The following message was posted on Roy Bailey’s website yesterday:
Many of you will know that Roy has struggled with heart failure for over 30 years. Sadly today his condition finally claimed him. His last few days were peaceful and filled with love, family and friends whilst being cared for by the amazing folk at St. Luke’s hospice in Sheffield.
Professor Roy Bailey – a husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle, friend, singer, academic and humanitarian – 1935 – 2018.
Like Roy, I strongly believe that folk music can be a “powerful vehicle for contemporary social criticism”. He is responsible for inspiring many young protest singers of today, a legacy that will continue.
“…the greatest socialist folksinger of his generation” Tony Benn
“… there’s so much to be learned from Roy Bailey in the music that we do” Karen Tweed
My first real experience of Roy’s musical power came via Leaves from a Tree (1988). The album took its title from the short opening song which, in essence, is a reminder of the strength to be found in solidarity and likens protesters to the “leaves from a tree” which, whilst individually vulnerable, the roots of the tree are firmly rooted to the land. It serves as a reminder that change in society is often brought about by standing strong together.
Leaves from a Tree featured John Kirkpatrick, who also co-produced the album with Roy, along with Sue Harris and Val Bailey. It was released in 1988 at a time when the Anti-Apartheid Movement was growing in strength and support. As well as featuring Rivonia, a song which takes its name from the Rivonia Trials which led to Nelson Mandela’s incarceration, was The Dunne Store Strike. It was written by Sandra Kerr and tells of the solidarity of the eleven young Irish supermarket employees (ten women and one man) who went on strike for two years and nine months in 1984 over their refusal to handle South African goods. The Irish government banned South African Fruit in 1986, an overwhelming victory.
Roy continually championed the underdog, fighting against social injustices and political repression. The Guardian’s obituary provides a greater insight than I can possibly give here…covering his work with Tony Benn including their presentation of The Writing on the Wall, named after Benn’s book on a history of British radical dissent…read it here.
Roy appeared on TEDx in 2015, under the title of Misfits and Pioneers: Undefeated
Here is Roy performing Leon Rosselson’s Palaces of Gold with Martin Simpson at Towersey Festival in 2012
The following is taken from the sleeve notes of Leaves from a Tree…words of encouragement from Roy for our present and future protest singers.
Songs are a source of entertainment and enjoyment, a source of happiness. Art is often regarded as a realm outside the concerns of everyday life; an escape from the worries and the dilemmas of ‘making ends meet’. Songs, however, are not neutral. They either confirm or subvert. To claim neutrality, in almost any sphere of life, is to affirm the status quo. To be neutral is to abandon the issues and leave them firmly in the hands of the powerful and the privileged….Our personal experience is an expression of a political, reality. They are not private or public, they are both. Seemingly private concerns are rooted in a public world of politics and priorities, usually other peoples!
Roy is survived by Val, his daughter, Kit (Katherine), son, David, and brother, Ron.
Roy Bailey: 20 October 1935 – 20 November 2018