It’s with great pleasure we welcome back Nigel Spencer of The Folk Police for another guest Mixtape. He tells us that the theme is ‘new songs’ loosely in the style of traditional songs, from the heyday of the British Folk Revival. He wrote some excellent liner notes as well, which you can read below.
Music Played
- Teesside Fettlers – Chemical Worker’s Song (1974)
- Pete & Chris Coe – The Wizard of Alderley Edge (1972)
- Derek and Dorothy Elliott – Bring us a Barrel (1972)
- Cyril Tawney – Diesel and Shale (1972)
- Dick Gaughan – Both Sides the Tweed (1981)
- Muckram Wakes – Gilliver (1973)
- Brighton Taverners – Grey October (1975)
- Lou Killen – Farewell to the Monty (1963)
- Dave Goulder – The January Man (1970)
- Lal and Mike Waterson – Fine Horseman (1972)
- Owen Hand – My Donal (1965)
- Reynard – Liking is Easy (1979)
- Ian Campbell Folk Group – The Old Man’s Tale (1968)
- Archie Fisher and Barbara Dickson – Fiddlers’ Green (1970)
- Five Hand Reel – Freedom, Come Ye All (1978)
Liner Notes
Cover stars: Black Diamond Folk Club residents at the Old Crown in Digbeth, Birmingham, 1970s
The history of the British folk revival is often reduced to a binary struggle between two irreconcilable, warring factions. In this reading, in one corner were the purists who would only accept traditional songs – preferably sung unaccompanied – as genuine folk music, and in the other, navel-gazing singer songwriters with little interest in ‘the tradition’ – a subset of which were comedians using the folk scene for a leg-up into the world of light entertainment. Of course, the reality was never that simple. Just as there were always going to be singing comedians who were skilled interpreters of traditional songs (listen to Tony Capstick’s 1971 album with Hedgehog Pie, ‘His Round’), there were always going to be new songs that were readily accepted into the folk club canon.
It is this corner of folkdom we are focusing on for this mix: songs composed in the style of traditional music, many of which ended up being sung alongside traditional songs at folk clubs and singarounds, with their actual authorship occasionally so lost in the ether that they were assumed to be ancient songs penned by the eternally prolific Trad Anon.
There was definitely something in the waters of the North East of England, given the number of songwriters of the calibre of Ed Pickford, Alex Glasgow, Richard Grainger and Graeme Miles the region produced. One of these was Ron Angel, a long-time folk scene stalwart and club organiser, whose group, the Teesside Fettlers, sang a version of his Chemical Worker’s Song on their debut album, Ring of Iron (Tradition Sound Recordings, 1974). He wrote the song in the early 60s, based on experiences of the ICI works in nearby Billingham. Staying in the North East, we’ve also included Lou Killen’s definitive version of Farewell to the Monty, from The Iron Muse (Topic Records, 1963), a mining song written by John Pandrich in 1959 about the closure of the Montague Colliery in Newcastle. John Pandrich was, of course, the real name of Tyneside folk titan Johnny Handle of the High Level Ranters.
Chris Coe, who we sadly lost this month, shares the lead on the Wizard Of Alderley Edge, a song written by her then-husband and musical partner, Pete Coe, and inspired by a Cheshire folk tale about King Arthur waiting to be awoken to save England. It appeared on their debut album, Open The Door And Let Us In (Trailer Records, 1972). Alan Garner’s classic children’s book, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, was based on the same legend. From Yorkshire, and also on Bill Leader’s legendary Trailer Records, were Derek and Dorothy Elliott, who sang a version of Keith Marsden’s Bring Us a Barrel on their debut album (1972). Keith – later of the vocal group Cockersdale – wrote the song in 1966 and originally passed it off as an old song ‘collected from Charlie Hayes of Reading’, and of course, many people now assume it really is part of the English song tradition.
The third of our Trailer Record offerings is Gilliver by Muckram Wakes from their 1973 debut, A Map of Derbyshire. Written in 1965 by the group’s Roger Watson, it is based on a story told to him by his late grandfather, who left school in 1902, aged 12, to work in the mining industry as a ganger for a pony driver, and is about a pit pony who saved his life. Finally, we have the haunting, unsettling Fine Horseman, a song whose words sound like fragments from a lost folk ballad. It was written by Lal Waterson – surely one of the folk revival’s best songwriters – and appeared on the celebrated album she made in 1972 with her brother Mike, Bright Phoebus.
