Old Folksinger's Pick
2021

A note from Bob

December 2021

It was 1985 when I put together the first of these more-or-less annual collections of my favourite folk music. Back then I copied the tracks onto cassette tapes and gave them to a dozen friends. A lot has happened to music since, some of it good, much of it bad. I suppose that simply mirrors what has happened in the wider world. Some good stuff, to be sure – email, for instance, came into common use about a decade after that first collection. Since then, there has been real progress in fighting racism, misogyny, environmental degradation. And yet things have also gotten so much worse. Inequality has soared, democracy has faltered and we now stand on the brink of social and environmental collapse.

And yet, at the same time, people continue to create so much that is ingenious and worthy, so much beauty, if you will. Like these songs.

1985 was also the year I started writing my travelling medicine show “Bossin’s Home Remedy for Nuclear War” (Guaranteed to prevent nuclear war or your money refunded). Dr. Bossin’s slogan was, “Just ‘cause you’re saving the world, it doesn’t mean you have to have a bad time.” True then, true now. I hope you enjoy these pieces, and that you take some of that good energy and … do something. Like Thelma and Louise, our leaders are driving straight for the cliff. Only this time they have our grandchildren in the back seat. And they are talking to each other on their cell phones, blah-blah-blah, as Greta so aptly put it. The only thing that can stop them is us. So please do what you can, eh? Last chance.

Pass it along.

bb

PS. Thanks to Ron Cote for mixing, Skel Jopko for once again getting OFP up on-line and to Mike Norris, whose weekly folk music shows from Cecil Sharp House in London have introduced me to many a fine singer and song. https://www.efdss.org/about-us/folk-player/listen-classic-folk.

A few notes on the songs:

You can easily find most anything you want to know about these songs, their singers or their composers by consulting Rabbi Google. Here are a few tidbits I just couldn’t resist mentioning:

Side 1

01 The Fish Gutters Song was written by Ewan MacColl, who called it “Come A’ Ye Fisher Lassies”. The lyrics, background and a video of the song sung slower by Ray and Cilla Fisher, if you would like to, er, sing along, are at https://mainlynorfolk.info/ewan.maccoll/songs/comeallyefisherlassies.html.

03 Written by George and Ira Gershwin in 1930.

04 “The greatest act of courage that I have ever seen, and am ever likely to see, was the penultimate courage and dedication shown by the Penlee [lifeboat crew] when it manoeuvred back alongside the casualty in over 60 ft breakers and rescued four people shortly after the Penlee had been bashed on top of the casualty's hatch covers.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penlee_lifeboat_disaster

05 Written by John Connolly.

06 Written by Larry Kaplan, originally titled “Old Zeb” about Zebulon Northrup Tilton, one of the last of the New England schooner captains.

08 Nanci Griffith died this year at 68.

09 Written by Bill Staines, who also died this year.

11 O Sister! hails from Seville, Spain.

12 Thank you to Ben Mink for alerting me to this 1933 recording.

13 John Willie’s Ragtime Band was first recorded by George Formby Sr. in the early years of the 20th century. It isn’t clear to me if he wrote it. The Oldham Tinkers formed in 1965 and are still going.

Side 2

05 Written by Leslie Howard. We lost Roy Bailey in 2018. Roy was an MBE for awhile but renounced the award in 2006 when the U.K. supported Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Roy’s MBE makes me think of Elvis Costello’s comment on being awarded an OBE: “This just proves what I have always suspected: nobody listens to the words.”

11 Shan Van Vocht translates as “poor old woman”. The song dates all the way back to the early 1800s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shan_Van_Vocht

12 Peggy Seeger’s new album, “First Farewell”, from which this song comes, is remarkable. So is her autobiography, “The First Time”.

14 Until this year, I have not included myself in my OFPs. But I couldn’t resist Stringband’s version of Roseville Fair as a tribute to Bill Staines, and I can’t resist Scott Cook’s great song Pass It Along. In this version I get to sing with 25 other “folk” singers and players including Leon Rosselson, Peggy Seeger, Daniel Cainer, Stefano Saletti, Connie Kaldor and, of course, Marie-Lynn. If you haven’t seen the video – this is its sound track – it is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNj7LyHqwFE. Pass it along.

15 Written by Harry O’Donovan, probably in the 1930s.