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ut what of Cecil and Maud’s legacy? They preserved the old ballads for posterity, sure enough, but a ballad in a book is no living thing. In the Appalachians, though, singers are building on their work. Sheila Kay Adams, an unarguably authentic North Carolina ballad singer, is the great-grand-niece of Mary Sands (the “prize folk singer” from the 1916 trip), and testifies that the visit of the unlikely couple from England was a key factor in keeping alive her family’s singing tradi- tion. More recently, Elizabeth LaPrelle has emerged as a dynamic young proponent of mountain ballad style, basing much of her repertoire on Sharp’s work and the recordings made by Maud Karpeles on revisiting the mountains in the 1950s. Both women will be in the UK this summer, bringing the old songs back home.
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It’s not just Americans who found Sharp’s collection a priceless resource. Back in England, singers on the lookout for interesting new material tapped into it too. Shirley Collins was one: “Those two volumes were the very first folk song books I bought, around 1954. They cost me 63 shillings – the price is still pencilled in – two weeks’ wages! It was the best money I ever spent; it’s the most fascinating and beautiful collection, and I still look through it for pleasure. Every serious singer of English songs should know about it, and learn from it.” Shirley learned plenty: Pretty Saro and My Dearest Dear appeared on the groundbreaking Folk Roots, New Routes album with Davey Graham, and she subsequently recorded several more, including Fair And Tender Ladies and Lord Thomas And Fair Ellender. Her Nottamun Town, too, is in the collection, although Shirley learned it direct from Jean Ritchie, whose sister and cousin had sung it to Sharp as schoolgirls when he visited Berea College in Kentucky.
Nic Jones also used the books. In a folder filled with notes and lyric sheets that trace the sources of his early repertoire, are the words for one of Nic’s best-loved songs, Ten Thousand Miles. Along- side is written: “Mrs Rosie Hensley, Carmen, N Carolina, Aug 10 1916, collected Cecil Sharp”. That’s Mrs Hensley, mother of the very girl who absconded from school! Perhaps the best-known song from the collection, though, is Black Is The Colour, recorded by everyone from Paul Weller to The King’s Singers, and often claimed for Ireland thanks to performances by Christy Moore, Cara Dillon and others. The actual source was Lizzie Roberts of Hot Springs, NC, visited by Cecil and Maud in 1916 – and you can hear her sing it on a recording made by Maud over 30 years later.
So the wheel turns, as the old songs cross and recross the ocean. Perhaps the centenary of the great adventure will persuade singers once again to turn the pages of Sharp’s books, now reprinted and affordable. They won’t be disappointed.
Brian Peters presents Sharp’s Appalachian Harvest’at Cecil Sharp House on July 15th, and at Sidmouth Folk Week.
F Philander Fitzgerald
Photo: courtesy Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Cecil Sharp House
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