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John Kirkpatrick & Sue Harris Facing The Music 1 John Locke’s Polka/ Three Jolly Sheepskins 2 Kettle Drum 3 Trip to the Cottage/ Hunting the Squirrel/Jack Off the Green 4 A Shelter in the Time of Storm/ We Shall be Happy 5 Millfield/Saturday Night and Sunday Morn 6 Garrick’s Delight/The Flaxley Green Dance 7 Crocker’s Reel 8 Roast Beef/All Flowers in Broome 9 The Rope Waltz 10 A Cheshire Hornpipe/ Black Mary’s Hornpipe First published by Topic 1980 Produced by Tony Engle and John Kirkpatrick Recorded at Millstream Studios Engineer Nick Critchley Design by Tony Engle Notes by John Kirkpatrick Photography by Bob Naylor When we were asked to make our fourth Millfield is another tune which Chappell tells Hornpipes of this period were always in 3/2 record for Topic purely instrumental, the us was well established by the end of the 16th time. What we know as hornpipes today initial reaction of surprise quickly turned to century. Along with Saturday Night and assumed their present form and tempo later one of panic. We immediately started learning Sunday Morn and Kettle Drum, it found in the 18th century in popular stage dances. hundreds of new tunes, trying to reassess its way into John Playford’s first edition of our existing style and repertory, reexamine ‘The English Dancing Master’ in 1650. Cecil The Hereford-born actor David Garrick the motives and general philosophy behind Sharp spotted them there and reproduced (1717-79) must have been at a popular stage our music, and determine exactly where we them in his Country Dance Book (part VI) in his career when ‘The Universal Magazine’ stood now, and what new direction we were and companion Country Dance Tunes (set published Garrick’s Delight in 1751. A friend striving to follow. This miserable process X) in 1922. Unfortunately, despite years of of ours picked up a bound copy of six months’ Facing the Music lasted for positively days, before we gave up transposing Playford’s notations, Sharp issues of the magazine at Barnsley market and carried on as before. If any conclusions could not decipher the movements of Kettle a few years ago. For the benefit of those 03 are to be drawn, they might be these: that on Drum, and even included a facsimile of perpetually looking out for new dances, this is the whole we go for material of a specifically the original in his book to emphasise the what you do. English origin; that on the other hand a good difficulty. A tragic loss, as it seems to have tune is a good tune wherever it comes from; involved a deal of kissing. Instead he matched A. First cu. lead through, the second cast that each piece is treated as the whim takes the tune to the figures of Pepper’s Black. up and turn. us; and that there are more good tunes lying A. Second cu. the same. neglected than were ever dreamed of in your Two London collections from the early AA. The two men lead through the two philosophy, Horatio. This selection spans 18th century which we raid with spectacular women and turn; the two women the same. the music of four centuries. The sources are regularity have yielded new riches. Black A. First cu. the whole figure through the books in the British Museum, Cecil Sharp’s Mary’s Hornpipe first saw the light of day in second. manuscripts, and other works which are 1715 in John Walsh’s ‘Third Book of the most A. Second cu. figure through the first. rather more accessible to the keen tune- celebrated jigs, Lancashire Hornpipes, Scotch B. First cu. lead down the middle, up again seeker. Ours is the privilege of handing them and Highland lilts, Northern Frisks, Morris’s and cast off. Right and left at top. on in the hope that the thrill of discovery may and Cheshire Rounds, with Hornpipes the be shared by you. bagpipe manner’. Fifteen years later Daniel In 1857 (or 1858) Mr. I. Buckley noted The Wright presented the world with Roast Flaxley Green Dance from William (or We came across All Flowers in Broome in Beef and A Cheshire Hornpipe in ‘An Henry) Robinson, a fiddling wheelwright William Chappell’s ‘Popular Music of the Extraordinary Collection of Pleasant and from Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire. Olden Time’, first published in the 1850s. Merry Humours never before Published, Fiddler Robinson was famous at the time Also known as All Flowers of the Broome, it Containing Hornpipes, Jiggs, North Country for being the only man able to play the was a popular country dance during the last Frisks, Morris’s, bagpipe Hornpipes and Horn Dance Air. Cecil Sharp, with a totally quarter of the 