eff Warner has been coming Jeff explains: “Fair point – let’s the late fifties brought first the always fascinated me is the huge to tour in the UK on a regular say it’s my third solo CD release. music and later the performers influence of Tin Pan Alley up to the Jbasis for over 20 years. That gets that out of the way with that people like Jeff’s father had 1920s on both traditional and old Alongside his skills as a performer no area of dispute remaining. collected to a wider folk audience. timey music. I wanted to include CDs, song-catching, and his vast and varied repertoire The story of how it came about He died last year. That would be things like Dixie Darling and The of songs, he has the distinction is longer than it is interesting. around the time Jeff was making Girls They Go Wild Over Me, partly of a significant parental heritage. Doug Bailey who runs WildGoose the CD. because they are such fun, both His mother and father, Frank and Records in Hampshire wanted me to sing and to hear. Some of those Ann Warner, made several visits to make a third album. I honestly “It was. Ben told me a story of songs, in the same way 19th to what were at the time (and didn’t think a third album of Jeff Tom being ill in his bed. Ben was century ballads did, have kind of style and slavery in some cases still are) remote Warner singing traditional songs due to go to China to play and broken away from their authorship regions of the Eastern seaboard was something the world wanted, was going to pull out because and are in the process of states, collecting songs and let alone needed. However, the of his father’s ill health. When becoming traditional, even though performances from traditional combination of flattery and interest he heard this, Tom pricked up they were once determinedly Nigel Schofield roams the singers there. They created a spurred me on to at least consider in his bed and said, ‘Don’t stay commercial.” unique and invaluable archive. it.” because of this,’ and then lay subjects through with back down again. So, Ben went, “That worked both ways, of Unlike British collectors, they “Doug won. The album got made. and his father died shortly after he course, because traditional didn’t go with the aim of stealing In retrospect, I’m glad. It’s a fun returned. We were due to record musicians from folk, blues, gospel traditional tunes to reshape into album. My brother had been at me the album in October. It was Ben’s and so on were recorded for a classical format or to capture to record an album which is more decision and also his father’s commercial release. That’s true the old songs before advances like what I do on stage. That is, wish that his passing shouldn’t of most of the things that ended in technology and entertainment more pared down, essentially solo get in the way of anything Ben up on the Harry Smith Anthology. Jeff made them extinct. The range of These recordings became the stuff. The thing is, a recording is had plans to do. Ben was great, music performed by the singers not a stage performance and the so quick and so fast, a joy to foundation of not only country and musicians encountered was two things do require a different work with, even in those trying music but also commercial blues significant to them in its own right. approach. A lot of what I do on circumstances. One thing I loved and its many offshoots. Popular A singer such as Frank Proffitt stage isn’t the songs themselves: was, for example, he’d been music from Shakespeare’s time might offer a traditional ballad with it’s the context, the conversation, adding fiddle to something I’d right through to vaudeville in the Warner Scottish roots alongside a version States and music hall over here the style, making friends with already put down; I’d hear what of a song recently released by the audience, their participation he’d done and say, ‘That’s a bit has always drawn on traditional Jimmy Rogers. Pop meets folk, to - which I must say is always a bluesy, a bit 1925, could you roll music. The various forms that borrow the title of a short-lived TV big and enjoyable part of singing it back to, say, 1885?’ And he emerged at the start of the last series. This eclecticism informs in the UK. Just doing the song would, perfectly, next take.” century became the foundation Jeff’s approach to folk music. doesn’t do it.” of the pop music that emerged at Both the CD and what Jeff does the end of that century and is still The night before our lunchtime “On an album, the focus is entirely on stage deliberately cover a with us today. You can’t dismiss interview, I’d watched as he on the song and the technicalities wide range of music – from the something because of where performed a set which embraced of performance. No matter how pop songs of their day, to hymns, something came from any more than you can dismiss something shanties and sentimental songs, strong the songs themselves to the dustier corners of the because of where it ultimately ballads and hymns and, of were, I wanted the texture of American tradition, as well as went.” course, songs collected by his more than just my own solo unusual versions of more familiar parents. Part way through our performance. I had to find people material. conversation, we discussed to help me musically that also the motivations that lay behind would keep it simple. I believe I “Familiarity is a strange one. preserving and performing was successful in doing that.” Sometimes I’ll do something “...A lot of what I do traditional music. which is really widely known in the “I heard Ben Paley at a couple States, like Tenting Tonight, and “It’s a wide subject with probably on stage isn’t the of festivals and it struck me he discover it’s almost unknown over as many subtly different answers might be the ideal person to play here. Then I’ll do something which as there are people singing songs themselves: fiddle: in my opinion, he’s the I think is obscure and find out lots folksongs,” he says. “Rather best American fiddler in England. of people have heard of it because than consider them and certainly In contrast, over several years I’d it was a hit during the skiffle era it’s the context, the without wishing to dismiss or been won over by Alice Jones, or featured on that BBC schools diminish any of them, I can give a very English performer; she’s programme that featured singing conversation, the my reasons. In fact, let me sum it the person I picked not only to together to traditional songs. I’ve up before we go into any kind of play on the album but also to sing stopped trying to prejudge.” style, making friends detail with a quote from an article with me. Her Yorkshire accent I read in the New York Times, set against my New England “Doug likes a lot of material on a shortly after 911. It was in a piece with the audience, pronunciation made for an release – 17 tracks on this album. in which the author explained why going to museums was important. interesting combination. She’s That meant I had to look round in their participation Like a good folksinger, I borrowed so energetic and enthusiastic my repertoire to see what I had it and adapted it slightly to my and eager to do the necessary left that was suitable to record and - which I must say own purpose... ‘I bring the latest research that it worked out really maybe look at one or two things news from the distant past.’” well – even better than I expected I’d done a good while ago and is always a big and in fact.” revisit them, particularly things that Speaking of the latest news, a might not be available any longer. enjoyable part of few days before we met, Jeff had Like Jeff, Ben is someone with a I think in the end there were only just released his latest CD, Roam personal folk heritage. “Second three things we were seriously singing in the UK. The Country Through, an album of generation serious folkie, indeed. considering that didn’t make it American music on a British label. Who better to learn from than his onto the album.” Because of his collaborations and father Tom?” Just doing the song projects like Short Sharp Shanties, “So far as the variety of music it’s hard to know how to count his Tom Paley was an original goes, folk music is and always doesn’t do it...” releases over the years. How did member of The New Lost City has been a broad spectrum this one come about? Ramblers, the group that in anyway. One thing that has Photos: Jim Ellison The Living Tradition - Page 11 “In truth, with that early period ways. It brought him back into the Sidmouth, where I was presenting and collaboration that couldn’t “That’s a huge topic, of course. of recording, it’s really hard to music; it refreshed my memory a multimedia show on my parents’ possibly have been there.