Folk Music Journal: Volume 12 Number 1

Volume 12 Number 1 (2021) contains the following pieces 

Articles

Richard Shaw Sermon Joan Sharp (1898–1968) and the Revival of the English Pipe and Tabor

In April 1909, when at the height of his morris dance collecting activities, Cecil Sharp obtained a traditional pipe and tabor from the son of William Carter at Guiting Power in Gloucestershire. He went on to play these instruments during his lectures in both Britain and America, but was eventually surpassed by his daughter Joan who became the first truly accomplished taborer of the folk revival. With Douglas Kennedy performing solo morris jigs to her simple yet precise accompaniment, Joan demonstrated these instruments at numerous folk dance festivals and on international tours. She also made the first recordings of the English pipe and tabor, released on Columbia Records in 1930. However, her contribution to the folk dance movement and the revival of the pipe and tabor has never been fully recognized, and it is hoped that this article will go some way to correcting that omission. In addition, having closely examined the photographic evidence, the author offers some new observations on the possible fate of Joan’s instruments. 

Paul Gailiunas Weardale Psalmody

The isolated region of Weardale in County Durham was an important centre of lead mining in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was notable for its culture of fierce independence, and it became a stronghold of Methodism, especially Primitive Methodism. Several manuscripts of hymn and psalm tunes have survived, either originating in the area or having clear connections with it. Analysis of these sources, along with relevant printed material, adds to what is already known about this remote community and its musical culture in the mid-nineteenth century. 

Peter Bearon The Abram Morris Dance and the Abram Morris Dancers’ Ground

In December 1932, Maud Karpeles wrote an article for the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society entitled ‘Two Folk Dances’. Most of it is given over to a description of ‘The Abram Morris Dance’. The dance was described to her by Richard Porter, who had died by the time the article was published. She gives a full description of the dance as collected, together with some background detail. She also provides some background information on the Morris Dancers’ Ground which was generally believed to have been granted to the dancers provided that it was danced on at least once every twenty-one years. The dance was last performed ‘traditionally’ in 1901, and before that in 1880. In 1984 the Abram Morris Dancers were revived by Geoff Hughes and they now dance annually on the Morris Dancers’ Ground and around Abram on the last Saturday in June. This article considers the land ownership of the Morris Dancers’ Ground together with new research that has pushed the known dates of the dance performances into the late eighteenth century. 

Peter Wood The Unrecognized Returning Lover and Broken-Token Songs: A Survey

This article describes a group of twenty-eight songs on the theme of the ‘unrecognized returning lover’. The best known of these comprise a sub-group widely described as ‘broken-token songs’, the composers of which appear to have developed their own interpretation of the theme, rather than relying on the texts of pre-existing songs. The best-known examples of unrecognized returning lover songs have remained popular from their creation to the present-day folk revival, and appeared on broadsides right up to the end of the nineteenth century. 

Notes

Michael King Macdona Captain James Vickery: ‘Franklin’

Correspondence

‘Reusing Popular Tunes for Morris Dancing’

‘Cecil Sharp’s People’

Reviews – Books

Steve Roud The Cumberland Bard: Robert Anderson and Carlisle, 1770–1833 (Allan)

Julia C. Bishop Street Literature and the Circulation of Songs (ed. Atkinson and Roud)

Tom Pettitt Mummers’ Plays Revisited (Harrop)

Malcolm Taylor Postwar Politics, Society and the Folk Revival in England, 1945–65 (Mitchell)

Brian Peters Uncle Tom Cobley and All (Gray)

John Adams There Was None of this Lazy Dancing! Folk Tunes and Dances from the Yorkshire Dales (Ellis)

Catherine E. Foley Scottish Dance beyond 1805: Reaction and Regulation (Ballantyne)

Fintan Vallely Musical Culture and the Spirit of Irish Nationalism, 1848–1972 (Parfitt)

Barry Taylor The Spirit of the Reels: The Story of the Famous Liverpool Céilí Band (Rooney)

Isabel Corfe The Unstoppable Irish: Songs and Integration of the New York Irish, 1783–1883 (Milner)

Vic Gammon Old Songs, New Discoveries: Selected Papers from the 2018 Folk Song Conference (ed. Roud and Atkinson)

Matt Simons The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape (King)

Chris Metherell Hebridean Step Dancing: The Legacy of Nineteenth-Century Dancing Master Ewen MacLachlan (Melin)

Athena Bell Games, Rhymes and Wordplay of London Children (Kelsey)

Mary-Ann Constantine Cheap Print and the People: European Perspectives on Popular Literature (ed. Atkinson and Roud)

Steve Roud Crime, Broadsides and Social Change, 1800–1850 (Bates)

Rebecca E. Dellow American Antebellum Fiddling (Goertzen)

Liz Mellish Folklore Revival Movements in Europe post-1950: Shifting Contexts and Perspectives (ed. Stavělová and Buckland)

Tony Russell A New History of American & Canadian Folk Music (Weissman)

David Atkinson Make We Merry More and Less: An Anthology of Medieval English Popular Literature (Gray, ed. Bliss)

Brian Peters Katherine Jackson French: Kentucky’s Forgotten Ballad Collector (DiSavino)

Reviews – CDs

Ian Russell Songs of the North Riding, from the 1962 Colin Wharton Collection

Paul Cowdell Won’t You Buy My Pretty Flowers? (Charlie Bridger)

Máire Ní Chróinín ‘Tabhair mo Ghrá go Chonamara’ / ‘Bring My Love to Connemara’: Sean Nós Singing from Co. Galway

Pete Cooper Oh, Listen Today... The Roots of American Old-Timey Fiddle Music

Matt Cranitch Michael Gorman: The Great Fiddle Player

Andy Turner A True Furrow to Hold (George Belton)

Reviews – DVDs

Matt Simons All My Life’s Buried Here: The Story of George Butterworth (dir. Stewart Morgan Hajdukiewicz)

Obituaries

Derek Schofield Edwin Christopher Cawte (1932–2019), with a bibliography

Cover illustration: English Pipe and Tabor, as played by Joan Sharp. Photo by Richard Sermon.

Editor: David Atkinson