In the early 1960s, when I first started getting interested in traditional songs, there were fewer than ten LPs of traditional singers from these islands available, and they each cost about one third of a week's wages.  People like me were reduced to going up to the Cecil Sharp House sound library to listen to - you weren't allowed to copy - a load of crackly old 78s.  You would carry a shopping bag with your reel-to-reel tape recorder - this was before the advent of the cassette - hidden under some light and noiseless shopping like a bunch of spring greens, and attempt to record the songs you were interested in.  The chairs in the listening room had plastic covering over the foam pads so, whenever anyone else came in and sat down, your recording would include the 'whoooosh' sound of the air escaping through the holes in the plastic covers.  And this happened very frequently because there were so many people who were as frantic as you were to get recordings of the songs!

The availability situation slowly improved, but Topic (for example) still had only about a dozen LPs of traditional singers from these islands by 1967, and only three of these were English.  And LPs were still bloody expensive for young people on £5 a week wages.

I must admit that, although I really loved traditional songs, I can't say I really listened to them all that carefully, and when I found myself running a couple of folk clubs back in the Sixties and Seventies, my repertoire was entirely a 'words and tune' affair.  I had a repertoire of about 200 songs, and was rather proud that I could sing a couple of songs per week all year without having to repeat myself ... but there were very few that I'd learned because they were important to me.

It took a very long time for me to realise just how good some of these old singers actually were.  In the end, it was the Voice of the People that did it.  The 20-CD set came out in 1999 and they had to be reviewed, so I got four other people who did reviews fairly regularly for us, and we had four CDs each, amongst the five of us.  And, inevitably some people didn't do it or only did one or two, so I ended up having to do the reviews of, I don't know, probably about half of the 20 records.  And there's all the difference in the world between just listening to records and saying "Ah that's great, I love that song" and actually having to write something pertinent about it.  You really have to listen in a completely different way if you're going to make comments about it.  And by the time I'd done all that lot, it completely changed my outlook as to what I liked and what I didn't like, what I thought was important and what I thought was less so.  And I think the important thing about the old singers is that they, and the culture they came from, had all the techniques that they'd developed to enable them to be, after fifty-odd years, still welcome in their pub and asked to sing a song because they sang it well.  These techniques included rhythmic and melodic variation, long and short lines, variable verse lengths, syncopation, etc.  Making the tune fit the words rather than the other way round.  A good unaccompanied traditional singer has the ability to demand your attention - even when you've heard the song many times before.

The purpose and function of traditional activities has been much discussed by ethnomusicologists, among others, and some clear objectives can be seen as being pretty constant in all small communities throughout the world.  Of all such activities, singing and music are the most widely practised, and have several interconnected functions.  Broadly, these can be summed up as 'establishing and reaffirming group identity'.  The songs and ballads serve to tell us who we are, what we believe in, and the compass of our community.  Such things are vital to any group of communal animals, and this is as true today as it was in the past.  Just look at the time and money spent by almost all large commercial companies on building and reinforcing corporate identity and loyalty amongst their employees ...

In the past when small rural communities were fairly isolated, group identity and loyalties were of paramount importance - co-operation could mean the difference between a community's flourishing or its decline.  In a world without a free health service, pensions or social care, co-operation between individuals, families and other sub-groupings could often, truly, be a matter of life or death.  Music, dancing and singing are the most common of the mechanisms for building and reinforcing group identity - probably because they are able to be participated in by everyone at some level or other.

The Golden Fleece & Little Vic

That first session was extremely enjoyable - much to everyone's surprise, since a move to a new venue is often an uncomfortable experience.  The following one was even better, and we'd not been at the Fleece for long before we decided that a month was too long to have to wait between sessions, and the meetings were changed to the 1st, 3rd and (when there is one) 5th Wedesdays of the month.

It didn't take too long before the session developed into the most exciting and rewarding singing situation it has ever been my privilege to encounter.  Initially we were somewhat at a loss as to why this should be; the Fleece's back room was (though it was later redecorated) amongst the least congenial singing venues one could imagine - a dingy, square brick box with one small window, and a door out to the pub's kitchen.  Since they didn't serve food in the evenings, this latter rarely caused a problem.  Nor did the music on the pub's sound system when you're really focussed on the song and the company.  But we came to believe that it wasn't the room which made the difference - but what was in it ... a single, large table, surrounded by ten chairs.

Unlike a folk club, where the performers and audience are separated by several implied socio-cultural constructs, and where neither are necessarily stable from week-to-week, the Fleece session is a relatively stable grouping - and there is no audience.  All are equal, sitting round our table; the singer only a few feet away from you, where you can see every nuance of emotion on his or her face as the song's story unfolds.  This is not a situation where a 'performance' is appropriate ... we share the songs amongst the gathering, rather than project them at a separate audience.  Oddly perhaps, this results in the songs becoming thought of as 'ours' as much as 'Bob's' or 'Audrey's'.

