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Home , English folk music, Isla Cameron, Peggy Seeger, The Weavers

Transatlantic Troubadours: Pete ,John Hastedand the English Folk SongRevival

E. David Gregory

When Pete Seegerset foot on British soil in October 1961 mind his goal of making like the '. for a month-longtour of English and Scottishfolk clubs, he was Through the WMA he eventually encountereda kindred spirit, alreadya legend. Knowing the affection and admiration felt for fellow Party memberand folklorist A. L. (Bert) Lloyd. Hasted Petethroughout the community, Bruce Dun- later recalledthat on meeting Lloyd he casuallyasked him if he net, managerof Ewan MacCol1 and 'sSingers' wanted to start an Almanac-stylegroup in . To his as- Club, took the gamble of booking the 5,00> seat Royal Albert tonishment, Bert's normally high-pitched and squeaky voice Hall for a farewell concert. It was the first time a folk singer droppedabout an octaveand he replied very quietly, "Passion- had appearedat that most prestigious of venues. If anything, ately".2 Pete was even more popular in Britain than in his native USA, This was the encouragementHasted needed. But there was where he was still fighting a prolonged legal battle with the a problem. Where on earth could you get a folk guitar in Lon- House Un-American Activities Committee. He chose a good don in the late forties, let alone a long-neckedbanjo? And even time to visit Britain. The (second)folk revival had just if you did find the right instruments, how could you learn to enteredits boom phase,and "the movement" (as it was some- play them? This is how Hasted describedthe situation in his times called) had a mass following at long last. But how had Memoirs: Pete come to be acclaimedin England as "one of the world's great folk singers"V When I set out to get hold of a guitar in London, it took me nearly a year to acquire one with a flat front During the 50s Pete had somefonnidable promotersin the and a hole in the middle. It was an old Martin, and it "old country." They included his half-sister Peggy, her partner lasted me until the Suez demonstrationin Whitehall, Ewan MacColl, and their mutual friend, broadcasterand collec- where it was broken by a policeman Dance band tor . But the story of Pete'sinfluence on the English guitars, with curved fronts and S-shapedholes, were revival goes even further back, to 1946 and his days in New lousy acoustically. Real classical guitars had to be York with the Almanac Singers. One of the 78 rpm records he imported from Spain, and would take only very light madein 1941with Mill Lampell, and steel strings instead of their normal gut and covered was "Talking Union." You couldn't buy that disc in England silk. As for a twelve-string guitar, I had to make the during the forties, but merchantseaman Bob Hinds picked up a thing myself, out of an old six-string. Classicalguitar copy while his ship was in an American port and when he got was taught in London, notably by John William's fa- back to England he played it to a friend, a young phys- ther, and dance-bandguitar was taught by Ivor Mai- icist namedJohn Hasted. As soon as he heard the disc, Hasted rants There had only beena handful of singers-with- knew instantly that he wanted, above anything else, to make guitar in Britain, and thesewere either troubadourstyle music like the Almanacs'. John Hastedis not very well known with classical guitar and rather twee tenor voice; or these days, even in circles. He might be cowboy-style, wearing Stetsonhat and chaps.3 termed-with some justification-"the forgotten man" of the English revival. Yet in fact he played a key role in the revival Hasted'ssolution to the problem of how to learn Almanac-style for more than a decade.One of the many things he did was to guitar and was to go to the horse's mouth. As a commun- imitate and popularisePete Seeger'sway of playing guitar and ist he was well awareof the Peoples' organization in the banjo. USA and had seencopies of its Bulletin. So why not write to As a studentin Oxford before the war Hastedhad sungreg- Pete Seegerfor help? He did so, and Pete respondedwith de- ularly in New College Choir, and his left-wing political