> Folk Music > Records > Various Artists: A Jug of Punch
Various Artists: A Jug of Punch
 |
A Jug of Punch HMV CLP 1327 (LP, UK, 1960) |
Recorded at Cecil Sharp House, London, by Peter Kennedy;
Cover designed by Austin John Marshall
The LPs A Pinch of Salt and Rocket Along are from the same recording sessions.
Musicians
Steve Benbow: vocals and guitar [4, 9, 13, 16];
Shirley Bland: backing vocals [1];
Shirley Collins: vocals [2, 14],
backing vocals [1];
Bob and Ron Copper: vocals [5, 15];
Séamus Ennis: vocals [7, 11],
whistle [2, 7, 11, 14, 16];
Perry Friedmann: banjo [2, 6-8, 10, 12-14, 16];
Peter Kennedy: guitar [15];
Jimmie Macgregor: vocals [1, 16],
guitar [1],
mandolin [7, 9, 11];
Frank McPeake: vocals [17],
Irish bagpipes [3, 17];
Vic Pitt: bass [1, 9, 11, 13, 16];
Frank Purslow: vocals [8, 12];
Isabel Sutherland: vocals [6, 10]
Tracks
Side 1
- Jimmie Macgregor: Nancy Whiskey (Roud 883; G/D 3:603; Henry H745) (1.53)
- Shirley Collins: Higher Germanie (Roud 904; G/D 1:96) (2.52)
- Frank McPeake: Monaghan Fair (Roud 666) / Irish Reel (1.55)
- Steve Benbow: I Don’t Mind If I Do (Roud 847) (2.50)
- Bob and Ron Copper: Twankydillo (Roud 2409) (2.55)
- Isabel Sutherland: The Beggar Wench (Roud 2153; G/D 2:303; TYG 65) (3.15)
- Séamus Ennis: Brian O’Linn (Roud 294; Henry H480a; TYG 27) (2.01)
- Frank Purslow: Ratcliffe Highway (Roud 598) (2.49)
- Steve Benbow: Jack Tar on the Shore (Roud 919; Laws K39) (2.14)
Side 2
- Isabel Sutherland: The Light Bob’s Lassie (Roud 1645; G/D 4:725) (2.42)
- Séamus Ennis: Football Crazy (Roud 6958) (2.14)
- Frank Purslow: Bold Robinson (Roud 2411) (3.03)
- Steve Benbow: The Sugar Ray Robinson–Randolph Turpin Fight (2.30)
- Shirley Collins: The Horse Named Bill (Roud 6674) (1.52)
- Bob Copper: When the Old Dun Cow Caught Fire (Roud 5323) (2.09)
- Jimmie Macgregor: Grat for Gruel (Roud 935) (1.41)
- Frank McPeake: The Jug of Punch (Roud 1808; Henry H490) (2.58)
- Steve Benbow: Jack Hall (Roud 369; Laws L5) (1.53)
All tracks trad.
Review
This review by Charles Fox is from Gramophone, June 1960:
British folk-song enthusiasts owe a metaphorical debt to H.M.V., for during the past few months that company has issued no fewer than three LPs by local folk-singers, all of them recorded and edited by that indefatigable enthusiast Peter Kennedy, on behalf of the English Folk Dance and Song Society. The best of these records is A Jug of Punch, H.M.V. CLP 1327, containing a splendidly varied collection of broadside ballads. These include, as well as more traditional songs, such up-to-date items as Football Crazy, an amusing ballad collected and sung by Séamus Ennis, and The Sugar Ray Robinson–Randolph Turpin Fight, adapted by Ewan MacColl from an epic poem by a Soho street gambler and sung here by Steve Benbow. Isabel Sutherland, a Scottish singer with a voice that can be quite startling, performs The Light Bob’s Lassie, a passionate, forceful song, while Shirley Collins is heard in Higher Germanie, a ballad inhabiting the harsh world of “Mother Courage”; Miss Collins’ innocent voice and the idyllic sound of Séamus Ennis’s whistle-pipe gives an ironic flavour to the lyric. Frank McPeake sings and plays the Irish bagpipes on Monaghan Fair; Séamus Ennis celebrates the zany habits of Brian O’Linn, and Steve Benbow performs a gallows song, the ballad of Jack Hall, a seventeenth-century burglar, and obviously a predecessor of the blasphemous Sam Hall. Two of my favourite tracks, though, are Frank Purslow’s beautifully commonplace rendering of Ratcliffe Highway and a duet by Bob and Ron Copper, cousins and both publicans, who sing Twankydillo a drinking song, and When the Old Dun Cow Caught Fire. But this is a fascinating LP all the way through, as well as being excellent value for money (it contains eighteen tracks altogether).
