I released an album of songs from the traditional British folk repertoire in December 2018 & I’m really proud of it. I thought I would tell you the stories behind the songs. Heritage is not necessarily something you can touch but it is something you can experience through tradition. I find that there is a reward from taking part in tradition; it’s joining in with history, it’s finding out where you are from where your relatives came from. Some folk come from living musical tradition, an everyday family culture of singing & playing going back generations. I’m a revivalist; my family have no musical tradition. I learn songs from records & from songbooks. Many folk practitioners are revivalists & there is nothing wrong with that.

So this song is appropriate to start my record off with because it was what started Cecil Sharp’s folk song collecting career. Cecil Sharp was an English musician who was very much at the heart of the English folk song revival of the early 20th century. He collected thousands from songs from singers in the countryside of England & also took trips to Appalacia in America to do the same. He would listen to a singer & transcribe the melody & lyric very swiftly; he was a very talented man.

The foundation myth is that Sharp was a guest of a friend in Somerset & heard the gardener singing this song & this is how he became fascinated in English folk song. More prosaically, he had actually taken the trip down to Somerset with the intention of collecting songs & his host knew his gardener was a singer who sang in pubs & at events in the area.

The gardener was called John England. Which seems strangely appropriate. It is a beautiful song with a sense of coded lyricism. I first heard it at a singaround in the bar at Cecil Sharp House in Primrose Hill & it was love at first listen.

If you want to hear more of the album this link will take you to places you can listen to it.

So today I am working through a variety of tasks. I am finishing off the preparations for a guided walk of Southwark Cathedral I am giving on Thursday. Missing Histories of Southwark Cathedral has proved to be a rather enlightening research project about what appears to be a living building. In it’s life as a Christian place of worship Southwark Cathedral has been a palimpsest, subtly changing function & name as the years have progressed.

I’m also rehearsing for a support slot on a Martin Carthy gig on Friday, also at Southwark Cathedral. I love Martin Carthy & it’s an honour to be on a bill with him. I will be mostly playing songs in slack open G tuning (down to an open F!) from the British tradition, but I will be sneaking a John Fahey tune in too. I take my guitar playing very seriously.

I’m also preparing storytelling sets for upcoming school visits & literary festivals & London Eye events. Oh… & finalising the running order for Bermondsey Folk Festival 2019 & finding a new home for the Bermondsey Folk Club Singaround.

I’m looking forward to my holiday in a few weeks time; walking on Cranborne Chase & in the New Forest will be a necessary break.

I’ve given a lot of talks on music, folklore & magic over the years & I’ve learned the importance of a good library. The internet is an excellent cursory resource but quite often you can’t trust the information as it is not referenced. When giving a talk you need to be confident in the information you are getting over. Paying audiences, quite reasonably, may want to question or challenge you & so you need to trust the sources of your information.

I love books, I was late in my school-class to learn to read but once I got going that was it. It’s very easy to amass a lot of books in your life, but having a library is a little different. A library holds information relevant to your research in an accessible way.

Shelf space is prime real estate. There are only so many places to put books in the house so they need to be useful. Fiction I tend to read then give away unless the book is rare or I love it. So I keep Ursula Le Guin books & my hardback copy of The Chrysalids but I let the Stephen King books go to the charity shop (I can always get them again!)

Non-fiction books have different uses. There is a whole case of books about London for storytelling research for London events. I have a library of music in print; guitar instruction, folk song collections, popular song collections etc. This is for album research, repertoire for specific performances & fun.

I have a Steve Roud section. This is not intentional, it’s just he is such an excellent folklorist & so obviously tries to be dispassionate I can trust him! I’m giving a talk on the British folklore of love & once again his books have proved invaluable.

The library works for me so the books need to work; they need to be got out & read. Not necessarily in their entirety but opened & looked in. I run a probationary system for books which haven’t been referred to in a few years but would rather um & ah about buying a book than get rid of one. I have had to re-buy a book on a few occasions which is annoying.

As an amateur folklorist, professional storyteller, folk singer & musician I could not exist without my books. Where my books are is my place.

Now I’m going off to buy another bookcase!

This is Martin Carthy. He is amazing. No word of a lie, one of the finest guitarists the British Isles has ever produced.

Here is Famous Flower of Serving Men from his Shearwater album.

He is playing a candlelit concert in Southwark Cathedral on 22nd February (follow the link for very reasonably priced tickets) so in advance of this I thought I would ask him about some London memories. I also asked him if he had any superstitions…

Do you any superstitions? I never like to cross someone on the stairs & if I do I say “Ho Ho Ho, I don’t want to die on the Gallows!”

You were a chorister. How old were you when you went to the Savoy Choir? I was 12. I went for Southwark Cathedral & was rejected & it was suggested I went for the Queen’s Chapel of The Savoy. They worked with what they got & did some beautiful music.