16th century. Chappell found Rounds, with Severall Additional fancies incomprehensible disregard for traditional this version in a manuscript collection of lute added, fit for all those that play publick’. practice, published this tune to accompany a music compiled in 1594 by William Ballet. sword dance from the North of England. TSDL408 American Mission Hymns became a Two days after hearing John Locke, Sharp Crocker’s Reel is given as a suggested tune prominent and popular art form in the 1870s, noted a few fiddle tunes from William Preece for the dance ‘Sackett’s Harbour’ in ’80s, and ’90s, largely through the work of the at Dilwyn, Herefordshire. His Hunting the ‘Community Dances, Manual 4’, a volume Evangelist Moody, and his musical sidekick, Squirrel was yet another victim destined for devoted to American Contra Dances that Ira D. Sankey. The two of them claimed to exile in the Sword Dance Book. However, was prepared for publication for the English have ‘reduced the population of Hell by a his Jack Off the Green has a kink in its Folk Dance and Song Society by Douglas million souls’. Sankey set the words of the rhythm which prohibited its indiscriminate Kennedy in 1954. The tune had previously Rev. V.J. Charlesworth to music to give us A use away from home, and what’s more it has appeared as ‘Alley Crocker’ in ‘Kerr’s First Shelter in the Time of Storm. You can find words. Collection of Merry Melodies’, a curiously it, along with 749 other pieces, in Sankey’s undated work with a huge selection of Facing the Music ‘Sacred Songs and Solos’. There was a young woman rattling good tunes. As fine as ever was seen 04 We learned We Shall Be Happy from Ry And with an old broomstick Pat Shaw and Nan Fleming-Williams included Cooder’s Warner Brothers LP ‘Jazz’. He She knocked Jack off the green. Rope Waltz in their 1967 EFDSS booklet learned it from Joseph Spence, a guitarist ‘A Popular Selection of Traditional Dance who plays old hymns and sacred songs in his We don’t know whether James Lock was Airs’, without saying any more about it than native Bahamas. any relation to the other Fiddler Locke, but it comes from Orkney. Sue fell in love with we do know that the intrepid C.vJ. Sharp the tune after hearing it played by Michael John Locke was a gypsy whose fiddling heard him play in Newport, Shropshire, in Hebbert, wizard of the Jeffries Duet concer- around Herefordshire and South Shropshire 1912. Among the half a dozen tunes he noted tina, on his Free Reed LP ‘The Rampin’ Cat’. made him quite a local celebrity right up was Three Jolly Sheepskins, and, naturally Our treatment of the tune is another nod in until about 1930. Ella Mary Leather recorded enough, he published it as a sword dance the direction of Ry Cooder, whose work him on a cylinder machine borrowed from tune. To add insult to injury, he dismissed with the accordionist Flaco Jimenez, on the Vaughan Williams, and Cecil Sharp used her his source as an unnamed gypsy fiddler from LPs ‘Chicken Skin Music’ and ‘Show Time’, Digital remaster cylinders to check the notes he had made Staffordshire. The said fiddler used to play has given the accordion a new respectability ℗2009 Topic Records Ltd. when he heard Locke play in Leominster, this tune at Albrighton ‘where the party in circles where before it would have been ©2012 Topic Records Ltd. Herefordshire, in 1909. John Locke’s Polka would dance it any length of time with three laughed off stage. The copyright in this sound recording is not included in Sharp’s manuscripts but hats on the ground. The first who touched and digital artwork is owned by Topic Records Ltd. the cylinder which holds it is still lurking in a hat had to forfeit. Women danced as well Our thanks go to everyone already mentioned All rights reserved. the vaults of Cecil Sharp House. You can as men.’ The Sheepskin Hey, as it is known, for providing us with the tunes; to Di Beavan hear the original recording on Ashley seems to have been a common dance-game and Derek Pearse for the loan of rnelodeons; Hutchings’ LP for Island Records, ‘Rattle- in this part of the country. It also occurs in to Tony Engle for the loan of his one-row bone and Ploughjack’. Sharp used four of the country dance ‘Picking Up Sticks’. four-stop melodeon made by Marc Savoy, Locke’s fine tunes to accompany Yorkshire which is without doubt a truly miraculous sword dances, but one that was spared this piece of work; and to Jo Fraser for being TOPIC TSDL408 fate was his Trip to the Cottage. there at the moment we needed her most.

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