Sidmouth Folk Diary - Sunday

Show of Hands is no more. Long live Dream in Colour. Spelt British style:

the last song involved singing “o o o” and “u u u”. And it abbreviates to DIC, and like Cyrano, they have already covered all the jokes. And there was a very rousing Battlefield Dance Floor, and even an encore of Galway Farmer. And some new songs, including one about wild swimming and one about the post office scandal, which isn’t quite AIG, but probably could be with repeated listens. What there wasn’t, of course, was Phil Beer. Instead there was Johnny Kalsi (huge Banghra drum) Bennet Cerven (extreme fiddle) and Eliza Marshall (flute and flute adjacent). So it’s a lusher, less overtly folkie sound. Two things immediately struck me: how recognisable a Knightley tune is,l regardless of what it is being played on; and how distinct and even strange Steve’s voice is. Perhaps the banter isn’s as natural as the old days - the fiddler was trying just that little bit too hard to fill Phil’s boots, but it’s clearly a joyous new direction for my favourite act. Just the same as it always was but at the same time completely different.




Perhaps Barbara Allen wasn’t hard hearted after all. Perhaps sweet William was hanging out in the bar with women of ill repute. Perhaps the kiss was an obvious ruse. Apparently in the gypsy version, her parents had forbidden her in advance from going near him. And that lad who was sent off to college for a year or two while he was growing — was fourteen or sixteen or eighteen? I spent the afternoon listening to Ballads in the hotel and Ballad Session in the hut. Which is a lot of ballads. A youngish guy named Seb Stone did an utterly compelling Tam Lyn, unaccompanied. One of the floor singers did a chilling George Colins. (“if we catch her will crop her she’s a perjuring whore”.)




Having not found much singing in the Swan, intended earlyish night. Stopped off at Bedford, where a singing session was in full swing. The aforementioned Seb Stone was singing, as was the aforementioned aforementioned Dera Yeates. After a few minutes, Eliza Carthy joined us. For some reason I was not called on to sing.




Lady in coffee / bakery shop said to a troop of morris dancers, pointing at me “be careful, he’s going to write about you.”




My singing “jumps between key’s alarmingly”, apparently.




Pastie - 1

Trees they do grow high - 3

Barbara Allan - 2

Beer 2.5

Total hours listening to music - 7

Sidmouth Folk Diary - Saturday

Saturday

“Well, if we like songs where you shout out rude words….”

Sidney Carter was obviously the influential modern hymn writer, but he only knew one tune. Lord of the Dance is a bit overtly religious for folk sing arounds, but everyone sings John Ball. (“I’ll crow like a cock I’ll carol like a lark in the light that is coming in the morning.”)) When everyone has had s drink or two, people can lose their focus on whether Adam delve or Eve span, and start putting slightly too much emphasis on the words “cock” and “coming”. 

We are in a small marquee adjacent to the Bulverton, which is a very big marquee. I have just listened to The Sea Song Sessions, a super group consistIng of Jon Boden and Seth Lakeman and Jack Rutter and Ben Nicolls and Emily Portman.  There is about to be a celidah (which is Latin for square dance). In the small marquee there is a camp fire and a song session. Everything from John Barleycorn to Yellow Submarine. 

I have failed in my plan to listen to music not stop for twelve hours. But only because the venues have changed: the small acoustic acts are now in the Girl Guide hut. Really. Steward has to keep explaining that , no, there aren’t any men’s toilets. The traddy folk concerts are now in the Harbour Hotel. They are about 25 minutes apart, so going straight from one to the other is no longer feasible. 

Still: 11:30, Guide Hut, Macdara Yeats (pronounced Dara.) Young Dublin man with huge deep voice singing Dublin versions of Irish Songs. Everyone knows The Cruel Mother (down by willow sidey-oh). In the Irish street version she is not visited by the ghost of her babies, but by a policeman. Who takes her off and hangs her. “The moral of this story is, don’t stab your baby.”