If you had a stand out memory of singing at The Savoy what would it be? Probably singing Orlando Gibbons. I really got to love Orlando Gibbons’ church music

You were a student at St Olave’s Grammar School by Tower Bridge until when?
I left just before I was 18. I walked out of school at spring term of 1959. I got back home & said “I’m not going to go back to school next year”. I had taken my O-levels a year early & then my A-levels a year early & failed them miserably. The only positive thing that came out of it was that they gave me an O level pass in Ancient Greek because I’d done a really good greek verse paper. I used to like greek verse.

So you went from school into the folk scene, is that right? No, I went from school into the theatre. My first job was prompter at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. It wasn’t exactly well paid. It was 5 shillings a show & there were 9 shows a week. Monday to Saturday with 2 matinees & you were paid for an extra matinee just in case. So I got 2 pounds 5 shillings a week & I did a couple of very spectacular prompts, one in 12th Night & one in Midsummer Night’s dream. The boss was an old stager called Robert Atkins, very well known in the theatre world, an actor manager; one of the people I prompted was him. He was furious & his wife said to him “He’s doing his job” & the next day he came up to me & said “You are now an assistant stage manager & I’m doubling your wages” so for the last 3 weeks of the season I was on 4 pounds 10. I was still the prompter but I could use the title to take on to my next job which I did.

So you continued to work in the theatre? Oh yes, the next thing I did was a nationwide tour of The Merry Widow.

So how long did you work in theatre for? I did a summer season after that in Scarborough in a theatre in the round. They took over one of the large rooms of the public library. That was the last job I had.

So when did you start playing guitar then? Well I was already playing guitar. I had my guitar with me when I went on the road & when I went to Scarborough. I actually got to play at one great folk club in Glasgow. We were in Glasgow for 2 weeks & the master carpenter in the theatre was a folky & through him I met Ray & Archie Fisher, Hamish Imlach, Bobby Campbell, Gordon McCulloch. They were the core of the Glasgow folk song scene in my age. The man who ran the folk club was called Norman Buchan who at one point became a labour MP for Renfrew West & also a minister in one of the Labour governments. A great man.

Any memories of Bungees Folk Club? I hardly ever went to Bungees when I was knocking around the West End & Soho. I didn’t actually like it very much. I was very early in the Skiffle Cellar scene & that became Les Cousins later on & I had to reacquaint myself with the place. I was very much a Skiffle Cellar person as they had a better mixture. I was part of the Thames Side Four by that time & we had our own folk club at the King & Queen near Goodge Street. It’s become a folk club again. (Musical Traditions)
Do you have any memories of Ramblin Jack Elliot? I didn’t meet him when he first came over. He was a figure of legend, he worked between London & Paris. There was a whole movement of people who would go to Paris & sing on the street & then in the summer would go on the National 7 down to the South coast to Cannes & Nice. They were called “The Paris Bums”. I was never one of them. Alex Campbell was, Derroll Adams was & they were very much in the forefront of that wing of the folk scene.

Where did you first meet Wizz Jones? I saw him down at the G&G, the Gyre & Gymbal down in Villiers Street near Charing Cross Station. It was a cellar & had been going a long time. I think he was singing “The Molecatcher”. I saw him playing guitar as well, even then he was one of the top guitar players & he still is.

One Last question: do you have any memories of Luke Kelly? Oh yes, certainly, he was always down at The Troubadour. He was lovely, quite a wild man but he was a really generous soul & he loved to sing. He lived in Birmingham but he always came down to London & was always looking for a floor to sleep on. My wife at the time & I had a room with 2 beds in it & he would sleep in the other bed. He would lie in the other bed (he would always have had a few to drink) & he would sing at the top of his voice for a long time. He sang himself to sleep. He was a great man. I was astounded when he became part of The Dubliners because one of the major things that happened to the London folk scene was the arrival at Ken Colyer’s Jazz Club not in any folk club of Ronnie Drew & Barney McKenna. People were really blown away by what Barney McKenna could do on a tenor banjo. Never heard the banjo played like that ever. I was thunderstruck by his playing & equally incredibly impressed by Ronnie Drew’s singing. He had a great musical understanding.

Martin Carthy is playing a candlelit concert at Southwark Cathedral on February 22nd. Tickets are £15/12.50concs.