> Folk Music > Records > Various Artists: A Pinch of Salt
Various Artists: A Pinch of Salt
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A Pinch of Salt HMV CLP 1362 (LP, UK, 1960) |
Recorded at Cecil Sharp House, London, by Peter Kennedy;
Cover designed by Austin John Marshall
The LPs A Jug of Punch and Rocket Along are from the same recording sessions.
Musicians
Steve Benbow: vocals and guitar [5, 8, 13];
Shirley Collins: vocals [6, 11],
banjo [6];
Bob and Ron Copper: vocals [7];
Fred Dallas: vocals [12];
Séamus Ennis: vocals [4, 9],
whistle [11];
Perry Friedmann: banjo [3, 5, 8-9, 11, 14];
Jimmie Macgregor: vocals [10],
guitar [10],
mandolin [5];
Vic Pitt: bass [5, 8-10];
Bob Roberts: vocals and melodeon [2, 16];
Isabel Sutherland: vocals [3, 14];
Cyril Tawney: vocals and guitar [1, 15]
Tracks
Side 1
- Cyril Tawney: On a British Submarine (3.21)
- Bob Roberts: Maggie May (Roud 1757) (2.40)
- Isabel Sutherland: The Handsome Cabin-Boy (Roud 239; Laws N13; G/D 1:181) (3.25)
- Séamus Ennis: The Mary Anne McHugh (3.04)
- Steve Benbow: Santy Anno (Roud 207; Henry H496) (1.40)
- Shirley Collins: My Bonny, Bonny Boy (Roud 293; G/D 6:1141; Henry H215) (3.15)
- Bob and Ron Copper: The Banks of Claudy (Roud 266; Laws N40; G/D 5:1036; Henry H5, H693) (2.50)
- Steve Benbow: Jack Went A-Sailing (Roud 268; Laws N7; G/D 1:171, 1:172) (2.48)
Side 2
- Séamus Ennis: Fine Girl You Are (The Holy Ground) (Roud 929) (1.43)
- Jimmie Macgregor: Henry Martin (Roud 104; Child 250) (3.05)
- Shirley Collins: Long Years Ago (Roud 274; Laws K10; G/D 1:19) (2.38)
- Fred Dallas: The Arbroath Tragedy (2.46)
- Steve Benbow: Paddy and the Whale (Roud 6342) (2.12)
- Isabel Sutherland: The Bleacher Lassie o’ Kelvinhaugh (Roud 3325; G/D 5:1041) (3.39)
- Cyril Tawney: Tom’s Gone to Hilo (Roud 481; Henry H53d) (3.26)
- Bob Roberts: Time for Us to Leave Her (Roud 354; Henry H53b) (2.07)
All tracks trad. except
Track 1 Cyril Tawney;
Track 4 Percy French;
Track 12 Fred Dallas
Review
This review by Charles Fox is from Gramophone, June 1960:
A Pinch of Salt, H.M.V. CLP1362, the third of these records, is devoted to British Sea Songs and ranges from the seventeenth-century lament, My Bonny, Bonny Boy, admirably sung by Shirley Collins, to On a British Submarine, Cyril Tawncy’s story of misadventures at the Coronation naval review of 1954. Among the really outstanding tracks are two by Bob Roberts (as usual, he is accompanied by just a melodeon)—Maggie May, all about a sailor fleeced by a girl in Woolwich, a song packed with nautical metaphor, and Time for Us to Leave Her, “the greatest grumbling song of them all” as the sleeve note puts it. Also to be recommended are Séamus Ennis’s unaccompanied performance of The Mary Anne McHugh, not, strictly speaking, a folk-song at all (it was composed by Percy French, who wrote Phil the Fluter’s Ball) yet a song that has become absorbed into the tradition, and Jimmie Macgregor’s sombre rendition of Henry Martin. There are sixteen tracks on this LP altogether, and while the general level is not so high as that on A Jug of Punch they do add up to a very diverting collection. On all three LPs, of course, the singers are usually accompanied by either a banjo, guitar or mandolin, a practice that seems to have become the rule among most British folk artists.
