Having written my English Tunebook post last weekend, I found I still had plenty to say on the subject. So here’s a hastily thrown together set of musical examples, with a few thoughts that they inspired on aspects of tunes and Englishness.
Let’s start once again with the deliciously crisp, rhythmic playing of William Kimber. As a concertina-player myself, Kimber’s music has had a huge influence on my own playing style, and informed my perception of a particular sort of musical Englishness.
And ‘Over the hills to glory’ is interesting in its own right. I first heard it as a fling, ‘Love will you marry me’, on a record by Irish band De Dannan. But it started life in Scotland, as The Lass o’ Gowrie, while in South Wales Phil Tanner knew it as ‘Over The Hills To Gowerie’. Meanwhile, in Oxfordshire, the tune’s title may have had a particular resonance. The Tradtune Archive tells us
“Over the hills to glory” is a phrase associated with an incident in southern England. In 1873 sixteen women from Ascott-under-Wychwood were imprisoned for a short time for their part in forming an agricultural workers union, in helping to prevent “scabs” from replacing their men on the farm. Known as the ‘Ascott Martyrs’ the women garnered much public sympathy and quite a bit of press, before hastily being pardoned by Queen Victoria. A placard on the village green reads: “This seat was erected to celebrate the centenary of the Ascott Martyrs, the 16 women who were sent to prison in 1873 for the part they played in the founding of the Agricultural Workers Union when they were sent ‘over the hills to glory’.”
My thanks to Katie Howson for alerting me to this.
Whether Kimber was a supporter of trades unionism or militant women I really don’t know (although he was always very clear, unlike the Morris Ring, that there was nothing wrong with women dancing the morris, and that often they made a much better job of it than the men). In any case, I’m very happy to suggest that celebrating Englishness should include celebrating trades unionism and female militancy.
Kimber is, of course, chiefly associated with morris dance tunes – which only serves to emphasise his Englishness (specifically his Southern Englishness). Here’s a typical example, ‘Laudanum Bunches’, which has the ‘Slows’ characteristic of the Cotswold morris. In the early days of Magpie Lane Tim Healey was really tickled by the Slows. In other cultures, to make the music and the dancing more exciting, it would get faster and faster. Only in England, he thought, when a dancer needed to show off their prowess, would the music get appreciably slower…
I’ve always liked this tune, and it also has happy associations for me – the one time I was lucky enough to be able to play Bill Kimber’s concertina, this was the tune I played.
We can’t have a morris tune from Headington Quarry without also having one from Bampton, the village with the longest (very nearly) unbroken record of dancing. And it really has to be Jinky Wells, an iconic figure, and one of all too few English traditional fiddle-players to have been recorded. Here he plays ‘Flowers of Edinburgh’, clearly a tune with Scottish associations, but firmly part of an English tradition.
Both Headington and Bampton have a dance called the Bacca Pipes jig, danced to a variant of ‘Greensleeves’ (related to, but a long way away from the tune supposedly written by Henry VIII). Over in the Forest of Dean they had their own take on morris dancing. And Stephen Baldwin, who had played both for the morris and for country dancing had his own take on ‘Greensleeves’. John Dipper spent a whole term at university analysing Baldwin’s playing of this tune, specifically the odd intonation on some notes. As I recall, John’s conclusion was that Baldwin wasn’t just rusty, or lacking in technique – these microtones were a distinctive part of his playing style.
Stephen Baldwin also had a large repertoire of hornpipes, which would have been used for step-dancing. Down on Dartmoor there’s a strong and thriving step-dance tradition, and the name most readily associated with the musical traditions of the area is that of Bob Cann. A teacher of step-dancing, and a fabulous dance musician, here’s a couple of his many step-dance hornpipes. A good number of Bob’s tunes were named after one or other of his musical uncles. His ‘Uncle George’s’ is better known – and it is known throughout the British Isles – as ‘The Cliff Hornpipe’. ‘Tommy Roberts’ on the other hand is a tune I’ve not come across elsewhere. Let’s give a hurrah for the many tunes with no name, or known only by the person they were learned from. While this is by no means a phenomenon peculiar to England, I do sense that it’s more common with English tunes than in Ireland or Scotland, where a higher proportion of tunes do seem to have distinct, and often quite evocative, names.