beliefs tailed instructions, including tablature, on how to play both had led him to join the newly formed Workers' Music Associa- guitar and banjo. He encouragedHasted to begin by learning the tion, foundedby the communistcomposer Alan Bush. A career Carterfamily "Churchlick" as his basicstrumming style. By the move in 1948 took Hasted to London, to work at University end of the decade,Pete's correspondencestudent was confident College. He was free, in his spare time, to assist Bush in di- enoughto passon his new-found instrumentalskills to members recting the WMA Choir, and before long he was also running of the London Youth Choir, and to form his own folk group, the the WMA's Topic Singers and the London Youth Choir. All first of severalcalled The Ramblers. three groups sang a mixture of English traditional folk songs (usually in arrangementsby Bush or by VaughanWilliams), un- Bert Lloyd and I fonned The Ramblers,consisting of ion songs, left-wing anthems such as "The Red Flag" and a Bert himself, guitarist Neste Revald, myself, and Jean smatteringof Almanacmaterial, including "." Butler, an American girl who had plenty of experience It wasn't folk music, but it was close. And Hasted still had in singing with five-string banjo for Americanunions, and had often performed with the Almanacs.The namefor Hasted was no purist. Like Seeger's,his concept of folk the group camedirectly from Woody's songwhich Jean music was broad and undogmatic:an eclectic mix of traditional sang for us The Ramblers lasted only a couple of and contemporarymaterial, British and American, political and years as a group, but the sound we made was solid, non-political. By this time he wasan accomplished"semi-profes- sinceBert had a high-up voice and I was bass-baritone. sional" musician, and he had a good voice, but he had a low Jean'svoice and banjo were authenticAlmanac. But we opinion of himself as a folk singer. never possessedor sang into a tape-recorderor even a wire-recorder. Only the BBC had those, and we were I could never havemuch successas a solo singerof the not exactly their territory 4 sort of material I collected, since my pleasantand pa- tronizing Oxford accentprecluded anything except play- One of The Ramblers' first performanceswas at a Gilly of the acting and mimicry, which is not a satisfactorybasis for Clerical Workers' Union addressedby ClementAttIee, an occa- a singer of folksongs. But there was in the London sion on which the Prime Minister and Labour Party leaderwas Youth Choir no shortageof good down-to-earthtalent, roundly booed. Many more such unpaid gigs followed, at left- eager to take part in a folksong revival More and wing demonstrationsin support of strikes or the peacemove- more performanceswere given by small groups of our ment, and the group developeda quite extensiveprotest reper- Choir members, maybe three or four singers, with toire of Guthrie and Leadbelly material, union songs, Negro guitar, and a dancer.There would be solo songs,group , African freedomsongs, and suchanti-American ditties singing, a dance,and occasionallya rehearsedscript. At as "YankeeGo Home." But althoughhe campaignedvociferous- first I had no unique folk group of my own, but grad- ly againstthe presenceof American troops and weaponson Brit- ually one emerged,the membershipchanging less and ish soil, Hastedremained a passionatechampion of the music of less. As time went by our repertoire became less the Almanacs, and a devoted fan of Woody Guthrie and Pete directly political in content.6 Seeger. Bert Lloyd stimulatedHasted's interest in English traditional This move of Hasted'saway from overt political materialparal- song, and around the time that The Ramblersbroke up Hasted leled 'sown careerduring the late forties and early also met collector Peter Kennedy. Encoumgedby Kennedyand fifties, when he was a memberof .Indeed, in the by Alan Lomax to try his hand at field-collecting, Hasteddid so early fifties Petewas known in England primarily as a member in the West Country (where he later recordedCharlie Wills) and of the Weavers.The Weavers' single releaseson Deccawere a- in the Lake District. In the early fifties tape-recorderswere still vailable in