> Folk Music > Records > Various Artists: Rocket Along
Various Artists: Rocket Along
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Rocket Along HMV DLP 1204 (10" LP, UK, 1960) |
Recorded at Cecil Sharp House, London, by Peter Kennedy;
Cover designed by Austin John Marshall
The LPs A Jug of Punch and A Pinch of Salt are from the same recording sessions.
Musicians
Steve Benbow: vocals [8],
guitar [1];
Shirley Bland: vocals [2, 8];
Shirley Collins: vocals [6];
Betty Dallas: vocals [4];
Fred Dallas: vocals [7],
guitar [4, 7];
Perry Friedmann: vocals [5],
banjo [4-5, 9];
Robin Hall: drums [6];
Jimmie Macgregor: vocals [8],
guitar [2, 6, 8],
melodeon [1];
Vic Pitt: bass [6];
Bob Roberts: vocals and melodeon [3];
Isabel Sutherland: vocals [9];
Cyril Tawney: vocals and guitar [10];
Eddis Thomas: vocals [1]
Tracks
Side 1
- Eddis Thomas: Cosher Bailey (Roud 4830)
- Shirley Bland: The Fireman’s Not for Me
- Bob Roberts: Little Billee (Roud 905)
- Betty Dallas: The Conscript’s Farewell
- Perry Friedman: The Strangest Dream
Side 2
- Shirley Collins: Space Girl (2.10)
- Fred Dallas: The Smithfield Market Fire
- Steve Benbow, Shirley Bland, Jimmie Macgregor: Dark as a Dungeon (Roud 692)
- Isabel Sutherland: The Wee Magic Stane
- Cyril Tawney: The Last Boat’s A-Leaving
Track 1 collected Eddis Thomas;
Track 2 Ewan MacColl arr. Jimmie Macgregor;
Track 3 W.M. Thackeray arr. Bob Roberts;
Tracks 4, 7 Fred Dallas;
Track 5 Ed McCurdy;
Track 6 Ewan MacColl;
Track 8 Merle Travis;
Track 9 Ewan MacColl arr. Perry Friedman;
Track 10 Cyril Tawney
Review
This review by Charles Fox is from Gramophone, June 1960:
Rocket Along, H. M.V. (10-inch) DLP1204, is mainly concerned with new ballads built upon traditional lines. There are, for instance, a couple of compositions apiece by Ewan MacColl and Fred Dallas. In the case of both these songwriters, however, I was irritated by the air of self-consciousness in their work, the gap between the immediacy of the events (the Smithfield Meat Market fire of 1958, in one instance) and the often beautiful but archaic character of the melodies and methods of performance. You cannot really write about the world of today within the exact conventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth century ballad. The only really successful new song here—and it is a very good one indeed—is Dark as a Dungeon, written by the American guitarist and ex-miner, Merle Travis. This song has a real identity, the words lying above the melody to make a genuine poetic impact. It is excellently performed by Steve Benbow, Shirley Bland and Jimmie Macgregor. Another engaging song is Cyril Tawney’s The Last Boat’s A-Leaving, a tender little ballad, sung quite sensitively by its author. A slightly earlier generation of songs is represented by Cosher Bailey, performed by Eddie Thomas in a slightly modernized form (e.g. “His version of Cwm Rhondda/Makes the angels jive up yonder”), and that jocular account of attempted cannibalism, Little Billee, its lyrics attributed to Thackeray, very capably sung here by Bob Roberts. Isabel Sutherland does quite a good job with The Wee Magic Stone, but Shirley Collins is badly mis-cast in Space Girl, Ewan MacColl’s parody of a song popular with the G.I’s (“Dough-boys” they were then) of World War I. This lyric, packed with references to Martians, ray-guns and bug-eyed monsters, needs the hard-bitten virtuosity of an Annie Ross or a Georgia Brown to make it sound worthwhile.