Folk Music Journal: Volume 10 Number 4
Folk Music Journal: Volume 10 Number 4
Volume 10 Number 4 (2014) contains the following pieces
Articles:
Andrew Gustar The Life and Times of Black-Ey'd Susan: The Story of an English Ballad
John Gay's nautical ballad 'Sweet William's Farewell to Black-Ey'd Susan', published in 1719, was soon set to music by composers including Richard Leveridge, whose setting became the established version. The song remained popular, and inspired art, literature, and numerous musical arrangements and interpretations, with a modified version of the original tune becoming standard from the mid-nineteenth century. Appropriated as a traditional song on both sides of the Atlantic, it was encountered, in different versions, by folk song collectors, including Cecil Sharp. It continues to appear in song collections and as part of the performed repertoire.
Martin Graebe Old Songs and Sugar Mice: The Story of the Remarkable Miss Mason
In 1877, Marianne Harriet Mason published Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs, a collection of songs obtained orally from her family and from people around her. She was in contact with several of the early folk song collectors and was a friend of both Sabine Baring-Gould and Lucy Broadwood. As well as being the first woman to collect and publish traditional songs, she was a pioneer in many other ways. This article looks at her life, her song collection, and her part in the Victorian folk song revival.
David Atkinson 'William and Margaret': An Eighteenth-Century Ballad
The Child ballad 'Fair Margaret and Sweet William' (Child 74) can supposedly be traced back to an echo in a play of the first decade of the seventeenth century, and yet there is no actual trace of the ballad until a broadside of c.1720. At that time, there also start to appear various copies of another ballad, generally known as 'William and Margaret', which tells a similar story but in a more 'literary' style. This has been widely, but inconclusively, attributed to the Anglo-Scots poet and playwright David Mallet (formerly Malloch) (1701/2?–65). The present article traces the parallel paths taken by the two ballads, reviews the claims about authorship, and considers their contrasting styles, with a view to a reassessment of what the 'ballad' might have meant to the eighteenth century.
Note
Gordon Ridgewell |
The Vale of Mowbray Sword Dancers |
Reviews — Books
Andy Turner |
The Derbyshire Book of Village Carols (ed. Russell) |
Keith Chandler |
Morris Dancers and Rose Queens, Vol. 2: An Anthology of Reported Carnivals and Galas in West Lancashire 1900 to 1909 (Haslett) |
David Atkinson |
Songs of People on the Move (ed. McKean) |
Dave Townsend |
Never on a Sunday: Marches, Dances, Song Tunes and Party Pieces as Played by a 19th Century Village Church Band (ed. Woods) |
David Atkinson |
Medieval English Lyrics and Carols (ed. Duncan) |
David Atkinson |
The Songs and Travels of a Tudor Minstrel: Richard Sheale of Tamworth (Taylor) |
Martin Graebe |
A Somerset Scrapbook: Songs, Stories and Music from the County of Somerset (CD-ROM version) (Patten) |
Heather Horner |
Oxfordshire Carols (ed. Townsend) |
Valentina Bold |
Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era (McAulay) |
Reviews — CDs
Graeme Kirkham |
Far in the Mountains, Vol. 5 (rec. Yates) |
Roly Brown |
Easy and Bold (John and Tim Lyons) |
Keith Chandler |
Songs and Ballads from Perthshire Field Recordings |
Review — DVD
Colin Harte |
The Yellow Bittern: The Life and Times of Liam Clancy |
Obituary
Bert Cleaver |
Ivor Allsop |
John Moulden |
Charlie McGonigle |
John Moulden |
Dan McGonigle |
Thomas A. McKean | Jane turriff |
Cover illustration Marianne Mason, photo takenon her retirement, 1910. Photo courtesy of Nottinghamshire Archives (DD/716/58/3).
Editor: David Atkinson
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