Britain, and sold fairly well, so that the group quick- few and far betweenin England, so he initially used the tradi- ly built up a solid following. Seegerwas lost to the public eye tional methodof pen and paper, as he recalled in his autobiog- during most of the fifties, when he experiencedblack-listing in mphy: the US entertainmentindustry and fought his prolongedstruggle with the House Un-American Activities Committee. But his At first 1 collected songsby the old methodof copying stand madehim a hero to British communistsand their sympa- the words and music out on a notepadwhilst the singer thizers. was singing them. Singershad been more patient with Hastedkept in touch with Seegerby mail, and was an avid "dictation" to than we found them to be reader of Sing Out!, a magazineSeeger helped to form in the fifty yearslater. 1 soondevised a shorthandof my own, wake of the People'sSongs Bulletin. It was he who first argued but even so 1 couldn't easily keep up with the singers. in WMA meetingsthat the English revival neededa sister maga- One session up in Eskdale became inextricably en- zine as a place to publish both contemporarypolitical songsand tangledwith the annual docking of lambs' tails. "I can the traditional industrial and occupationalsongs that MacColl, dock they tails quicker than what' ee can lam they Lloyd, Kennedyand others were beginning to collect. songs"and blood spilt allover the notebook.s I proposedto Choir memberEric Winter, a journalist, After the demiseof The Ramblers, Hasted focused his efforts that we start a British magazinealong similar lines, and once again on the London Youth Choir. By now he was deter- call it simply Sing. The first issuesof Sing were repro- mined that the Choir should diversify its activities, and he duced by cyclostyle, but we soon turned over to the steeredit away from agitprop and and towards new offset litho printing technique which was revo- folk music. This was the time when such figures as Ewan Mac- lutionising small magazines.Eric edited Sing for more ColI, Bert Lloyd, ,Peter Kennedy and Alan Lomax than ten years, producing more than seventy issues, were consciouslyattempting to kickstart the sluggish folksong with about a dozen songs in each. For much of this revival in England, and were earnestly debating the form it time I was Music Editor. The circulation was seldom shouldtake. How much emphasisshould therebe on British ma- more than a thousand,but Sing sold well by hand at terial, and how much on American?Should one stick to unac- folk clubs, and we knew that many of our readersactu- companiedEnglish songsin local dialect and traditional style, or ally learned and sang the songsin each issue Sing was it ok to sing the and adopt American instrumentsand magazineafforded us the opportunity to print songsthat playing styles? we had collected "in the field"-that is, folksong material from singers in the countryside or in the the Folkways label, which could sometimesbe picked up-at a industrial North. 7 price-as special imports in the bins of two specialist London record stores,Collett's and Dobell's. SuchLPs as Darling Cor- The first issue of Sing appearedin May-June 1954, and the ey, Frontier , American Favorite Ballads, American second contained a letter from Irwin Silber conveying good Industrial Ballads, Gazette and At with Sonny wishesfrom Pete Seeger,Betty Sandersand Leon Bibb.8 Early Terry were rare and prized items until the early 60s, when the next year the magazineprinted the first of many Seegersongs, Folkways cataloguebecame more readily availablein Britain. "Dig My Grave," perhapsnot one of Pete's classicsbut less an One way or another the name of Seegerwas rarely absent exercisein political doggerelthan an early Ewan MacCol1effort from the pagesof Sing in the late 50s. The August-September that appearedthat sameyear, " of Stalin."9 As Music Edi- 1957 issue, for example, included an article by Pete, "I Knew tor of Sing, Hasteddevoted many columns to promoting DIY Leadbelly" and the words and music of "If I Had a Hammer," music, patiently explaining how to play different guitar styles which he had written jointly with Lee Hays, while the December and Seeger-stylebanjo, or how to build a three-stringtub bass.