Cyril Tawney is best known nowadays for his more reflective numbers, such as the wistful On a Monday Morning – covered beautifully by Lankum – or the perennial folk club staple, Sally Free and Easy. However, his real stock-in-trade were his maritime songs, not surprising for a man from a seafaring family who spent 16 years in the navy. Diesel and Shale, a rousing chorus song about the perils of life as a submariner, can be found on his 1972 album, In Port (Argo Records). Fun fact: his backing group on this track were the Yetties.
Grey October was written by the Critics Group, a loose collective around Ewan McColl and Peggy Seeger founded in the mid-sixties to raise the standard of folk singing and to compose new songs in the folk idiom. The song was simultaneously a lament for schoolchildren killed in the Aberfan disaster in South Wales and for those killed by American bombs in Thuy Dan, North Vietnam. It was originally sung by Peggy Seeger on the album, the Angry Muse. The Brighton Taverners, who went on to release two albums on the very collectable Folk Heritage label, recorded a version in a style typical of folk club groups of the time on a self-released 7” in the mid-seventies.
Dave Goulder’s The January Man has been covered by everyone from Martin Carthy to Christy Moore to Bert Jansch to the Unthanks. His own unaccompanied version first appeared on his 1970 Argo Records album with Liz Dyer, which was also called January Man. When not writing timeless, seminal folk songs, Dave worked as a fireman on steam trains, ran a mountain hostel in the Scottish Highlands and became a master drystone waller. Also timeless, and also covered by just about everyone, was Ian Campbell’s anti-war opus, The Old Man’s Tale, which set original lyrics to a traditional tune. This song first appeared on his 1968 album, The Circle Game (Transatlantic Records), and, according to the sleeve notes, was written after an enjoyable evening hanging out with a group of elderly Brummies.
Liking is Easy by Reynard is a bit of an outlier. As far as I know, it’s never been covered or become a regular number to wheel out at singarounds. It is, however, a really nice example of how to write in the style of a traditional song. Reynard were from Liverpool and were actually part of the gospel scene: their two albums were released by Christian label Grapevine Records. This is from the second, Green Anthem (1979), and was written by singer Andy Wood, who, along with guitarist Mal Eden, was one of two songwriters in the band.
Fiddlers’ Green is one of those songs that everyone has probably heard a few too many times, a traditional, presumably Irish tearjerker which has become indelibly linked with bleary-eyed, booze-fuelled sentimentality. Yet the song – which describes a fisherman’s vision of utopia – was actually written in 1966 by John Conolly from Grimsby, a folk singer and chronicler of the East Coast fishing industry. Though Tim Hart and Maddy Prior may have just pipped them to the post, releasing a version in 1969, I’ve chosen the one by Scottish singers Archie Fisher and Barbara Dickson from their 1970 Decca Records album, Thro’ the Recent Years, an album that also features an early version of January Man.
Finally, three more tracks from north of the border. Owen Hand’s My Donal, another song that has spawned countless covers, is taken from his 1965 album, Something New (Transatlantic Records) and describes the sailor’s life from the point of view of those waiting at home for his safe return. Owen worked as a sailor himself and wrote this song while away at sea for seven months, working on an Antarctic whaling vessel. Both Sides the Tweed is taken from Handful of Earth (Topic Records, 1981). The tune was composed by Dick Gaughan in 1979, the words are adapted from those written by James Hogg and published in his 1819 book, The Jacobite Relics of Scotland. The River Tweed, straddling the English-Scottish border, is used in the song as a symbol of the need for both independence and friendship.
Going out with a bang, the last song on the mix, also featuring Dick Gaughan, is Five Hand Reel’s stirring version of poet and songwriter Hamish Henderson’s Freedom, Come Ye All, taken from their third album, Earl O’Moray (RCA Victor, 1978). The song was written in 1960 and quickly adopted by the CND peace marchers at the Holy Loch near Glasgow. The tune is an adaptation of the First World War pipe march, The Bloody Fields of Flanders. The song was at one point seen as a contender for Scotland’s ‘alternative’ national anthem, something Henderson was never comfortable with as he believed that part of its strength lay in its internationalism.