The 60s/70s Folk at the BBC

# As I was sitting with a jug and spoon

# On one fine morning in the month of June... #

The members of the Hampstead Folk Club

enjoy a rather different sort of music.

The club, which meets every Sunday night in a room over a pub,

has been going for nine months.

It's typical of at least 200 other similar clubs which have been mushrooming up all over the country.

500 members pay an annual subscription of two bob.

There's an average weekly attendance of about 100.

Entrance fee is four bob for members, five for non-members

and profits go to the local hospital.

The secretary of the club is Don Wallace, a chartered accountant.

The first night we opened was a wet night with lots of rain.

We had about 150 people there - packed out.

And this interest has continued ever since.

I think it's because people in this area, young people especially, like coming along and singing.

Not just being a passive receiver of what's given to them, but joining in.

# ..Too-ra-loo-ra-loo

# Too-ra-loo-ra-loo

# Too-ra-loo-ra-loo

# Just lay me down in my native peat

# With a jug of punch at my head and feet. #

At the Hampstead Club, the singers are encouraged to get up from the floor

and as it were, cut their teeth.

Terry Gould is, in fact, one of the founder members of the club.

-Thank you very much.

-All right?

Yes, lovely.

Thank you very much. I'd like to sing you a little French love song

that I discovered and I hope you'll like.

# Cette sauce de haute qualite est un melange

# De fruits orientaux, d'epices et de vinaigre de malt... #

Terry Gould runs a coffee, tea and honey shop in Hampstead,

which he started on a £400 gratuity from the air force.

He's 31 now and unmarried.

He first started playing the guitar when he was 19, at Southampton University,

where, incidentally, he got a degree in Economics.

He played classical guitar music for a while

and then took up folk singing again when the Hampstead Club was formed.

The rest of his family is quite unmusical.

Like many singers on the folk scene today,

he composes much of his own material,

mainly comment on the contemporary scene.

# ..Elle est egalement excellent pour... #

This romantic French love song is, in fact, not a love song at all

but the instructions in French on a bottle of sauce.

# ..Potage et le pudding... #

LAUGHTER

# ..Birmingham, Angleterre. #

APPLAUSE

But for its high attendance figures, the club relies on professionals, like Isla Cameron.

# Don't sing sad songs

# You'll wake my mother

# She's sleeping here, close by my side

# And in her right hand, a silver dagger

# She knows that I won't be your bride

# All men are false, says my mother

# They tell you wicked, lovin' lies

# The very next evening, they'll court another

# Leave you alone to pine and sigh... #

I don't want to sound like the high priestess of English folk music

but it's been going on in England for some time...a good ten years.

But it wasn't as popular as it is now and the nice thing about now is everybody's singing.

Before there were just a few of us.

Ewan MacColl, Seamus Ennis, AL Lloyd and myself.

We did these rather esoteric programmes on The Third Programme.

Saint Cecilia And The Shovel, I think one was called.

They were all right, we used traditional music.

But it wasn't as alive as it is now and the nice thing about now is that everybody sings.

Because singing's an expression of joy and I'm all for people being happy.

# Well... #

This pair, who don't usually work together,

are a different kind of professional, sort of itinerant troubadours.

They're full-time folk singers, though both have had a variety of jobs before coming to it.

# ..Oh, Mary, don't you weep

# Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn

# Oh, Mary, don't you weep, don't you mourn

# Pharaoh's army got drownd-ed

# Oh, Mary, don't you weep... #

Red Sullivan, on the left, started life as a messenger boy at Broadcasting House

and later, was a Merchant Navy fireman.

# ..Pharaoh's army got drownd-ed

# Oh, Mary, don't you weep... #

Martin Windsor claims to have been entertaining since the age of four.

A singer, cabaret artist, impersonator and fire-eater.

He's 40 now, twice married and divorced

and already a grandfather.

# ..don't you weep. #

# First mate, he got drunk

# Broke up the people's trunk... #

The whole point of this pair is that they'll sing anywhere,

anytime they can find an audience to listen and to pay them.

On this occasion, lunch time workers at Tower Hill.

