Recent Letters

Re: Gastonia Gallop review

But I am surprised that Ray does not comment on the song's title.  Most singers call it something like Awake, Awake you Drowsy Sleepers, but here we have the opening line 'Wake, oh, wake, you sleepy desert'.  The line, in its own way, does make sense.  But I love the way that, over the years, the words 'drowsy sleepers' have become 'sleepy desert'.  Truly an example of the 'folk-process' at its best!

Mike Yates - 8.2.10

Re: Songs from the Sperrins review

I'm distinctly surprised at your review of Songs from the Sperrins.  I acted as consultant in respect of its text transcriptions, references and song and performance histories.  I had a hand in the production but no editorial input and some of my suggestions were not followed.  I was also asked to provide a 'blurb' and, since only a little of it was used, I've given it below.  It was written before the album was published, and before your review, and is as unbiased as any subjective view can be.  I wonder how it could be that you and I see the same item in such different ways?

The forty songs on these two CDs were recorded in mid-Tyrone, in Ireland between 1980 and 1991.  Most of the singers were in their seventies but, far from being 'past it' their performances are very fine and some are among the most exciting that it's been my fortune to listen to in over forty years.

I hope that the songs will be learned and that people will be reminded of the honourable tradition of local song making.  Most strongly, though, I hope that the songs and the singers will be listened to with great care.  These songs were hundreds of years in the making, the singers spent decades learning their trade; savour the wonderful way in which Lizzie Clarke paces her songs drawing from them the utmost meaning and emotion, and notice how Jimmy Devlin, with the cunning of a life-time of performance, keeps our attention throughout his songs - especially in Lord Beichan, until, at the end, he apologises for his aged voice by raising it till it cracks.  This is the Irish song tradition in the fullness of the last moments before its functions were usurped by the mass media.

In comparison with others, this area has been neglected by song collectors.  This collection entitles the people of the locality to be proud of their culture; the compilers may also be proud that their enterprise fills a hole in our knowledge of the Irish song tradition.”

You are, of course, entitled not to like these singers, the songs or their performances but I would ask you to take account of a couple of statements, one by Peter Kennedy, concerning the attitude of some members of EFDSS to the singing of Harry Cox, “At the first hearing of Harry Cox you may remark on the 'dry' impersonality and monotony of his style; for many of us in the Society it has taken five, ten or even twenty years to appreciate the subtleties of his performance.” (Folk Legacy FSE-20, DTS LFX 4, EFDSS LP1004), and by Ginnette Dunn, in the early part of chapter 6 of The fellowship of song, describing the aesthetics involved in singing performance in the Suffolk communities of Blaxhall, Butley and Snape, and, by implication, performance in any community.  The chapter is called: 'The Primary Aesthetic: Performance' and states that “the primary aesthetic emerged, that performance is good in itself.”

I would also ask you to consider your statement that you reached track, five, Ita Loughran's Rambling Boys, “before I heard someone who seemed to understand and care about what they were singing”.  My hearing of the tracks you disdain is of singers who sing coherent texts and sing them clearly: it is impossible under these circumstances that they should not care or understand what they are singing.  The result, in traditional singing, of not understanding or caring, is that songs get sung to tatters or are forgotten entirely; that is not the case here.

Traditional music and song do not respond well to we aficionados imposing our aesthetic upon them, we have to appreciate them on their terms, those of their communities and of their performers.  One definition of 'the folk' reads:

[The folk are] a group of people united permanently or temporarily by shared common experiences, attitudes, interests, skills, knowledge and aims.  Those shared attitudes are elaborated, sanctioned and stabilised by the group over a period of time.  Any such group or group shaped culture trait might be the subject of folklore study.
Linda Degh, quoted in Paredes, A and E J Steckert, The Urban Experience and Folk Tradition (1971) p.54-5

The song notes are another matter and I agree they are not above criticism, but I remember beginning a review of Seán Ó Baoill The Irish Song Tradition and slating it until I realized that I was measuring it against my expectations rather than its author's intentions; the review I wrote was very much more positive than the one I started.