I’ve included another track by Bob Cann, because I admire his playing so much, but also because they highlight other sources of tunes which made their way into the English dance repertoire. ‘When it’s Night-time in Italy (it’s Wednesday over here)’ was a comic song composed in 1923 with music by James Kendis and words by Lew Brown – here’s the sheet music. It’s been recorded by all sorts of people, including the Everly Brothers. A very high percentage of the tunes recorded in post-war English pubs (I’m thinking especially of Reg Hall and Ken Stubbs’ recordings in Sussex and Keith Summers and John Howson’s recordings in East Anglia) were in fact popular songs of the day, or popular songs from a generation or two earlier.
‘Climbin’ up de Golden Stairs’ was a negro minstrel song. I’m not even going to look up the words, because they’re bound to be offensive. But deplorable though we find blackface minstrelsy these days – and yes, it was deeply and inherently racist – it had a major influence on English traditions, which we can’t simply ignore. Minstrel song tunes found their way into country dance and morris repertoires where, happily, they became divorced from their lyrics and, eventually, from the context in which they had originally been performed.
Bob’s grandson Mark Bazeley carries on the Dartmoor traditions in grand style. Here he is with Jason Rice, from another Dartmoor family with long musical roots, and banjo whizz Rob Murch, playing a couple of his grandfather’s tunes. I’m pretty sure Bob Cann would have learned ‘Hot Punch’ from Jimmy Shand, whose Scottish dance band records must have had an influence on many English musicians. The second tune is usually known – and it’s a staple of the English session scene – as ‘Uncle’s Jig’. The name given here suggests a North American origin, but played by three lads from Dartmoor it just sounds SO English!
Scan Tester was an anglo-concertina player from Sussex who was not feted by the folk establishment in the same way as William Kimber was. But he was feted and recorded and – importantly – befriended by a generation of young (at the time) enthusiasts such as Reg Hall. I was going to post something typical of Scan – a step-dance tune, or a waltz or a schottische – but I’ve actually gone for a jig because it demonstrates once again that a tune’s origin really has nothing to do with whether or not it counts as English. The 17th March is of course St Patrick’s Day, and it’s as ‘St Patrick’s Day’ that this tune is usually known. It’s the regimental quick march of the Irish Guards, and this gives me a chance to mention the importance of military bands in earlier times, both in developing the musical skills of band members, and disseminating tunes among the population at large.
Sixty-odd years ago Reg Hall and Mervyn Plunkett had the idea of getting Scan together with Norfolk musicians Billy Cooper (hammer dulcimer) and Walter and Daisy Bulwer, to recreate the sound of an old-time country dance band. Recordings from these sessions were released on a limited edition, but seminal, LP on Topic, which these days can be had as part of an expanded CD package just called English Country Music. Here they are playing two tunes which are absolutely central to the English tradition, ‘Jenny Lind’ (composed in 1846 in honour of a Swedish opera singer) and ‘The girl I left behind me’ aka ‘Brighton Camp’ which is at least a century older, and one of those tunes that simply everyone knows – in the 1960s comic film The Plank it is this tune that is whistled throughout by Tommy Cooper and Eric Sykes.
East Anglian musicians played a big part in the revival of English country dance from the 70s onwards. The melodeon was the instrument most commonly played by Suffolk and Norfolk musicians, particularly the one-row melodeon (or “the melodeon” as Andy Cutting would have it); and Oscar Woods was the doyen of one-row melodeon players. Here he is playing what might almost be considered the East Anglian national anthem, ‘Oh Joe, the boat is going over’ (originally a popular song from the late nineteenth century).
Of course there are other versions of ‘Oh Joe’ – such as this one which I learned from the playing of dulcimer-player Reg Reader, and which was the very first tune I posted on this blog.
