Category Archives: Albums

Announcing 52fs – the Violet Album.

So far on 52 Folk Songs I’ve recorded and uploaded 14 songs and two tunes, mostly but not exclusively traditional:

1        Lord Bateman (FS01)
2        The Death of Bill Brown (FS02)
3        The Unfortunate Lass (FS03)
4        The Cruel Mother (FS04)
5        Over the hills and far away
6        There are bad times just around the corner
7        My boy Jack
8        Us poor fellows
9        Down where the drunkards roll
10       Lemany (FS05)
11       Child among the weeds
12       Hegemony
13       The London Waterman (FS06) + Constant Billy
14       Spencer the Rover + Three Rusty Swords / The Dusty Miller

All of these tracks, together with a PDF file containing full lyrics plus assorted pictures, comments, musings and afterthoughts, can now be downloaded in the form of 52 Folk Songs – Violet.

52 Folk Songs – Violet is the first in a series of eight virtual ‘albums’ that will be appearing over the year. It’s yours for a token payment of 52p (you see what I did there).

Alternatively you can download the tracks individually and pay nothing at all, or just listen online.

Share and enjoy!

FS06 is the London Waterman; it’s joined by another folk song, Spencer the Rover. I used sometimes to apologise for singing songs in the person of a heartbroken young maiden, saying that there weren’t many traditional songs about happily married middle-aged men. Well, there aren’t many, but there are some – and here are two of them. This week I’ve also added on a couple of whistle tunes which I thought went together well with the songs.

FS05 is Lemany: my take on a strange, beautiful song that was preserved by the Coppers.

Also this week: Lal Waterson’s amazing song Child Among the Weeds, which I’ve only recently been able to get through without choking up. Plus Scritti Politti’s Hegemony. What’s the connection? Read on!

Nearly a year ago the redoubtable Sedayne announced the Landfill project, a 40th anniversary collective re-recording of Martin Carthy’s Landfall. For a variety of reasons the project never really took off, but I thought & still think it was a fine idea. This week’s songs are both Landfall songs; if the project does ever happen, I’d be very happy for them to be Landfill songs.

FS04 is The Cruel Mother: one of many variants of a very old song, listed by Francis Child as ballad 20. Over the hills is probably a bit younger, but it does date back – in its original, more cheerful form – to the reign of Queen Anne; it’s 300 years old, in other words. It still sounds relevant.

FS03 is The unfortunate lass: one of many variants of a song about premature death: messy, painful, unheroic premature death. Also this week: Richard Thompson’s Down where the drunkards roll. Not a drinking song.

I’m uploading these songs on 9th of September; what would have been Peter Bellamy’s 67th birthday. I’m marking the day by publishing three songs today, all with a Bellamy connection.

FS02 is The death of Bill Brown, a topical eighteenth-century song about the shootings of a poacher and of the gamekeeper who shot him. Also: Us poor fellows and My boy Jack, respectively a Bellamy original (from the Transports) and one of his settings of Kipling.

Happy birthday, Peter.

FS01 is Lord Bateman, which should need no introduction. I only know a few of the big narrative ballads, but this is my favourite, despite (or because of) its relatively uneventful story.

Also: There are bad times just around the corner, by Noël Coward, because I felt like it.