Oh my goodness! The line up for Bermondsey Folk Festival 2019 on September 8th is firming up with a few more acts confirming. We have Andy Irvine, Martin Simpson, Kerry Andrew, Ben Walker & Stick In The Wheel! We also have Bity Booker, Alex Monk, Jack Sharp, Sarah Lloyd & Ian Kennedy, Alison Frosdick & Jack Burnaby, Jacken Elswyth, Liam Cooper, Russell Joslin, Trista Selous, Matt Milton, Dorten Yonder, Peter Paul & Gordon & more to be confirmed…

Last year’s festival was amazing. Here is a short video of the day

Bermondsey Folk Club Singaround found itself in the wrong pub on Sunday. We did not receive a warm welcome. Our singaround was basically shouted down. In fact I had to take swift action at one point to avoid one of the locals from volunteering a heated & somewhat incomprehensible political broadcast at us. To anyone who came on Sunday & felt uncomfortable I am very sorry.

Bearing in mind I had run successful folk events at the pub before, had a meeting with the pub beforehand to explain what a folk club singaround is, & we brought a nice community of folkie drinkers in who spent good money, I feel disappointed that the warmth of the welcome was from the flaming torches accompanying the pitchforks.

I don’t take a penny for running the Bermondsey Folk Club. I do it for love, to build kind communities of people who like to make an everyday culture of singing & playing folk music.

I am searching for a new home for the Bermondsey Folk Club Singaround & I have managed to get Shortwave Cafe, our previous home, for March & April & will be finalising a venue for the end of February in the next few days so watch this space…

 

2018 was an excellent Cunning Folk year & 2019 promises to be a lot of fun.This is me at my last gig of 2018 was at Rough Trade East on a bill with Stick & The Wheel, & Laura Smyth & Ted Kemp.

I’m looking forward to playing in Southwark Cathedral in February supporting Martin Carthy & many more gigs to be announced. I have loads of upcoming folklore events & talks so keep a look out; it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Cheers

 

I have been a working musician for over 20 years now. Music from the British folk tradition has been a constant companion. I grew up in a small market town in East Dorset called Wimborne Minster which has a well established folk festival, a calendar event which started when I was a child. Folk music was part of the everyday experience.

As a young adult I would listen to Fairport Convention, Trees, Mellow Candle & The Pogues alongside Bowie, Nirvana, Neu & Aphex Twin. Catholic tastes.

It has always been normal for me to enjoy music inspired by, or from the tradition alongside music from other genres.

I have run a monthly folklore society in the upstairs room of a pub in Borough for 7 or 8 years & through the talks I have heard or given I have gained a deep love of the lore of the land which in turn has deepened my relationship with the music from the tradition.

My new album, Constant Companion, is out now. It is a collection of songs from the British repertoire which I have heard in clubs or on records or found in song collections. These songs found there way into my life & keep me company.

1 Seeds Of Love

I first heard this at Sharps, the singaround in the bar at Cecil Sharp House; which is appropriate as this is the first song he collected. He got it from a Somerset gardener called John English in 1903.

2 Lovely Joan

Another song I heard first at Sharps, when Alison Frosdick sang a version. I used the Ralph Vaughan Williams & A.L.Lloyd “Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs” as a reference when coming up with an arrangement. This is an invaluable book which countless folk before me have referred to.

3 Bruton Town

Like many folk I first came across this tune from the definitive Pentangle version. Bert Jansch & John Renbourn continue to be inspirational. I saw Bert at the 12 Bar on Denmark Street in 1995 & it was as formative as the first time I saw The Pogues.

4 Matty Groves

Liege & Lief is one of my favourite Fairport Convention albums & this was my favourite song on it. It pretty much has everything an English folk song could have. Love, class, snobbery, hunting, murder, grief & a tragic ending. Perfection.

5 Dick Turpin

I picked this up from the Marrow Bones book which is a collection of songs from the Hammond & Gardner Manuscripts. It was originally collected in Hampshire in the early 20th century. It manages to make Dick Turpin into a romantic hero as opposed to the actual highwayman who was unpleasant.

6 Death & The Lady

I heard this at the Goose Is Out Singaround in Nunhead many moons ago. Nygel Packet sang it & I went home & found it in “The Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs”. It haunts me.

7 Constant Billy

I love William Kimber & learned this popular Morris tune from a recording of him.
8 The Cruel Mother

A difficult song. Some folk songs fall out of the regular repertoire as culture changes & this one is not often played. I included it as the folklorist in me wonders whether this song has echoes of Anglo-Saxon revenant tales. Cultural history is like gossamer & sometimes the traces are left in the less trod byways.

9 Robin Hood & The Pedlar

Another from “The Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs”. It’s a waltz in the book but it migrated into 4/4 over the years I have been playing it. I’ve probably changed the tune too but the words are the same. So that’s something.

10 Souling Song

About 5 years ago I picked up the Watersons’ “Frost & Fire” album & it has travelled all over the place with me. It is a calendar of ritual & magical songs. This song was sung by children in the midlands before Halloween while begging for food to make a cake. The cake was for the dead who would return to life at that time & roam around their villages as revenants looking for food.