We suppose that this is why, on the few occasions the Fleece room has been unavailable and we've sung in our kitchen instead, there has been an indefinable, but very obvious, 'something' missing from the proceedings.  Our kitchen also has a big table - but it's 'Rod and Danny's table', and not 'our table'.  Subtleties are tenuous - but often very powerful.

And the main reason that such people sing these songs is ... because they have to!  We all know that from time to time, we have encountered a new song - or a new version of a song - which just demands that we sing it.  But, if we're serious about singing, we will also know that, while we now have to sing that song, we may not want to sing exactly that version of it.  Modern sensibilities may mean that certain parts of it don't sit comfortably with our philosophy of life; we may know of another tune we prefer; it may omit verses or aspects of the story found in other versions which we'd like to have in our song - so we may want to change it a little (or a lot) before we sing it.  And it's only right and proper that we should.

There's no reason why a singer in the 21st century should be required to sing the same version of a song, to the same tune, as was sung by someone with whom s/he has no connection, with an entirely different socio-cultural background, from a different part of the country (or, indeed, a different country), maybe a hundred years ago.  And I bet there are very few songs which have been in any singer's repertoire for more than a week or two, which haven't had the odd word or phrase changed, intentionally or no, better to fit the singer's take on it.  Certainly we know that (whatever they may have said to the contrary) many traditional singers have been recorded singing different (sometimes quite radically different) versions of songs at different times in their lives.  And there's every good reason that we should do the same - particularly as we have access to many more versions of songs than even the most avid of traditional singers did.

Further, changing a song can completely change how you feel about it - and hunting up other versions can resurrect a song you had once stopped singing.  Back in the Fighting Cocks days I used to sing Bold General Woolfe, but gave it up in later years as being too militaristic for my taste.  Then I heard a rarely sung final verse from Bob Hart: 'I was fourteen years when I first began, to fight for honour and George our King.  Come all commanders, do as I done before - be a soldier's friend ...'  That completely changes what the song is about, so I made a few other changes, and now really enjoy it again.  Similarly, The False Bride was one I sang back in the day, but gave up because I decided that she wasn't 'false' at all.  Then I heard the words 'But I'd never once mentioned to have her' in someone else's version, and put together my own where it was his fault, not hers, that she was being wed to another.  That was enormously satisfying, and has turned it into one of my favourite songs, which I now call The Week Before Easter.  Admittedly, both of these examples have absolutely gorgeous tunes, so that may have something to do with my enjoyment of them!

When the UK smoking ban came into force on 1 July 2007 we had to leave the Golden Fleece.  The pub has a very nice garden out the back, and the management had just added a really comfortable covered smoking area in expectation of the ban.  So now, with some pleasant summer weather ahead, smokers could go into the pub's garden for a fag, along with their drinks, and this meant coming through the back room to get there.  You can imagine that, when a customer, carrying a tray of drinks, entered the back room in the middle of a murder ballad, it caused something of a 'moment' for both them and us.  Luckily, we found the only other pub in Stroud with a separate room, down at the bottom of town.  It meant a longer walk for us, but it is a far better venue.  The Little Vic is an entirely separate events space across the yard from The Queen Vic, where we have lots of room, comfy furniture, and even our own toilets.  The only down-side is that there's no big table, but we put three or four small ones together and pretend!

Of the forty or so songs that I sing today, there are only a handful that I haven't changed from how I originally learned them.  Taking phrases, lines or even whole verses from other versions, making up verses that concatenate several others, even making up tunes.  Today, I sing my songs - not somebody else's ... and I think it's made me a far better singer.

I now know what it's like to have a smallish repertoire, and to be in the same singing company regularly, and to sing two or three songs most weeks for a number of years.  The room is full of your peers, and all are singers; you have every incentive to try and prevent your songs becoming boring to the rest of the company, not to mention yourself; to develop them, to improve your performance of them.  You also, inevitably, pick up some of the stylistic traits of the group as a whole, which changes the way you sing.  This, I think, was what probably happened in places like Blaxhall, Snape, Eastbridge, Catfield - and on the trawlers? and in the bothies?  This may have been how traditional performances developed their character - and why they bear so much closer inspection.

A singer in the traditional situation could say, with justification, "Well, you've heard me sing that better, and you've heard me sing it worse, too.  And I'm pretty sure you'll hear me sing it even better still - maybe next time!"

