A song from the Copper Family, originally learned from the Song for every season book, and subsequently from hearing Bob and John sing it on record. Of course the proper way to sing these songs i...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2024/04/15/week-315-two-young-brethren/
You know how, when searching online for a recipe, your heart sinks when you reach one of those blogs, and realise that you’ve got to wade through screeds of text about the author’s personal l...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2024/03/04/week-314-the-barley-raking/
Here’s a song from the South Yorkshire carolling tradition. Like ‘Stannington’ this one’s sung solo – but of course everyone joins in on the chorus, and on the final line of the last ve...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2023/12/23/week-313-a-song-for-the-time/
I got ‘I Am a Donkey Driver’ from the singing of Sussex singer Harry Upton, on the 1976 Topic album Green Grow the Laurels: Country Singers From the South. Although, like several other songs ...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2023/09/25/week-312-i-am-a-donkey-driver/
This is a Copper Family song, although I think I first heard it sung by my friend Adrian Russell. I’ve always had half a mind to learn the song, but in the past, although I really liked the tun...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2023/07/14/week-311-brisk-and-lively-lad/
I think I must have first heard ‘Staines Morris’ at the end of Shirley and Dolly Collins’ Anthems in Eden suite, but learned it – as, no doubt, did countless others – from Shirley’s...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2023/05/01/week-310-staines-morris/
I’m playing a rare solo gig this coming Saturday, 18th February 2023. I’ll be at the Lewes Saturday Folk Club, which meets at the Elephant and Castle, White Hill, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 2DJ. ...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2023/02/15/solo-gig-alert-lewes-saturday-folk-club/
Last week I posted a Wassail song which was definitely collected in Oxfordshire: The Adderbury Wassail. My searches of the VWML catalogue also threw up 3 phonograph recordings made by James Madi...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2023/01/08/week-309-the-cherington-wassail/
A couple of people have asked me recently if there were any Wassail songs collected in Oxfordshire. A quick search of the VWML catalogue brings up 10 records, but most of these actually refer to ...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2022/12/28/week-308-the-adderbury-wassail/
I must have been singing this song for very nearly 45 years. Always unaccompanied in harmony, of course, as is right and proper for a song from the Copper Family repertoire. In the last year or s...
https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2022/11/08/week-307-when-adam-was-first-created/