11 The Wanton Seed

This is the kind of traditional country song that the Victorian prudes could not assimilate into their “Merrie England” worldview.

12 The True Enlightenment

Doctor Dee, Elizabethan court advisor, magician & possibly spy. Used to sign his name 007. Through his cunning man, Edward Kelly, he talked to angels.

13 Ratcliffe Highway

A 19th century East London ode to sailors, booze & wilful misunderstanding

14 The Astrologer

I found this in the Marrow Bones collection & ran with it. It’s quite a rarity, only a few collectors found it over the years. There are more broadsides of it though. The dorian modality suits a blues riff so that’s what I did.

15 Dirty Old Town

I first heard this Ewan MacColl song on a Pogues record & it got stuck in my head. It’s still stuck in my head. Ewan MacColl was a great songwriter.

16 Shepton Beachamp Wassail

I got this from a Collins collection of English folksongs published in the early 1980s. It’s a South Somerset visiting song.

17 Poison In A Glass Of Wine

Jealousy & murder to a disturbingly jolly tune.

18 Soft Estate

Many is the time I drive on the A31 from Ringwood as it melds into M27 then M3 & remember the shrine by the road which literally said “SHRINE” in meter tall floral arrangements. It was there for years & years. A few years back I was just driving through the Twyford Down cutting near Winchester & this song came into my head. I had to turn off the M3 & stop near Arlesford & record the words onto my phone. It’s funny how songs can sometimes appear fully formed.

19 Willie O Winsbury

The first recorded version of Willie O’Winsbury was by Andy Irvine in 1968 on the Sweeney’s Men eponymous album. According to Andy; “This is Child 100. I collected the words from different versions and as the story goes, on looking up the tune, I lighted on the tune to number 101. I’m not sure if this is true but it’s a good story”. It is rumoured that Andy wrote the tune himself. I wouldn’t be surprised as the man is a genius.

If you are around on Wednesday 12th December I am having a free album launch party from 7pm at Shortwave Cafe, Clements Road, Bermondsey, SE16 4DG. It’s going to be a singaround so if you want to sing a song or play a tune you are very welcome.

Music Folklore Magic

I have to say this year has been ace.

Here are just a few of the high points.

I spoke at the EFDSS Folk Song Conference about A.L.Lloyd & Ritual in Song. It was a lot of research but the conference experience was excellent. The other papers were really interesting. The discussion about manufactured authenticity was probably my favourite by a whisker.

The Bermondsey Folk Festival was a great success, Martin Carthy, Lisa Knapp, Circulus, Arfur Doo & The Toerags, Ady Johnson, The Embers Band, David Jaycock & myself all performed to the largest turnout yet. The 2019 already has Andy Irvine, Kerry Andrew & Martin Simpson on the bill with more great acts to be confirmed.

My storytelling career has taken off & has become part of my artistic practice. In September I had a sell-out solo storytelling show for adults at Southwark Cathedral (I’m back there in February 2019!) and I also managed to tell stories at St Paul’s Cathedral, the Southbank Centre, The London Eye and on board the Cutty Sark as well as many other places.

I made an album too, which I am proud of. A song from it was played on the Radio 2 Folk Show the other week.

The album is being released on December 12th so I thought I’d have a party to celebrate all this good stuff.

It’s going to be at Shortwave Cafe 100 Clements Road Bermondsey SE16 4DG (5 minutes walk from Bermondsey Underground) from 7pm on Wednesday 12th December.

It’s going to be free & also a free-for-all. I have a bunch of great friends playing small sets: Bity Booker, Kraken Mare, Bromide & Russman. I will play a few sets & we will have a singaround too: so if you want to come for some free folk in the heart of South East London this is the pre-Christmas treat you are looking for.

If you are feeling brave you can try the homebrew too….

I had an amazing time organising the Bermondsey Folk festival again. Firstly I would like to say that it would have been impossible without being in partnership with Bermondsey’s best fishmonger, Russell Dryden.  You can read a bit about him here.

More big thank yous have to go to Pedro and to the pubs and local businesses who got involved- in particular Rob from Shortwave Cafe.

The festival is associated with our monthly Bermondsey Folk singaround. If you would like to be part of it, details are here.

Although rain was promised, it stayed fine all day. The main stage in the Blue Market was packed out for Circulus, Lisa Knapp and Martin Carthy.

Ady Johnson, David Jaycock, RussmanRussman and Cunning Folk as well as The Embers Band (pictured) played at Shortwave…

We also had the pleasure of Arfur Doo and the Toe Rags, Bermondsey Voices Choir who sang about magpies, traditional Irish and English dancing and a guided walk of Bermondsey with comedian Arthur Smith!

Can’t wait for 2019- watch this space!