Martin Carthy

The Best British folk songs, as chosen by British folk singers

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A brief article and playlist in which British folk singers select their favourite British folk songs and explain what makes them special.

By John Wilks

When we first came to traditional folk music, we stood at the foot of the mountain and wondered at the sheer size of what loomed ahead. There’s just so much of it – we can fully understand why many people might find it daunting and put it much further down their bucket list. As many of our readers will have experienced themselves, however, if you can find an initial foothold then you’ve found your way onto a joyful exploration and adventure that will likely last you a lifetime.

Finding that first chink isn’t easy, though. You might find it by chance – a centuries-old song that grabs you and sticks with you and makes you wonder what else might be out there – or you might find that someone offers you a leg-up.

Over the last few years, we’ve had the great fortune to chat and spend time with some of Britain’s better known folk performers. The thing about folk music and its exponents, of course, is that none of these people are necessarily ‘the best’ at what they do. After all, each have tales about some chap in some pub somewhere who can play the hind legs off all the donkeys, but chose not to make a career out of it, or someone legendary who passed away years ago (but, boy, you shoulda heard them play the spoons).

That said, it’s worth noting that the people who helped us with these articles do make their living by singing traditional folk songs, and probably spend most of their waking hours immersed in some part of that world.

A playlist: Some of the best traditional folk songs

This British Folk Songs Playlist series was intended to be a fortnightly collection of snippets and recommendations from various well-known folk singers living and working in Britain today, each talking about the old ballads and folk songs that inspired them, offering newcomers to the genre a leg-up so that they can find their way forwards. I hope you find it useful.

Included in this list…

‘Clyde Water’: chosen by Jim Moray

Roud number: 91

What makes this one of the best traditional folk songs?

“I’m not sure that you can separate the singer from the song at the level that gets under my skin. Part of things being of ‘the oral tradition’ means it deeply matters to me who is singing or playing, and whether they can communicate stuff.

“So my choice would specifically be Nic Jones’ live version of ‘Clyde Water’. He told me that he felt that he missed the mark on the recorded version (recorded as ‘The Drowned Lovers’ on Penguin Eggs) and the arrangement he was playing live just before his accident is one of the greatest pieces of storytelling that I’ve ever heard. It’s available on the Game Set Match compilation, but my favourite recording comes from an Italian bootleg from the ‘Teatro Bonci’ in Cesena.

“Folk singers sometimes have a habit of thinking that singing something slowly makes it more profound (when, actually, it just makes it take longer to get to the important bit). Nic had skills almost comparable with a great Shakespearean actor of knowing which part of a line contains all the weight, and how to pace it so you get caught up in a tidal wave as the story reaches its conclusion. There are other long ballad performances which do that for me (including things by Martin Carthy and June Tabor) but Nic was the master of it and that song is the peak of his ability.

“It’s not a version that you will find in a book in Cecil Sharp House of course – he made it out of parts from different versions and crafted it to fit in his own vocabulary. And that’s what the best people do – they make the song their own truth instead of someone else’s. And thats what traditional music is about for me – finding your own truth in something that other people owned before you came along, and that other people will pick up when you’re done with it.”

Where can you find out more about ‘Clyde Water’? 

As a Child ballad, ‘Clyde Water’ also takes the name ‘The Mother’s Malison’. Child noted three places of origin, including a collection of it from “Mrs Brown’s recitation, apparently in 1800”. Reinhard Zierke notes at least five sound recordings of it before Nic Jones’ performance was released on Penguin Eggs in 1980, so it’s not surprising to find that – as Jim Moray says above – what may be the best-known version is an amalgamation of several others.

If anything, this wonderful recording points to the danger of assuming that ‘a folk song’ sung by a performer is an accurate representation of how it may have been in the past. As we’ll see in our forthcoming interview with folk song historian, Steve Roud (check back next week) – and to pick up on Jim Moray’s point – a performance of a folk song in modern times can only ever be a snapshot of something organic and transitory. The chances of it sounding very much like the original are slim indeed.

Find out more about Jim Moray: jimmoray.co.uk

‘Adieu, Adieu’: chosen by Jack Rutter

Roud number: 490

What makes this one of the best traditional folk songs?

“My choice of song is ‘Adieu, Adieu’. It got to me first through The Watersons’ album For Pence and Spicy Ale and also Martin Simpson’s album, Kind Letters, both of which I took out from Huddersfield Library in my mid-teens and both of which are still in my top 10 favourite albums of all time.