-# ..Let me go home

-Let me go home

# I feel so break up

# I want to go home

# I want to go home

# I feel so break up

# I want to go home...

# I want to go home... #

But folk singing is, in essence, an amateur activity.

Its Mecca is Cecil Sharp House in London,

dedicated to a man who rescued much folk music from oblivion,

but at the cost, some say, of purification of the more earthy lyrics.

Right, in the chord of C, ballad lick or arpeggio,

we're going to start I Never Will Marry.

Just follow me to start with.

# One morning I rambled

# Down by the seashore... #

Altogether, there are five classes going on here at the same time.

This is the second stage class.

Students pay half a crown for as many lessons as they want.

Learning to play the guitar well takes at least a year.

# ..A pitiful cry

# And it sounded so lonely

# In the waters nearby... #

The demand for folk guitars,

round hole guitars, we call them in the trade,

has grown to such proportions that we hardly know where to turn.

The price field starts at about 8 guineas and runs as high as 215 guineas.

I don't know where it's going to end.

# Michael, row the boat ashore Hallelujah

# Michael row the boat ashore... #

Pete Seeger is, as it were, the Toscanini of the folk singing world.

The present revival in folk music is probably as much due to him as anyone.

He's an extraordinary man.

Humble, almost unaware of his fame.

Yet made of steel, utterly uncompromising.

# ..Hallelujah... #

He stopped off in London recently on his way back from a world tour.

Members of folk clubs from all over the country came to hear him.

# ..Michael, row your boat ashore Hallelujah... #

Most musicians travel in a fairly restricted area around their own country,

to people that know their kind of music.

But I think it's worth remembering that in the Middle Ages,

musicians were always crossing language barriers.

How do you suppose it is that some of these melodies that you and I know

are also known in Finland and Russia, and Italy?

That little tune...

HE HUMS TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR

..is known in every single country of Europe.

Absolutely.

Sung in Norway...

HE SINGS MELODY

And in Sweden...

HE SINGS MELODY

In the Ukraine...

HE SINGS MELODY

And in Israel...

HE SINGS MELODY

That pentatonic minor, which is only known in Japan, I believe.

HE HUMS PENTATONIC MINOR

If you hear a song in that, right away you see Japan in your mind's eye.

HE HUMS MELODY

Same thing, in Japan, I found people trying to play Tennessee mountain style fiddling.

They'd heard the Grand Ole Opry on shortwave radio and decided that was the thing for them.

In Tokyo, they now have a thing called the Tokyo Grand Ole Opry.

LAUGHTER

-I'll do a little bit of Colours, then?

-Yes, please. That would be great.

-OK, tell me when.

Like I was telling you about Darrell Adams,

when I wrote Colours,

I was kind of transposing a banjo style...to guitar.

Just like the Carter Family had transposed the style from banjo to guitar.

I actually played banjo on Colours in Darrell Adams' style.

So this was the second single.

# Yellow is the colour of my true love's hair

# In the mornin'

# When we rise

# In the mornin'

# When we rise

# That's the time

# That's the time

# I love the best

# Blue is the colour of the sky-y-y

# In the mornin'

# When we rise

# In the mornin'

# When we rise

# That's the time

# That's the time

# I love the best

# Freedom is a word I rarely use

# Without thinking

# Uh-huh

# Without thinkin'

# Uh-huh

# Of the time

# Of the time

# When I've been loved

# Yellow is the colour of my true love's hair

# In the mornin'

# When we rise

# In the mornin'

# When we rise

# That's the time

# That's the time

# I love the best. #

The train's in the station now.

They make beautiful music. All the songs they sing they wrote themselves.

They're Robin and Mike, The Incredible String Band.