I’ve spent pretty much my entire life in Kent and Oxfordshire, and as a result there’s a definite Southern English slant to my personal perception of Englishness – it’s shaped more by Bampton than Bacup or Bladon, more by the Kentish Weald than the Yorkshire Wolds or the Wild Hills of Wannie. However I spent a year living in Newcastle, and while there I fell under the spell of the three Shepherds, Joe Hutton, Will Atkinson and Willy Taylor. Three of the finest musicians I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing play live, they were particularly fine players for the dance. They were steeped in the music of Northumbria – part of England, of course, but with a distinct musical culture; but they would play tunes from anywhere and make them their own. Like other musicians in the 20th century, they learned tunes not just from other players, but from records, and from the radio. They played lots of Scottish tunes, but also some crackers from Canada. And here’s a couple of Irish tunes. ‘Off to California’ is very well known at English sessions; ‘The Greencastle’ deserves to be played more often.
So far the examples I have chosen have all been from people we would term traditional performers, or tradition bearers. But of course most people playing English traditional music today weren’t brought up with it. Like me, they’ve come to it, in a sense, as outsiders, I’ve already mentioned the revival of proper English music that took off in the 1970s. The Old Swan Band were at the forefront of this New Wave of English Country Dance bands, are still going today, and still produce a wonderfully danceable sound. This is from a 2011 re-recording, but ‘Walter Bulwer’s Polkas Nos. 2 and 1’ was the first track on their very first LP, No Reels, and like many tunes from that album the two polkas became firm session and dance band favourites. Far more people have learned the tunes from the Swan Band (or from someone who learned them from the Swan Band) than from listening to Walter Bulwer; and I include myself in that list. Also, it’s almost unthinkable, for me at least, to play Polka No. 2 without then going into Polka No. 1.
The Old Swan Band’s most recent record, Fortyfived, is quite possibly their most enjoyable yet. Without changing their style in any way at all, the band that once specialised in playing tunes from living English musicians have put out an album containing just two traditional English tunes. The rest are from Ireland, Scotland, North America (source of these two tunes), Australia, Sweden…
I don’t think I like the record so much because the tunes are from other countries – it’s not that I prefer Irish or American tunes to English tunes, just that nearly all the tunes were unknown to me when I first heard the CD. There are many dance tunes I’ve known since the late 1970s, which I still play, still enjoy playing, and will probably still enjoy playing for the rest of my life. But there’s nothing like coming across a whole bunch of good dance tunes you’ve never heard before. Many of these, I’m sure, are going to become session favourites, once sessions are able to resume once more.
All of the tunes I’ve included so far in this post come from musicians active in the 20th century – in fact, nearly all of them were still active during my lifetime. Just to conclude, I really need to mention the other source of English tunes that has really opened up over the last 40 years, and which has been helped enormously by the internet – that is, tunes from 18th and 19th century musicians’ manuscript books. Take a look at the website for the Village Music Project, for example, and you’ll find that you have access to thousands of tunes – often versions of well-known tunes, but including others that noone has played in many decades. Some deserve their obscurity, perhaps, but there’s plenty worth reviving. Some, like the Mellstock Band, try to play these tunes in the way that they might have been played two hundred years ago. I prefer to take these old tunes and treat them just like anything else in my repertoire – almost as if they hadn’t disappeared without trace, but had survived as part of a living dance tradition.
Here’s just one example, ‘Harliquin Air’
As well as furnishing modern musicians with lots of good new tunes to play, these manuscript sources can tell us a great deal about: which tunes were widespread in earlier centuries; the wide variety of tune types that musicians played; the magpie nature of musicians, then as now – these English manuscripts include tunes from all parts of the British Isles, from continental Europe, from the stage, from classical works…
I’ll finish by going back even further, to what might be considered the Ur text for English dance music: John Playford’s Dancing Master. The great thing about Playford tunes is that they work well played on authentic seventeenth century instruments, but can also sound great in the hands of a good melodeon or concertina player. They work as graceful courtly airs, and also, as originally intended, as dance tunes.
‘Bobbing Joe’ is a tune I first learned as a morris tune (it crops up in several village traditions). Here’s the Playford version, played on fiddle by John Wright. And played in a way that really makes you want to get up and dance – that seems like a very appropriate place to finish what has tuned out to be a rather overlong post!
Squeezed Out 