Gypsy and Traveller Voices resource, free download now

Priscilla Cooper
Travelling Gypsy Priscilla Cooper

The English Folk Dance and Song Society’s Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s archives contain many songs sung by Gypsies and Travellers. A new resource makes these songs more accessible to the communities from which they came.

Romani Gypsy academic and poet Dr Jo Clement of Northumbria University has created this new resource to make our Gypsy and Traveller collections more accessible, particularly for Gypsy and Traveller people seeking engagement with their cultural heritage.

The project Gypsy and Traveller Voices in UK Music Archives is led by Dr Hazel Marsh (University of East Anglia) together with Dr Esbjorn Wettermark (University of Sheffield) and Tiffany Hore, Director of Library and Archives at the English Folk Dance and Song Society. It has been funded by the University of East Anglia’s AHRC Impact Acceleration Account.

Through collaboration we are highlighting the richness and importance of Gypsy and Traveller music collections – for communities themselves, supporting the cultural wellbeing of some of the UK’s most marginalised communities, and also for the wider English folk scene.

 

Download the PDF resource now


 

What do we mean by ‘Gypsy and Traveller’?

Various ethnic groups feature under the umbrella term Gypsy and Traveller. The histories, terminologies, interconnections that relate to these groups are not straightforward. Individuals as well as groups prefer different terms and may subscribe to different discourses about their origins and history. However, current research suggests that Romani Gypsy people migrated from India into Europe in the middle ages, reaching Britain and Ireland in the early 16th century. Irish and some Scottish Travellers, on the other hand, represent indigenous nomadic ethnic groups, with continuous presence in Britain and Ireland. Neither of these groups should be confused with the Roma, mostly East European Romani people, who have arrived on Britain and Ireland in more recent times.

About the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library’s collections of Gypsy and Traveller music

The Gypsy and Traveller collections held by the library consist primarily of private collections that have been deposited in the library archive. The majority of the collections relate to Romani Gypsies, but there is also material relating to Irish and Scottish Travellers. A sizable number of recordings have been digitised and published on the library’s online portal. Most of these recordings are also available in other archive collections (such as the British Library) or published on LPs and CDs from a variety of record companies.

In addition to the digitised material available online, the library collections also include written and audio publications with Gypsy and Traveller songs and music which can be seen in the library. Where relevant the library catalogue also includes notes on collections in other places, such as the British Library Sound Archives. There is currently no single register of Gypsy and Traveller material in the collections and some inside knowledge is required to find the right entries.

Photo: Priscilla Cooper, photographed by Cecil Sharp.

Sound examples

Irish Traveller singer Mary Delaney sings “My brother built for me a bancy bower”
vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S245547

Gypsy singer Priscilla Cooper singing “Basket of Eggs” recorded on wax cylinder in 1908 by Cecil Sharp
vwml.org/record/CYL/47

Gypsy singer Carolyne Hughes singing a song in Anglo-Romani “Oh ’tis mandi went to poov the grais”
vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S370323

Gypsy singer Jasper Smith sings Hartlake Bridge
vwml.org/record/VWMLSongIndex/SN29700

Gypsy fiddler Harry Lee plays a step dance tune, The Rakes of Kildare”
vwml.org/record/VWMLDanceTuneIndex/DT6614

Scottish Traveller singer Belle Stewart sings “In London’s fair city there lived a lady”
vwml.org/record/VWMLSongIndex/SN29861

Gypsy singer Phoebe Smith sings “High Germany”
vwml.org/record/VWMLSongIndex/SN29765

Source: Gypsy and Traveller Voices resource, free download now

Who is the Writer Behind “House of the Rising Sun?”

By Jacob Uitti

The legendary blues song “The House of the Rising Sun” is one of those tunes with a murky origin story. Who wrote it? Was there a single person to do so? It’s unclear.

The traditional folk song is about a person whose life has gone down the drain thanks to a location in New Orleans, Louisiana. To date, there are many renditions of the song, from Bob Dylan to Dolly Parton and Dave Van Ronk.

The most famous version of the track was recorded in 1964 by the British rock band, The Animals. That version hit No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart, as well as in the U.S. and Canada. It has since been called the “first folk rock hit.”

Early Versions and Alan Lomax

The song originally appeared in Appalachia, in the Northeast part of the United States. But it likely has roots in traditional English folk songs, experts say. Though the exact authorship is unknown today.

