VERNACULAR SONG FROM A NORTH YORKSHIRE HILL FARM: CULTURE, CONTEXTS AND COMPARISONS Two volumes Volume I Submitted to the University of Newcastle for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2005 DAVID HILLERY International Centre for Music Studies Volume I CONTENTS Illustrations v Figures v Maps vi Tables vi Acknowledgements vii Abstract viii Preface ix Introduction xvi Thesis structure xvi Problems in transcription xviii Transcription in this thesis xxi Technical data xxii Terminology xxiii Abbreviations xxiii Explanatory note xxiii Part One Part One 1 Foreword to Part One 2 Chapter 1 Songs in a landscape 3 I Wragby Farm and the locale 3 II Remoteness and insularity 9 III Accessibility and penetration 15 Chapter 2 Songs from a life 25 I Introduction 25 II Quoiting 26 III Marrying 30 IV Hunting 32 V Racing 41 VI Working 44 Chapter 3 Networks of acquaintanceship 47 I Tensions in a rural economy 47 II Hiring labour in Whitby 50 III Stock management 56 IV The Manor of Fyling Court Leet 60 11 Chapter 4 Approaches to songs and singing 67 I Learning songs 67 II Unaccompanied singing 69 III Approaches to love songs 71 IV Approaches to humorous songs 72 3 Approaches to songs of the family 74 VI Singing in old age 75 VII Patterns of song gathering 78 Chapter 5 The songs' categories, provenance and routes: some observations 81 I Introduction 81 II Broadsides 82 III Song sheets and the music hall 86 IV Songs of the hunt 89 3 Songs of uncertain origin and passage 91 VI Summary 93 Part Two Part Two 97 Foreword to Part Two 98 Chapter 6 The personal narratives of four vernacular singers 99 I John William (Jack) Beeforth 1891-1974 100 II Joseph Taylor 1833-1910 105 III Walter William Pardon 1914-1996 114 IV Frank Hinchliffe 1923-1995 122 Chapter 7 The four personal narratives: some emerging themes 130 I The singers' social positioning 130 II The singers' attitude to performance, ownership and entitlement 135 III The singers' attitude to tradition, history and change 142 Chapter 8 The songs four men sang 150 I Song collecting in the first Folk Song Revival 150 II Song collecting in the second Folk Song Revival 155 III The repertoires compared 161 IV Songs in common between the singers 169 3 Selecting songs for comparison 172 Chapter 9 How four men sing: an amatory song 175 I Introduction 175 II Jack Beeforth 180 111 III Joseph Taylor 188 IV Walter Pardon 197 3 Frank Hinchliffe 205 Chapter 10 How four men sing: a sporting song 212 I Introduction 212 II Jack Beeforth 215 III Joseph Taylor 222 IV Walter Pardon 229 3 Frank Hinchliffe 235 Chapter 11 How four men sing: a song of work 242 I Introduction 242 II Jack Beeforth 246 III Joseph Taylor 251 IV Walter Pardon 257 3 Frank Hinchliffe 261 Chapter 12 How four men sing: a sentimental song 264 I Introduction 264 II Jack Beeforth 266 III Joseph Taylor 272 IV Walter Pardon 276 3 Frank Hinchliffe 280 Chapter 13 How four men sing: a summary 284 I Introduction 284 II Summary of the songs discussed 286 III Features of four men's singing 286 1 Use of dialect 287 2 Use of rhythm 290 3 Use of ornamentation 292 4 Use of voice 296 5 Truth in vernacular song 297 6 Commonality and diversity 300 7 Anatomy of a 'tradition'? 303 The CD, 'How Four Men Sing', is located inside the back cover of Volume I Chapter 14 Conclusions 306 I An epilogue for the song? 306 II An epilogue for the singer? 309 iv III An epilogue for a tradition? 311 IV Singing styles 313 V Issues inviting further research 315 1 Vernacular repertoires 315 2 Cross voicing 315 3 Dialect in vernacular singing 316 4 Local social networks 318 VI A bigger picture 319 Volume II Contents The songs of Jack Beeforth 1 I Method of song presentation 1 II The collected repertoire 3 III The songs 4 IV Songs on the two accompanying compact discs 126 The two CDs, 'The songs of Jack Beeforth', are located inside the back cover of Volume II Select bibliography 128 Select discography 138 ILLUSTRATIONS Figures Fig. Songs.1 Broadside attributed to Forth: Hull c.1880-1910 13 Fig. Songs.2 Broadside. Such: London c.1863-65 35 Fig. Songs.3 Broadside. Harkness: Preston and Hopwood & Crew: London 59 c.1840-46 Fig. Songs.4 Broadside. Russell: Birmingham c.1840-51 69 Fig. Songs.5 Broadside. Bebbington: Manchester c.1855-58 83 Fig. Songs.6 Broadside. Harkness: Preston c.1840-66 96 Fig. Songs.7 Broadside. Pitts: London c.1819-44 108 Maps Map 1.1 Wragby Farm and the locale 4 Map 6. 