# Who moved the white castle?

# Who moved the black queen?

# When Gimmel and Daleth were standing between

# And out of the evening was growing a veil

# That pined for the pinewoods and ached for the sail

# There's something forgotten I want you to know

# The freckles of rain They are telling me so...

# Oh...

# It's the half-remarkable question

# What is it that we are part of?

# And what is it that we are?

# An elephant madness has covered the sun

# And the judge and the juries still play for the fun

# They've torn all the roses, washed all the soap

# And the martyr who marries them dares not elope

# Oh...

# It's the never-realised question

# What is it that we are part of?

# And what is it that we are?

# Oh, long, oh, long e'er

# Yet my eyes

# Braved the gate's enormous fire

# And the body folded round me

# And the person in me grew

# The flower and its petal, the root and its grasp

# The earth and its bigness, the breath and its gasp

# The mind and its motion, the foot and its move

# The life and its pattern, the heart and its love

# Oh...

# It's the old forgotten question

# What is it that we are part of?

# What is it that we are? #

APPLAUSE

# Come all you fair and tender girls

# That flourish in your prime

# Beware, beware, keep your garden fair

# Let no man steal your thyme

# Let no man steal your thyme

# For when your thyme is past and gone

# He'll care no more for you

# And in the place your thyme was waste

# Will spread all o'er with rue

# Will spread all o'er with rue

# A woman is a branchy tree

# And man's a clinging vine

# And from the branches, carelessly

# He'll take what he can find

# He'll take what he can find

# He'll take what he can find. #

APPLAUSE

# Blessed are the meek

# For they shall inherit

# Blessed is the lamb

# Whose blood flows

# Blessed are the sat upon, spat upon,

# Ratted on

# Oh, Lord, why have you forsaken me... #

Judith was born 46 years ago in Germany.

A Jew by race, though never by religion,

she was brought up as an atheist.

Her mother committed suicide when she was three

and when she was 13, her father fled from the Nazis.

She was arrested as a hostage,

taken to Berlin Gestapo headquarters, imprisoned and tortured.

Three months later she was released and subsequently, escaped from Germany.

For several years she wandered through Europe,

stateless, homeless and destitute.

Just before the War, she came to England.

And in 1946, she became a Christian.

# Just like anything

# To sing, to sing, to sing

# Is a state of mind... #

The young people I know in the folk clubs of Soho

don't go to church much.

And I doubt if they watch Meeting Point.

They don't much go on organised religion, but they do go on songs like these.

Songs that express what many of them feel.

Songs that arise out of the situation in which I work.

This one, by Jackson Frank, just explains why people sing.

But some of the songs that I want you to hear are not particularly pretty,

nor are they intended to be.

But they are true and the truth sets us free.

The troubadours of the Middle Ages sang to win the love of a lady.

These troubadours of the 1960s sing to win your love for the unloved,

the despised, the rejected.

The outsider speaks for the outcast who cannot speak for himself.

Listen to them...