Music scholars have noted that it bears resemblance to the 16th-century song “The Unfortunate Rake,” but whether these songs are siblings, so to speak, is unknown.

Legendary folk song expert Alan Lomax has noted that the melody may be related to the 17th-century folk song “Lord Barnard and Little Musgrave.” Again, though, there is no clear throughline between the two. Lomax has also said that “Rising Sun” was the name of a bawdy house, or whore house, in two other traditional English songs. It was also the name of an English pub.

In 1953, Lomax met English musician and farm worker Harry Cox, known for his wealth of folk song history, who said that there was a song called “She was a Rum One,” that had two possible opening lines. One is, If you go to Lowestoft, and ask for The Rising Sun, There you’ll find two old whores and my old woman is one. The recording Lomax and Harry Cox made is still available (here). Though, many believe Cox’s “She Was A Rum One” is not connected to “Rising Sun.”

Even Earlier Versions

Some scholars believe the song goes back to the turn of the 20th century in America, with the oldest published version of its lyrics credited to Robert Winslow Gordon in 1925. The lyrics ran in a column in Adventure magazine, titled “Old Songs That Men Have Sung.” Those lyrics go:

There is a house in New Orleans, it’s called the Rising Sun
It’s been the ruin of many poor girl
Great God, and I for one.

The oldest known recording is by Appalachian artists Clarence Ashley and Gwen Foster who cut a version in September of 1933. Ashley said he’d learned it from his grandfather, Enoch, who was married around the time of the Civil War. In Ashley’s version, which switches narrators between a man and a woman, the lyrics go:

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
Where many poor boys to destruction has gone
And me, oh God, are one.

Another early version was recorded by controversial American artist Leadbelly.

A bit later in 1937, Lomax recorded folks performing the song, including the 16-year-old daughter of a local miner, Georgia Turner. That song was recorded under the title “The Rising Sun Blues.”

Other songs exist with similar titles but are unrelated, including “Rising Sun Blues” by Ivy Smith in 1927.

Later Versions

American Songwriter previously wrote about the 1961 arrangement of the song by New York City folk artist Dave Van Ronk, here. That arrangement was later appropriated by Bob Dylan, causing some friction between the musical friends. Dolly Parton recorded her version in 1980.

Possible Rising Sun Locales

There are various places in Crescent City that have become possible locales for the subject of the song. Each has varying plausibility. While “House of the Rising Sun” often implies a brothel, many don’t know if the song points to a real place or a fictitious one.

Some think it could be a jailhouse, the place where a woman goes after she killed her alcoholic abusive father. Or it could be the place where prostitutes were detained.

According to old city directories of New Orleans, one short-lived hotel on Conti Street in the French Quarter in the 1820s was called Rising Sun. But it burned down in 1822. In the late 19th century, there was also Rising Sun Hall on what is now Cherokee Street. Also, in the 1860s, a place called The Rising Sun was advertised in local papers on what is now the lake side of the 100 block of Decatur Street. That place boasted a restaurant, a larger beer salon, and a coffee house.

Van Ronk, himself, wrote in his biography, The Mayor of MacDougal Street, that he was in New Orleans when someone showed him some old photos from the city. And among them “was a picture of a foreboding stone doorway with a carving on the lintel of a stylized rising sun … It was the Orleans Parish women’s prison.”

Furthermore, Bizarre New Orleans, a guidebook on New Orleans, says that the real house was at 1614 Esplanade Avenue between 1862 and 1874. It was said to have been named after its madam, Marianne LeSoleil Levant, whose name means “the rising sun” in French.

Guidebook, Offbeat New Orleans, asserts that the real House of the Rising Sun was at 826–830 St. Louis St. between 1862 and 1874, also purportedly named for Marianne LeSoleil Levant. The building still stands, and Eric Burdon, a British singer for The Animals and War, said after visiting at the behest of the owner, “The house was talking to me.”

Not everyone believes that the house actually existed. Pamela D. Arceneaux, a research librarian at the Williams Research Center in New Orleans, once said, “I have made a study of the history of prostitution in New Orleans and have often confronted the perennial question, ‘Where is the House of the Rising Sun?’ without finding a satisfactory answer.