“I love the tune so much, and throughout the song’s many versions, interpretations and performances (it’s also known as ‘Newlyn Town’, ‘The Flash Lad’, ‘Wild and Wicked Youth’) I really like the chap’s forthrightness when faced with his oncoming execution. It’s one hell of a cinematic song.”

Where can you find out more about ‘Adieu, Adieu’? 

If you’ve been following the British folk scene closely over the last two decades, you’ll already know this song well. It’s something of a modern Greatest Hit – Reinhard Zierke lists at least 15 professional recordings of it since the year 2000 alone.

The sleeve notes to The Watersons’ version describe it as, “The ace and deuce of robber songs”, noting that, “English, Irish and American versions of it abound.” However, it’s Eliza Carthy who sums it up in the most pithy manner, writing in her sleeve notes to Fishes & Fine Yellow Sand, that this is:

“…the story of the tragic Good Time Boy from Newry Town who just robbed a few people who had far too much of everything. Did them a favour really. Less for them to worry their pretty little heads about. And one does what one has to for one’s girl friend who so likes shopping. Sooo likes it…

These songs of terminal regret were literally two a penny in the 17th to 19th centuries. The ballad writers of the time would sell the songs under the gallows just as the unfortunate crime was getting his or her desserts – just or otherwise – right there and right then. Here in its cradle is the modern music industry.”

Find out more about Jack Rutter: jackruttermusic.com

‘Georgie’: chosen by Nicola Kearey (Stick in the Wheel)

Roud number: 90

What makes this one of the best traditional folk songs?

“It was so vital sounding – about a place in London. The woman saying, ‘yeah, I’ll take you all on’. It just had a fierceness I could get behind. I first heard Martin Carthy playing it in his garden for the BBC Folk Britannia programme. That is the only version you want.”

Where can you find out more about ‘Georgie’? 

‘Georgie’ (also known as ‘Geordie’) has been recorded by a great number of people, with Nicola Kearey’s version (on the Stick In the Wheel From Here field recordings compilation) perhaps being the most recent. As usual, a comprehensive list of recorded performances can be found on the Mainly Norfolk website, but key versions include those sung by Martin Carthy (as mentioned above), Sandy Denny, Shirley Collins, Peter Bellamy, A. L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl (at least twice).

While Nicola places her version in London (as do many other singers), approximately 360 entries can be found in the Vaughan Williams Library at Cecil Sharp House relating to this song, with versions having turned up everywhere from London Bridge to Aberdeenshire to Nebraska. Cecil Sharp alone seems to have collected over 20 fragments in places as far flung as Cannington, Somerset, to Villamont, Virginia.

While many singers attribute their version to Cecil Sharp’s collecting of it in East Coker, Somerset (sung to him by a chap named Charles Neville on September 3rd, 1908), A. L. Lloyd felt that it owed its existence to, “several different ballad strains. The ballads in question are a traditional Scottish ballad, the earliest known version dating from the end of the 18th century, and two English broadsides, both of which date from the 17th century.”

As great and robust songs go, it doesn’t get much greater than ‘Georgie’. It’s a marvellous example of one of those wonderfully well-travelled folk songs, able to adapt to most surroundings.

Find out more about Stick in the Wheel: stickinthewheel.com

‘Cariad Cyntaf’: chosen by Ffion Mair of The Foxglove Trio

What makes this one of the best traditional folk songs?

“The traditional Welsh love song Cariad Cyntaf is a great song. The lyrics are powerful (lots of hyperbole about how wonderful a woman is – the song title translates into English as ‘First Love’) and the tune has a lot of passion. It’s short and has an irregularly-lengthed last line. These two things mean there’s plenty of scope to play around with timings and arrangements.

It has a special place in my heart because it was when I heard Julie Murphy and Dylan Fowler’s arrangement of this song on their CD Ffawd that I realised how much you can play around with folk songs/tunes. It’s also a special song for the band – we all played versions of it before we formed and our current arrangement came about by playing two previous arrangements on top of each other! It’s one of our most played songs to this day.”

Ffion also keeps a blog focusing on traditional Welsh songs, their origins, their meanings and the performances of them. On the subject of ‘Cariad Cyntaf’ she writes:

“In the song we hear someone telling his lover that he loves her and that he wants to marry her. It’s a monologue so we don’t get to hear her response. I always tell audiences that they have to guess what her answer was to the question about getting married but that the sad melody gives us a clue. But perhaps it’s not a simple matter of unrequited love – perhaps the girl does love him back but something, such as meddling parents, is going to keep them apart which is why the boy is lovesick and the tune is so mournful.”

