Re: June Tabor on Mike Harding R2

Oh,
And I just thought they were nice songs
sorry for my mistake
where did i put my anorak.........


"David Kilpatrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Just heard three tracks from June Tabor's new off-the-hoof album of
> ballads. Mike persistently kept saying 'Border Ballads' as a generic
> term, which was annoying - you would a lifetime in folk had given a
> handle on what was, and what wasn't, either from the Border or included
> in the Border Minstrelsy (I know no other definition of a Border
> ballad). June didn't correct him, not surprisingly. Two of the ballads
> she did were not Border ballads, one was. All references June made were
> to Child, but she didn't adhere to Child words and freely Southernised
> northern English or Scots words, even to the extent of losing principal
> rhymes. I can well understand changing the Scots 'toom' to the English
> 'empty' in Bonny James (sic) Campbell - no-one understands 'toom' now -
> but I would think most folk can understand 'dee' for 'die', even
> Americans :-) June also mentioned Bronson tunes, but again, the tunes
> used were much changed especially in range and modality, minor-ising
> originally major or pentatonic stuff and removing the 'drop tonic'
> temporary key shifts in two of the songs which really make them what
> they are. Interesting, very clearly sung, but oddly flattened down.
>
> The three songs were Hughie Graham (Hugh the Graeme), The Duke of
> Atholl's Nurse, and Bonny James Campbell - all of which are in Ewan
> MacColl's 1966 'Songs and Ballads of Scotland', though Ewan kept to the
> normal Scots title of George Campbell. No mention at all of MacColl
> although he was really most reponsible for the revival of these songs;
> guess he is not very fashionable at the moment.
>
> David
>