I think, from what I've been able to glean about them, that our singing session here is very very similar in all meaningful aspects to the ones that took place in Blaxhall Ship, Sutton Windmill and wherever, in previous generations.  The only difference is that while some of them would walk or cycle for half an hour to get to the pub they were going to, some of our people drive for half an hour to get to the pub that we're going to.  Now that doesn't make a real difference, I feel - the important thing is that we're all part of this little community, we keep in touch with each other, between fortnightly sessions by email, by phone by whatever.  So I really think - most people consider this to be extremely fanciful - but I think it's an almost direct equivalent to what used to happen in those singing pubs in the 1950s, and it bloody works!  It really does  ... I can't think of a single person in our little group whose singing hasn't improved immeasurably since the early days of the session. One of our favourite singers is a chap who only came along to us about five or six years ago, and he just absolutely blossomed, he's become wonderful.  It's strange, listening, sitting around the table singing to people three feet away from you who are all singers (well apart from one - we have one audient ... and she remembers her husband's words when he forgets bits), but there's no performers, we're not performing, we're sharing the songs, it's not appropriate to throw yourself about and put on a show.

If I wasn't there, I won't have the same emotional involvement as someone who was ... but if I sing a sea song, it won't be because of my limited sailing experience but because that particular sea song resonates with something in me with which I do have a real, first-hand knowledge: love; loss; adversity; betrayal; heroism; whatever.  I'll sing it because I need to - in order to express something within me which is important and in need of an airing.  In today's world of the isolated individual - where families rarely live together for very long; where touching and caressing are viewed with suspicion; where large emotions are considered best contained - such things become vital!  So - in this context - my singing the song is as authentic and valid as it would be for a sailor.

I recently heard some of the people I'm privileged to sing with on a regular basis, described as being 'dedicated'.  I'm not entirely sure what this was meant to imply - beyond praise - but I think it was along the lines of having taken some trouble over what and how we sing.  And it seems to me that unless you do take some trouble over what and how you sing, you're not going to get anything like the enjoyment and emotional fulfilment out of it that we do.  And part of the trouble taken has involved putting together versions of songs that we're happy with and which really mean something to us.  And it will certainly do a lot to refute that tired and flawed argument that these wonderful old songs are no longer 'relevant'.  Yours will be relevant to you - and your listeners will realise it very quickly!

The Stroud Spring Sing

Indeed, they've been so good that, for the last 13 years, Danny and I have organised similar Spring weekends to increase the pleasure ... the Stroud Spring Sing.  Basically they are the same as the Autumn ones, although we tend to have a few more guests, and usually from different countries.  The numbers rarely exceed 25, so everyone gets to sing a couple of songs in each session.  Ballads tend to get kept for the slightly longer lunchtime sessions.  (I should mention that only fairly regular attendance at the singing sessions in The Little Vic, on 1st, 3rd or 5th Wednesdays of the month, entitles one to an invitation to either of these weekends.)

Our guests in the past have included: Peta Webb, Ken Hall, Susan McClure, Andy McInally, Bernie Cherry, Chris Bartram, Shepheard Spiers and Watson, Arthur Knevett (twice), Marianne McAleer, Jim Bainbridge, Judy Cook, Jim Mac Farland, Thomas McCarthy (twice), Chris Coe, Len Graham, Maureen Jelks, Lynn Breeze, Annie Winter, Phil Callery, The Dollymopps, Niamh Parsons, Louisa Killen, Moira Craig, Malcolm Austen, Seán Mone, Emily Portman (twice), Cath Tyler, Jackie Oates, Dan Quinn, Will Duke, Andy Turner, Lucy Farrell (twice), Jim Eldon, Tony Hall, Alish Hanna, Viv Legg (twice), Nic Dow.  What's more, Bernie Cherry, Chris Bartram, Pete Shepheard and Arthur Watson have liked it so much that they now return every year as ordinary session members!

There are four sessions: Friday evening in a local pub with food provided; Saturday lunchtime in another local pub with food available for those who want it; Saturday evening in another local pub with food provided; Sunday lunchtime in another local pub with food available for those who want it.  Guests are accommodated in our house in Stroud, where there's lots of singing round our kitchen table after hours.

Guests are treated exactly like any of the other attendees - and can expect to be asked to sing about 8 songs each over the weekend - although they often get asked for an extra one at the end of the session if there's time.  Since the sessions and the weekends are free, there are no fees for guests, but we pay their travelling expenses, and all the food is free for them.

You can imagine that running such events can be quite costly - presently covered by a contribution out of the 'profits' of Musical Traditions Records.  Given the minuscule sales of traditional music and song CDs these days, I have no idea how much longer we'll be able to continue this support, but we'll do our best ... and even 'the best' can do no more.

Rod Stradling - Winter 2020