* issueincluded the words of the Almanacs' "Talking Union" and He was one of the earliest and most fulsome championsof the reprinted an article about Pete from the movement,which he saw as a form of teenageurban folk magazineCaravan. I! The October 1958issue saw Peggy Seeger music. He was also the founder of what may havebeen the first writing a self-portrait, and there was a laudatoryreview by Leon English folk song club, The Good Earth, at 44 Gerrard Street, Rosselsonof the Vanguard album, The Weavers at Carnegie Soho, in the heart of London. By 1956, in the wake of Lonnie Hall. The issue also containedthe words and music of a beau- Donnegan'shit recording of "," this becamea tiful song that John Hasted had learned from a Pete Seeger skiffle club, and its residentband was renamedJohn Hasted's album, "Miner's Lifeguard." On the samepage were printed the Skiffle and FolksongGroup. It includedRedd Sullivan and Shir- new words that Hasted,Winter and John Brunner had written to ley Collins as its lead vocalists. Yes, madeher the "Miner's Lifeguard" tune: "The H Bomb's Thunder." It had semi-professionaldebut as a memberof Hasted'sgroup, and the been the hit of the first AldermastonMarch organisedby the backing musicianson her first recordingsincluded John Hasted Campaignfor Nuclear Disarmamentthat Easter. "The Hammer playing Seeger-stylebanjo. 10 Song" was another favourite of the marchers.Sing's cover for that issue was a photograph of a trio of guitar-playing folk Oneof the positive side effects of the skiffle movementwas singersmarching for peace.!2 that it encouragedthe WMA to expandone of its subsidiaryac- On the long and weary road from Trafalgar Squarein Lon- tivities, the production of a limited number of 78 rpm records don to the nuclear weapons researchestablishment at Alder- for its members,into a full-fledged independentrecord label mastonthe spirit of Pete Seegerlived on. "If I had a hammer, specializingin folk music. Early Topic 78s had included Pete I'd hammerin the morning, I'd hammerin the evening,I'd ham- Seegersinging "Talking Union" c/w "" (TRC mer out danger,I'd hammerout a warning, I'd hammerout love 92), and amongthe first few dozenTopic microgroovereleases betweenall our brothers, allover this land!"!3 Thanks to John were to be found Pete Seeger's Guitar Guide (12T20), Pete Hastedand others, Pete Seeger'ssongs and the warmth of his Seeger's5-String Banjo Tutor (lOT23), Pete and Five Strings love for humanity had crossedthe Atlantic yearsbefore he ever (TOP33) and Hootenanny N. Y.C. (TOP37). Not surprisingly, did so in person.That was one reasonwhy thousandsflocked to these received favourable reviews in the pages of Sing. Oc- the Royal Albert Hall to see and hear him on November 16, casionalmention was also madeof Pete's Americanreleases on 1961.

1 Winter, Eric. "Pete Seeger sails in to a hero's welcome," , 28 October, 1961. 2 Hasted, John. Alternative Memoirs. , England: Greengates Press, 1992, p. 121. 3 Hasted, p. 123. 4 Hasted, p. 124. 5 Hasted, p. 128. 6 Hasted, p. 128. 7 Hasted, p. 128. 8 Sing 1.2 (July-Aug, 1954), p. 15. 9 Sing 1.5 (Jan-Feb, 1955), p. 92 ("Ballad of Stalin") and 1.6 (Feb-March, 1955), p. 117 ("Dig My Grave"). 10 See, for example, Collins, Shirley. Sweet England: A Collection of Love Songs and Ballads from Southern England. [released 1959] Argo RG 150. 11 Seeger, Pete. "I Knew Leadbelly," Sing 4.3 (Aug-Sept, 1957), pp. 35 and 39; Blind Rafferty, "A Merry Christmas to Pete Seeger," Sing 4.4 and 5 (December, 1957), pp. 45-46. 12 Sing 4.6 (October, 1958), pp. 67-68 (Peggy), pp. 73-74 (Rosselson), & p. 75 (songs). 13 Sing 4.3 (August-September, 1957), p. 40. Reprinted from Sing Out!.

.. 3 Aug 1999 15:19:02 .()(J.X) (MDT) From: George W. Lyon To: E. David Gregory Got the Seeger, & w/a little fancy footwork (namely taking the disc to MRC, where I called it up in Word & saved it to DOS), I have it, have edited it & put it in place One question-there's a reference to a DIY article on 3-string tub bass. Did you actually see such a thing???n Are you sure it wasn't I-string? In addition to concerns of editorial accuracy, I'd LOVE to see such a beast if it exists!! George