Where can you find out more about ‘Cariad Cyntaf’?

Tough question, unless you can speak Welsh (drop me a line on Twitter if you can and you have any information). However, a lovely anecdote concerning this song and the Welsh folk song collector, Ruth Lewis, appears in Phyllis Kinney’s book, Welsh Traditional Music. 

“In 1909, at the National Eisteddfod of Wales held in London, J. Lloyd Williams gave a lecture on collecting Welsh folk songs, which resulted in tremendous enthusiasm for this aspect of Welsh traditional life. Despite this, some highly regarded Welsh musicians still maintained that everything of value had already been published, and any other folk tunes that might be discovered would prove to be worthless…

Wherever possible, Ruth Lewis tried to find someone who knew the area and could locate suitable people willing to sing into the phonograph. Sometimes, to get them started, her daughter Kitty would sing a few Welsh airs and with patience they got songs from farmers and blacksmiths, weavers and housewives, including some country-dwellers who could only speak Welsh. In this way they collected a number of songs, some of which were published, but many more can be found in her unpublished collections in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, and at the Welsh National History Museum in St Fagans…

‘Y-Cariad Cyntaf’, with words and music from an earlier period, was transcribed from her phonograph recording of the singing of an Aberystwyth van driver.”

Since the auspicious singing of said Aberystwyth van driver, several people have recorded ‘Cariad Cyntaf’, including Bryn Terfel (performed on the Last Night of the Proms, 2008), Meredydd Evans (a great, scratchy old recording), 9Bach, Elin Manahan Thomas and Wyn Pearson. The Foxglove Trio’s version of the song can be found on their 2013 EP, Like Diamond Glances. 

Find out more about The Foxglove Trio: thefoxglovetrio.wordpress.com

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Bert Jansch documentary is a must-listen for fans of British Folk

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In this documentary, interviews and rare archive footage weave together performances from a landmark multi-artist concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, celebrating the songs and artistry of the great folk-blues troubadour Bert Jansch. Ralph McTell, Robert Plant, Donovan, members of Pentangle, Bernard Butler, Martin Carthy, Martin Simpson, Lisa Knapp and more pay tribute to Jansch, who died in 2011.

Martin Carthy narrates BBC radio documentary on “The Critics Group”

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Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl

Immediately after the success of the BBC Radio Ballads, Ewan MacColl set about the Herculean task of trying to drag British folk music into mainstream culture. Frustrated by the dreary amateurishness of folk song performance, he decided to establish his own centre of excellence to professionalise the art. He called it “The Critics Group”.

MacColl tutored select artists “to sing folk songs the way they should be sung” and to think about the origins of what they were singing. He introduced Stanislavski technique and Laban theory into folk performance and explored style, content and delivery.

BBC producer Charles Parker recorded these sessions to aid group analysis. 40 years on, the tapes have come to light. For the first time, a clear sound picture can be constructed of this influential group in action. Former group members Peggy Seeger, Sandra Kerr, Frankie Armstrong, Richard Snell, Brian Pearson and Phil Colclough recount six frantic years of rehearsing, performing and criticising each other. They recall the powerful hold that Ewan MacColl exerted which was eventually to lead to the collapse of the group in acrimony and blame.

Presenter Martin Carthy MBE, now an elder statesman of the British folk music scene, shared many of McColl’s ambitions but didn’t join the group himself. He listens to the recordings and assesses the legacy of MacColl’s controversial experiment.Producers: Genevieve Tudor and Chris Eldon LeeA Culture Wise Production for BBC Radio 4.

LISTEN TO THE PROGRAM at : How Folk Songs Should Be Sung – BBC Sounds

There’s Always A Story: Martin Carthy’s Favourite Music

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Martin Carthy
Martin Carthy

Martin Carthy speaks to Patrick Clarke about his 13 favourite records, his love for the new wave of traditional musicians, encounters with Bob Dylan and The Beatles and more

By Patrick Clarke

Speaking to Martin Carthy about his favourite 13 records is a delight. Having “had his head in his collection all day,” as his daughter Eliza who helped facilitate the interview describes it to tQ, he speaks about music with a giddy enthusiasm that betrays his 82 years. Though he’s one of the most influential and important figures in the history of British traditional music, there’s such a sense of wonderment to his tone – as well as a gleeful propensity for expletives – when he talks about other musicians that he might easily be mistaken simply for a fan.