“Although it is generally assumed that the singer is referring to a brothel, there is actually nothing in the lyrics that indicates that the ‘house’ is a brothel. Many knowledgeable persons have conjectured that a better case can be made for either a gambling hall or a prison; however, to paraphrase Freud: sometimes lyrics are just lyrics.”

Photo by David Redfern / Redferns

A Beginner’s Guide to Welsh Trad Music

Have you ever wondered why there seems to be loads of Irish and Scottish music, but nothing from Wales?

Did you know that Deck the halls is a Welsh tune? And did you know that it comes from an ancient Celtic bardic tradition? In fact we have a whole ton of music, songs, and traditions that have ancient origins, including the Mari Lwyd and the world’s oldest harp music. So why has no-one heard it before? In this video we’ll be looking at the past, present and future of traditional music and customs in Wales, and where you can find the good stuff.

A very special thanks to Phyllis Kinney, Harri Llewelyn, Gerard Kilbride, Gwen Màiri, Jordan Price Williams, Welsh Whisperer, Calan, Angharad Jenkins, Patrick Rimes, Gwilym Bowen Rhys, and Emily Jane Coupland for your knowledge and your support! Ffwrnes Gerdd clips by Gethin Scourfield-Gerard KilBride for S4C

Hal-An-Tow

Hal-An-Tow is a processional song traditionally sung to usher in the summer.  And so we encounter, in the lead solo… two of the most distinctive voices in English music; the unarguably great husky-grey voice of Norma and the undeniably arguably great voice of Mike! I won’t say that ‘you either love it or hate it’ because, trust me, if you’re listening to the voice of Mike Waterson for the first time and finding it mannered, even ridiculous, there’s a very good chance that, in the fullness of time, you too will come to acknowledge Mike as every bit as great a singer as his sisters. An acquired taste, if ever there was one.

Source: Toppermost

From Glasgow Madrigirls summer concert ‘In the Greenwood’. Performed at St John’s Church in Keswick on Saturday 22 June 2013. Filmed by Harry Campbell. Conducted by Katy Lavinia Cooper

Traditional Lyrics

CHORUS

Hal-an-Tow, jolly rumble-o,
We were up long before the day-o,
To welcome in the summer,
To welcome in the May-o –
For summer is a-coming,
And the winter’s gone away-o!

Since man was first created
His works have been debated
And we have celebrated
The coming of the spring

Take no scorn to wear the horns,
It was the crest when you were born;
Your father’s father wore it,
And your father wore it too.

CHORUS

Robin Hood and Little John
Have both gone to the fair-o,
And we shall to the merry green wood,
To hunt the buck and hare-o!

CHORUS

What happened to the Spaniards
That made so great a boast, oh?
They shall eat the feathered goose,
And we shall eat the roast, oh!

CHORUS

And as for that good knight, St. George
St. George he was a knight o
Of all the knights of Christendom
St. George is the right o

CHORUS

God bless Aunt Mary Moses
With all her power and might-o;
Send us peace in England,
Send us peace by day and night-o!

Lankum “Katie Cruel”

More Lankum on The Hobbledehoy

Katie Cruel is a traditional American folksong, likely of Scottish origin. As a traditional song, Katie Cruel has been recorded by many performers, but the best known recording of the song is by Karen Dalton on the album In My Own Time. The American version of the song is said to date to the Revolutionary War period. The song is Roud no. 1645.

The American lyrics appear to contain an oblique story of regret. As given in Eloise Hubbard Linscott’s The Folk Songs of Old New England. The opening verse of the song bears a strong resemblance to the Scottish song, Licht Bob’s Lassie, whose opening verses mirror the song in both notional content and form.

First when I cam’ tae the toon
They ca’d me young and bonnie
Noo they’ve changed my name
Ca’ me the licht bob’s honey

First when I cam’ tae the toon
They ca’d me young and sonsie
Noo they’ve changed my name
They ca’ me the licht bob’s lassie

Wikipedia

Lankum are a contemporary Irish folk music group from Dublin, consisting of brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, Cormac MacDiarmada and Radie Peat. Their music has been characterised as “a younger, darker Pogues with more astonishing power”. Reviewing their third album The Livelong Day for The Guardian, Jude Rogers described it as “a folk album influenced by the ambient textures of Sunn O)) and Swans, plus the sonic intensity of Xylouris White and My Bloody Valentine”. In 2018 they were named Best Folk Group at the RTÉ Folk Music Awards, while Radie Peat was named Best Folk Singer.