You refer to many anomalies in the notes and mention a few.  Most of these puzzle me.  You say, of Jimmy Devlin's The Gallant Dragoon, that “ … the briefest glance at Roud's Index would have shown Peter Smith that it is usually known as, More Trouble in my Native Land, and he would also know that it was written by Tom McGuire …”.  Roud gives 15 entries for this song.  I don't think Peter Smith noticed either that one of them is duplicated (one of those with the title, More trouble, and a reference to it having been sung by Dan Crawley) and that another, the only one ascribing the song to Tom McGuire, is given three times.  I did; I also noticed that the title of another of the 'More trouble' entries was imposed by Steve Roud himself - Bob Pegg gave it as An old song.  Under these circumstances, I'd be by no means sure of either the usual title or the author, and, since neither is a matter of interest in traditional terms, would be inclined to leave them out.  The reference to the book, Old-Come-All-Yes, in this context, was more a way of introducing the much more interesting information that, as well as this one, it contains five others of the songs on the CDs - and therefore a hint that the book was instrumental in their introduction to, or their sustenance within, the tradition of the area.  Incidentally, I can find no other reference to Tom McGuire, in Roud or in Michael Kilgarriff Sing us one of the old songs, though, as Tom Maguire, another of the 4-page songbooks in the Hewins collection gives him as author of Three leaves of shamrock (Roud 3769).  I do, however, find reference to the same song in Bill Williams 'Twas only an Irishman's dream (p.107).  There it's attributed, not to T McGuire but to J McGuire; I need to do a bit more work on who this McGuire was and what he actually wrote.

Actually, it was my advice not to overload the booklet with references, most people don't want them and those who do can look up Roud on-line for themselves.  One of my joys is that a Roud reference saves me from all kinds of pedantic effort; well, I thought it did!

Another decision was that, if standard references were not given in the notes, they should be given somewhere.  And that they have, perhaps obscurely, but page 92, one of those that index the songs by first lines, has the information about The Beggarman that you complain is missing - it is indeed Roud 118 and, - I missed this until just now - the entry for Far, far away on the banks of the Nile gives the titles as 'The Gallant Dragoon'/'There's Trouble in my Native Land'/'More Trouble in my Native Land'.

I'd really prefer to leave it there with a comment about giving singers, compilers and yourself a bit more time before being so roundly condemnatory but there's a crack at the end of your review that I think is downright unfair.  It concerns the note about the transcriptions - an admission that attempts to transcribe traditional singing are fraught with difficulty.  In the 1908 Journal of the Folk Song Society Percy Grainger made a well-known and valiant effort, setting out the tune as it was used in each verse, trying to give every variation of tempo and attempting to show every slight raising or lowering of a note from its staff value.  He still didn't make it but, because he was Percy Grainger and because we can see the care he went to, we excuse the deficiencies - he made every effort 'to render them as close to their original settings as possible.' The note you complain of does no more than to say this.  The staff notations for this project were finalized by Colette Moloney, who is best known as the compiler of the catalogue of the Edward Bunting manuscripts, a PhD in music and lecturer in musicology at Waterford Institute of Technology, generally reckoned to be among the best ears in Ireland, commended by Harry Bradshaw, also among the best ears in Ireland but not himself a transcriber.  The reason for the note is that she was not absolutely satisfied with one of the transcriptions.  I'm sure she would be grateful if anyone in the Musical Traditions community could offer anything more accurate.  As it is, the note was candid but, perhaps, given a bit of ill-will among reviewers, a touch ingenuous.

I really do regret that, for a second time, I've felt impelled to defend an Irish production in face of a review in Musical Traditions.  Here, as I did in the case of The Songs of Elizabeth Cronin, I feel that the problem is that Irish producers and students of traditional music have different priorities from their English counterparts.  It's a community thing again; might we not benefit from making common cause?

Those who would like to judge these recordings, these singers and their documentation for themselves, may obtain them (£20.00) from Kathleen Burns at The Institute of Irish Leadership, 20 The Diamond, Pomeroy, Co Tyrone - (028) 87757800 - kathleen@instituteofirishleadership.ie  The pack is issued by Beaghmore Publications and, although they have no web presence, they invite you (on the back of the CD box) to seek further information from beaghmore@gmail.com  I'm sure you will be pleased to know that more than 500 have already been sold and that the project is in profit.

Best wishes,

John Moulden - 27.1.10

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