He speaks this way about his forerunners in earlier folk movements, teenage inspirations like Lonnie Donegan, contemporaries like Bob Dylan, less direct inspirations from jazz, pop and soul music, and most pleasingly of all about the latest breed of young folk musicians. Recently, he says, was thrilled by a performance by London newcomers Goblin Band, whose approach to traditional music is markedly left field. “They move stuff around,” he beams. “They go back to versions that we were too snotty to touch and they turn them into stomps. They did one of the songs that I consider to be one of ‘my’ songs, ‘Willie’s Lady’, and I thought it was fucking brilliant. I was knocked out.”

Heartening though it is, it’s an outlook that for Carthy requires constant vigilance. His knee jerk reaction to Goblin Band’s approach was one of dismissal, “but then I just said to myself, fucking stop it! You’re always droning on about how people should run with an idea and they’re running with one of yours. They’ve changed it and it’s bloody good! I even thought of copying it myself.”

For now, however, it’s the past that’s Carthy’s chief concern, as he continues a tour with Jon Wilks, the musician, journalist and editor of the website tradfolk.co, that blends tales from his storied life and career with musical interludes. “It’s huge fun, because Jon is both a very good musician and a very good guitar player, but he also has the mindset of a journalist, so he’s good at keeping control of where we go and what we talk about,” says Carthy, who’s also enjoying touring again. “In the last few years, the problem was that nobody would book me! I’d warm up like mad, practice like mad, play a show, but then have to wait another three weeks for a gig! With this tour with Jon, I feel like I’ve started to actually get a voice back, which is really, really gratifying.

“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be around,” he continues, “but if I can keep singing I might even get to 100. I’ve been excited by music for 63 years or something, and it never gets boring. It’s music, for Christ’s sake! You’re always going to find something you’ve been singing forever that’s going to jump up behind you and bite you on the bum and make you think ‘How come I missed that?’ You weren’t old enough, that’s why. There’s always a fabulous story, and a hidden corner somewhere.”

 

Martin Carthy speaks to Patrick Clarke about his 13 favourite records, his love for the new wave of traditional musicians, encounters with Bob Dylan and The Beatles and more.

Eddie Butcher – I Once Was A Daysman

He’s an Ulster singer, and it’s just lovely stuff. He was a fairly old man but he could really sing. The first track is, I think, ‘Heather Down The Moor’, which is a corking little song. I came across him first on a recording of songs from Northern Ireland, because of a fellow called Peter Bellamy who was a hungry bugger. Anything that was new and that he liked, he’d pounce on it and he’d sing it around the clubs. Several years later I sang a version of it with Waterson:Carthy. It was in the 1990s at some point. We did a nice version. I used to sing it at my solo gigs too. The song would just take you off somewhere, it had this beautiful melody.

Joseph Spence – Happy All The Time

Any of his tracks are these absolutely beautiful things. He’s just a completely, utterly wonderful guitar player. It was a friend of mine called Jody Stecher who’s a wonderful musician and the world’s biggest Joseph Spence fan, who went to visit him. He had a guitar with him and its tuning is perfect, but when Joseph Spence tried to play it he said, ‘Do you mind if I tune it?’ He tuned the guitar to what he had always heard as being perfectly in tune, started to play, and the music was just gorgeous. I never saw or met Joseph Spence, but I love his playing. I love the freedom of it, and the particular swing that it had. I’m not going to pretend I could ever play a Bahaman swing like that. Just a wonderful player with fabulous imagination.

Arizona Drames – 1926-1928: Barrel House Piano With Sanctified Singing

This is a great album that was on a label called Herwin, somewhere out in the States. These are recordings that were made between 1926 and 1928. It’s wonderful if you can ever get your hands on it, she sings ‘In That Day’, ‘John Said He Saw A Number’, ‘Bye And Bye We’re Going To See The King’, ‘I Shall Wear A Crown’… She’s a sensational singer, and a very two-fisted player on the piano.

Is music from the 1920s of particular interest to you?

Well that’s when Mississippi John Hurt was making records, which would have been prized possessions for me if I’d ever got my hands on one of them. One of those American nerds, during the early 1960s, thought ‘Maybe I should go and try and find him’. I can’t remember the name of the township, but there was somewhere [Hurt] had talked about having lived, so the lad thought ‘I’ll just stop there and ask some questions’. He went up to a bloke and said, ‘Do you know a man called Mississipi John Hurt?’ ‘Oh sure, he lives down the road, three houses along.’ He’d not moved since 1931! When he got there, Mississippi John Hurt didn’t even have a guitar, but he said that even though he hadn’t played for years, he was still dazzlingly wonderful. [ . . . ]

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