# Born in England's pleasant green

# Like a picture postcard scene

# To childhood spread with fond, maternal care

# From that day that he was born Proud relations came to fawn

# And compliment his pretty golden hair

# In boyhood sent away To a boarding school to stay

# Its crumbling proud traditions forced to bear

# And his friends in this new world Said he looks more like a girl

# With those blue eyes and pretty golden hair

# From safe secluded youth into manhood's search for truth

# His mother's eyes, now wet had turned to stare

# For he said I must be bound This day for London town

# I do believe my fortune's waiting there

# So like an eager cutting knife He plunged in a new life

# One never known beforehand anywhere

# And the thought that he might trip In his ignorance and slip

# Never struck beneath his pretty golden hair

# Oh, but the days soon grew thin And boredom fast set in

# His job was thrown away without a care

# For a man softly said You'll learn twice as much instead

# With those blue eyes and pretty golden hair

# For London town possessed Oh, many a tempter's nest

# And thus he fell with scarce a thought or care

# And so easily he slipped Into prostitution's grip

# Foundationed by his pretty golden hair

# And the years quickly flew And his mind slowly grew

# From early freedom into deep despair

# As the money ceased to roll A tired and lonely soul

# Put curses on his pretty golden hair

# Oh, the years stole their time Now the living's hard to find

# And early friends have vanished in the air

# And the gay parties' ease Changed to public lavatories

# Have turned to grey his pretty golden hair

# Oh, his life was only used And his body just abused

# By those who never think and never care

# If his file said suicide No, that wasn't why he died

# It was murder by his pretty golden hair. #

# When sadness fills your heart

# And sorrow hides the longing to be free

# When things go wrong each day

# You fix your mind to escape your misery

# Your troubled young life has made you turn

# To the needle of death...

# How strange your happy words

# Have ceased to bring a smile from everyone

# How tears have filled the eyes

# Of friends that you once had walked among

# Your troubled young life had made you turn

# To the needle of death...

# One grain of pure white snow...

# Dissolved in blood spread quickly to your brain

# In this your mind withdraws

# Death so near yet still can feel no pain

# Your troubled young life had made you turn

# To the needle of death

# Through ages man's desires

# To free his mind to release his very soul

# Has proved to all who live

# That death itself is freedom for ever more

# And your troubled young life will make you turn

# To the needle of death... #

# A Winter's day

# In deep and dark December

# I am alone

# Gazing from my window

# To the streets below

# On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow

# I am a rock

# I am an island

# I've built walls

# A fortress deep and mighty

# That none may penetrate

# I have no need of friendship

# Friendship causes pain

# Its laughter and its loving I disdain

# I am a rock

# I am an island

# Don't talk of love

# I've heard the word before

# It's sleeping in my memory

# I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died

# If I never loved I never would have cried

# I am a rock

# I am an island

# I have my books

# And my poetry to protect me

# I'm shielded by my armour

# I'm hiding in my room, safe within my womb

# I touch no-one and no-one touches me

# I am a rock

# I am an island

# And a rock can feel no pain

# And an island never cries. #

# They say you were victorious

# Over hell and over death

# We know the hell of heroin

# The dying that is meths

# So come down, Lord, from your heaven

# You whom we can't confess

# And be the Resurrection

# Of this our living death. #

# Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

# Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm

# Thrown like a star in my vast sleep I opened my eyes to take a peep

# To find that I was by the sea Gazing with tranquillity

# 'Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man Came singing songs of love

# Then when the hurdy gurdy man

# Came singing songs of love

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy,

# Hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Histories of ages past Unenlightened shadows cast

# Down through all eternity The crying of humanity

# 'Tis then when the hurdy gurdy man Comes singing songs of love

# Then when the hurdy gurdy man

# Comes singing songs of love

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurd

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Here comes the roly-poly man He's singing songs of love

# Roly-poly, roly-poly, roly-poly-poly he sang

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy,

# Hurdy gurdy-gurdy he sang

# Roly-poly, roly-poly... #

-Ready?

-Yep.

-Yes.

-OK.

I'll give you a cue. In your own time.