1:15, Guide Hut, Thomas McCarthy, Irish traveller singer, so traditional he falls off the edge. Long, long chats about Traveller history — Irish travellers are the indigenous population, and used to be greeted in villages as honoured guests. Anti gypsy racism was created  by the blue shirts in the 30s. Yeats was a Nazi sympathiser. The pope said that if the  travellers wanted to be accepted they should stop being thieves and rogues. He sings with his throat and his nose, a world-old drone. I probably couldn’t sustain prolonged exposure.

3.00 The Harbour. The Goblin Band are the most exciting traditional folk band on the circuit. They are young, queer, and dress like hobbits. They play fiddles and hurdy gurdies and huge recorders and concertinas. They do a traditional folk repertoire. It is hard to put my finger on what is fresh about them. Apart from a sustained fiddle improvisation half way through Tom Pearse, there is no overt jiggery pokery. Martin Carthy, in the front row, was visibly moved by I Like To Rise When The Sun She Rises.

Carthy himself did the second half. He is the same age as Bob Dylan now. His gigs run off the love the audience have for him. I hope I am still doing what I love when I am 83. No one sings a better Patrick Spens.

Realising   I wasn’t going to get to the second hour of the ballad session, I proceeded up the big hill to the Bulverton for the Sea Song Session super group. A man who remembers Strawhead also remembered that I was a Grace Petrie fan and confided that we probably didn’t see eye to eye politically. 

And thence to the small tent for the after hours campfire sing around. Robin the Hat from the Bristol shanties is singing Shallow Brown when I arrive. We rapidly get to crowing like a COCK in  the light that is COMING in the morning. So I take t he plunge with a traditional English song collected by Ronald Barker in 1977. 

to take the air and listen to

the twittering of the birds all day

the bumble bees at play.

Rather too much dark stout: the more everyone else drinks, the better I sound. I possibly Ben Kenobi and Sloop John A as well. Broke up with The Partying Glass at about 1am. Two folk gods are still dancing in the main tent.

Pasties - 1

Beer - 4

Barrats Privateers -1

Tom Cobley -1

 

Sidmouth Folk Diary: Friday

Friday

Breakfast at Lookout Cafe on sea front. I will definitely not eat a large cooked breakfast every day, I seem to recall promising my Slimming World rep that I would make good choices. Having sung “tomorrow we’ll be sober” last night, perhaps I will say “tomorrow I’ll be sensible.” I think the only t hing I ate apart from the large breakfast was a pain a raison (sp) from the Cornish Bakery. Beer counts as sensible, though? We are in Sidmouth the land of pasties and cream teas.

12:30 Middle Bar Singers in room above Anchor Pub are a social group that exists all year round, I think, They all know each other and there are ipn jokes I don’t get. They do the thing where they pass a large bunch of leaves round the room and when it comes to you you are allowed to sing, or else pass it on. I subjected them to A Chat With My Mother and Dont Go In Them Lions Cage tonight. No one left and nothing was thrown.

3.00 Steeleye Span in the Ham, which is a 700 seater marquee and the main festival venue. It was a more traditional set then I have sometimes heard them do, including Thomas The Rhymer and Long Lamkin. Maddy Prior’s explanation of how she interprets lyrics was particularly fascinating. She prefers the version where Lankin is a disgruntled mason to the one where he is an invisible child murder who walks through walls. Also New York Dolls They finished up with a song about a hat.

7:30 Harbour Hotel for Intimate Trad Evening. Sara Grey is an American singer and folklorists with a banjo and a detailed experience of where songs come from and who passed them on. Lovely version of Hills Of Mexico, which I know as Plains of Buffalo. She claims (no reason to doubt this) that Andy Irvin learned Arthur McBride from an American source singer who deserves mofr credit.

Apres Folk: To Swan Inn where usual suspects are singing Daydream Believer and DIVORCE. I recklessly say to a stranger that I hope to sing by the end of the week; she now refers to me as “singing man”. (The main thing is having a go, not staying in tune, everyone can sing a bit, you are probably much better than you think you are.) 

The barman recognized me, and remembered I like stout. The lady in the bakery recognized me and remembered that I write. A man I talked to at s Grace Petrie two years ago greeted me with “well we kicked them out.” Do I look particularly memorable?

Beer 3.5 pints

New York Dolls x 3

South Australia x 2

Pasties x 1

Breakfast x 1

Streets of London x1