndrome – you ask your children what story they
would like tonight and it’s the same one they wanted last night and for the
past fortnight. After a few standard
readings, to alleviate the tedium for myself and to amuse them, I would give
the story a different ending maybe, embellish or change the story a bit (no
change there then) or make up a little song.
So it was with Rapunzel, a favourite fairytale of Helen’s, with
which I got a little carried away.
Fortunately I restrained myself from developing further ‘Oh why did they
have to kill King Kong’, ‘The Great Boffo’s Cycle Race’ and ‘The Ballad of Meg
and Mog’. They say you reap what you sow; I have a beautiful but cynical
daughter and a son who messes with my songs!
Roxburgh
Castle, Plains of Boyle, Hamburger Polka, Sonny Brogan’s Mazurka, Love Will You
Marry Me and Jimmy Allen are all tunes learned along the way from a variety of sources, but which came from where I cannot
remember!