# Adieu, adieu, hard was my fate

# I was brought up in a tender state

# Bad company did me entice

# I left off work and took bad advice

# Which makes me now to lament and say

# Pity the fates of young felons all

# Oh, well-a-day Well-a-day

# I robbed Lord Goldwyn, I do declare

# And Lady Masefield in Grosvenor Square

# I shut the shutters and bid them goodnight

# And then went home to my heart's delight

# Which makes me now to lament and say

# Pity the fates of young felons all

# Oh, well-a-day Well-a-day

# Before Judge Aldred I was took

# Before Judge Aldred I was tried

# My Lady Kempe says this will not do

# My iron chest you have broken through

# Which makes me now to lament and say

# Pity the fates of young felons all

# Oh, well-a-day Well-a-day

# And when I'm dead and going to my grave

# No costly tombstone will I crave

# Six bonny lasses to carry my pall

# Give them broadswords, cups and ribbons all

# Which makes me now to lament and say

# Pity the fates of young felons all

# Oh, well-a-day

# Well-a-day. #

-Very nice. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

# Missed the morning too

# Didn't rise before noon

# She's a lazy lady today

# Always yawning

# You, with your eyes on the moon

# You're a crazy lady, I'd say

# Da-dum, da-da

# Now should I say more?

# For I know you so well

# And you're no hazy maiden in a grave

# How can I be sure?

# It's not easy to tell

# But you're a crazy lady, I'd say

# A crazy lady. #

# Sittin' in a sleazy snack bar Suckin' sickly sausage rolls

# Slippin' down slowly, slippin' down sideways

# Think I'll sign off the dole

# Cos the fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# Could a copper catch a crooked coffin maker?

# Could a copper comprehend?

# That a crooked coffin maker's just an undertaker

# Who undertakes to be a friend

# And the fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# Tell it to tomorrow, today will take its time

# To tell you what tonight might bring

# Presently we'll have a pint or two together

# Everybody do their thing

# We can swing together, we can have a wee-wee

# We can have a wet on the wall

# If someone slips a whisper that it's simple sister

# Slap them down and slaver on their smalls

# Cos the fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine, all mine

# The fog on the Tyne is all mine. #

# T'was on one bright March morning

# I bid New Orleans adieu

# And I took the road to Jackson town

# My fortune to renew

# I cursed all foreign money

# No credit could I gain

# Which filled me heart with longing for

# The lakes of Pontchartrain

# I stepped on board of a railroad car

# Beneath the morning sun

# I rode the rods till evening

# And I laid me down again

# All strangers there, no friends to me

# Till a dark girl towards me came

# And I fell in love with a Creole girl

# By the lakes of Pontchartrain

# Well, I said, me pretty Creole girl

# Me money here's no good

# And if it weren't for the alligators

# I'd sleep out in the wood

# You're welcome here, kind stranger

# Our house is very plain

# But we never turn a stranger out

# On the banks of Pontchartrain

# Well, she took me in to her mammy's house

# And she treated me right well

# The hair upon her shoulders

# In jet black ringlets fell

# To try to paint her beauty

# I'm sure t'would be in vain

# So handsome was my Creole girl

# By the lakes of Pontchartrain

# I asked her if she'd marry me

# She said this could never be

# For she had got a lover

# And he was far at sea

# She said that she would wait for him

# And true she would remain

# Till he'd return to his Creole girl

# By the lakes of Pontchartrain

# So fare thee well, me bonny o' girl

# I never may see more

# But I'll ne'er forget your kindness

# And the cottage by the shore

# And at each social gathering

# A flowin' glass I'll drink

# And I'll drink a health to me Creole girl

# From the lakes of Pontchartrain. #

-Do you know how to play crackerball?

-No.

-I'll have to show you.

It's a nice football game. Its a marvellous game.

We're going to take a break with some lovely music. Let's welcome Steeleye Span.

APPLAUSE

# All around my hat

# I will wear the green willow

# And all around my hat

# For a twelvemonth and a day

# And if anyone should ask me

# The reason why I'm wearing it

# It's all for my true love

# Who's far, far away

# Fare thee well, cold winter

# And fare thee well, cold frost

# Nothing have I gained

# But my own true love I've lost

# I'll sing and I'll be merry

# When occasion I do see

# He's a false, deluding young man

# Let him go, farewell he

# The other night he brought me

# A fine diamond ring

# But he thought to have deprived me

# Of a far better thing

# But I, being careful

# Like lovers ought to be

# He's a false, deluding young man

# Let him go, farewell he

# And all around my hat

# I will wear the green willow

# And all around my hat

# For a twelvemonth and a day

# And if anyone should ask me

# The reason why I'm wearing it

# It's all for my true love

# Who's far, far away

# All around my hat

# I will wear the green willow

# And all around my hat

# For a twelvemonth and a day

# And if anyone should ask me

# The reason why I'm wearing it

# It's all for my true love

# Who is far, far away

# All around my hat

# I will wear the green willow

# And all around my hat

# For a twelvemonth and a day

# And if anyone should ask me

# The reason why I'm wearing it

# It's all for my true love

# Who's far, far away. #

APPLAUSE

# There came three men from out of the west

# Their fortune for to try

# And these three men made a solemn vow

# John Barleycorn should die

# They knocked him down They harrowed him in

# Laid clods upon his head

# And these three men made a solemn vow

# John Barleycorn is dead

# My mother was half English And I'm half English too

# I'm a great big bundle of culture Tied up in the red, white and blue

# I'm a fine example of your Essex man

# I'm well familiar with the Hindustan

# Cos my neighbours are half English And I'm half English too

# My breakfast was half English And so am I, you know

# I had a plate of Marmite soldiers Washed down with a cappuccino

# And I have a veggie curry about once a week

# The next day I fry it up as bubble and squeak

# Cos my appetite's half English And I'm half English too

# Britannia, she's half English

# She speaks Latin at home

# St George was born in the Lebanon

# How he got here, I don't know

# And those three lions on your shirt

# They never sprung from England's dirt

# Them lions are half English And I'm half English too, yeah

# And I'm half English too. #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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