1 Locations of the four featured singers 99 Map 9.1 Trudgill's The East Anglian Merger 199 Tables Table Intro.1 Recording details xxii Table 4.1 Selected vernacular repertoires 79 Table 8.1(i-vii) Songs/Singers matrix 162 Table 8.2 Crossover songs from Jack Beeforth to the others 169 Table 8.3 Crossover songs between the others 170 Table 8.4 Percentage of songs shared with the others 171 Table 8.5 Number of songs available for comparison 172 Table 9.1 Songs on Disc 'flow Four Men Sing' 176 Table 9.2 Amatory songs 177 Table 10.1 Sporting songs 212 Table 11.1 Songs of work 242 Table 12.1 Sentimental songs 264 Table 13.1 The songs' summary 286 Table Songs.1 Songs on Disc 1 126 Table Songs.2 Songs on Disc 2 127 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A work such as this is a solitary, rather than a collaborative, enterprise. However, many have generously contributed, assisted, encouraged and criticised along the way to this study's completion, and I want to acknowledge three of them in particular. I remember with affection Jack Beeforth, who made me welcome, and cheerfully conducted the recording sessions, over thirty years ago. (Jack's embodiment is now realised in his daughter, Ethel Pearson, and in his granddaughter, Gail Agar.) I am grateful to Richard Middleton, whose enjoyable supervisory interludes have persuaded me to edge, somewhat speculatively, away from my default position of dyed-in-the-wool empiricism. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Ali (Audrey) Hillery, for making this a task we have truly shared. vii ABSTRACT The first part of this study examines a North Yorkshire farmer's personal narrative, where the motivation and opportunity for his singing emerges from the interplay of location and landscape, family, work and rich social networks. Jack Beeforth (1891-1974) was born when the commercialisation of the music business in England was well under way, and when American influences were beginning both to affect the musical content of popular song and to stimulate mass-marketing methods in its dissemination. In this thesis, evidence of these influences is shown to be scattered throughout the Beeforth repertoire among songs from broadsides and other sources. The eclectic mix of songs in Jack Beeforth's corpus and his disregard for song categories argues that it may be useful to regard him as a 'vernacular', rather than a folk or traditional, singer. The study goes on to set Jack Beeforth's life as a single, acoustic, unaccompanied singer of songs of the popular culture of his day against the personal narratives of three other English vernacular singers, all four linked in important ways through gender, class, place, occupation and overlapping temporality. It identifies and compares the repertoires of these singers, and examines some important ingredients in the singers' treatment of a selection of these songs, establishing commonalities and diversities in the repertoires and performance. The work looks at Jack Beeforth's singing in its historical context, exploring patterns of cultural practice and change in his own generation and in those that followed. viii PREFACE The motives and intentions which were behind the compilation of the Jack Beeforth tapes are personal and therefore clear, although they are now seen across the thirty years which have elapsed since the recordings were made. The motivations which may have driven the activities of many folk song collectors during the two Folk Song Revivals are explored elsewhere in this thesis. In 1974 it had seemed that the county of Yorkshire with its large population and distinct identity was not fairly represented by a corpus of its 'own' folk songs, for after Frank Kidson's Traditional Tunes, first published in 1891, many collectors of English folk song material in the first Folk Song Revival were based in the south and their forays to the north of England, if made at all, were brief. Some amateurs, like the author, were neither deeply aware of the work emerging from the 'folklore' departments of the universities in Sheffield and Leeds, nor of the availability of prescriptive 'how-to' research manuals, as they pursued their solitary enthusiasm, seeking to enrich their own repertoires from 'the tradition' whilst paying their dues by feeding any 'finds' into the collective folk corpus. Such pieces from Ripon and York had already been included, for example, in the Topic LP Transpennine featuring revivalist singers Harry Boardman and David Hillery. David 1 H. Boardman & D. Hillery, Transpennine (London: Topic Records TS210, 1971). ix Hillery and David Howes collaborated in producing the LP Trip to Harrogate2 based on a late-eighteenth-century Yorkshire fiddler's tune book found by the latter in Harrogate in the 1960s. It was hoped that Jack Beeforth's material might include items interesting enough to be set by the side of those already assembled. Further, it must be acknowledged that not least among the motives for the visits to Jack Beeforth was a deepening 'last leaves' apprehension that had worried the collectors of the first Folk Song Revival like Percy Grainger: that one would 'give almost anything ..